Communicating Best Practices -- Lessons Learned from a Stealth Bomber

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
— 14th Century Proverb

Have you taken the time to adequately document and disseminate your processes, procedures and policies? This effort is probably one of the most important but weakly executed steps when developing or improving processes. Why is this so often inadequately done? Because it is a grueling exercise to first develop the documentation, then train everyone, and maintain the body of knowledge current and relevant as an ongoing effort.

So what is at stake? Consider the crash of the Spirit of Kansas B-2 Stealth Bomber crash on Guam in February, which is in the news again because the cause of the crash has been discovered. For want of a known procedure for removing moisture from avionics sensors being incorporated into maintenance and operations manuals, a $1.4 BILLION dollar aircraft drilled itself into Andersen Airfield upon take-off (the pilots ejected safely). According to the crash assessment report, "This technique was never formalized in a technical order change or captured in 'lessons learned' reports. Hence, only some pilots and some maintenance technicians knew of the suggestion."

Our own need to codify our accumulated best practices and intellectual property in written form so that we did not have to rely solely on passing tribal knowledge around was the genesis for developing the Planview PRISMS Best Practice Guides. An important point illustrated by both the cause of the B2 crash as well as our own efforts with PRISMS is that documenting best practices is a journey, not a destination.

Changing needs, new discoveries, and increases in maturity all point out the need for an iterative approach when it comes to managing the knowledge base. For example, when we first started PRISMS, it was a small single guide. The next version was a much larger single guide. Eventually, it became a library of guidance, and today it contains over 850 pages of content across a dozen different topics. The library continues to grow, but it will never be finished. So it goes with any similar documentation effort.

The good news is that today’s technology enables a high degree of collaboration when it comes to individual ability to contribute to a common brain trust. Taking a wiki approach where inputs and updates are submitted by all stakeholders, and then moderated or edited by an assigned subject matter expert, opens up whole new vistas in how best practices can be created and maintained.

The important thing is that the collective knowledge of the organization be codified and shared — for knowledge worker environments, it is the most precious asset you have. Otherwise, you too may crash and burn.

For want of a best practice the project was lost.
For want of a project the program was lost.
For want of a program, the strategy was lost.
For want of a strategy, competitive advantage was lost.
For want of competitive advantage the business was lost.
And all for the want of a best practice.
— 21st Century Proverb