Learning legacy: a social value initiative for the professions?

Karen Elson explains how HS2’s learning legacy is helping embed the idea as an industry standard approach.

Karen Elson is director of knowledge at Co.Cre8.

Learning legacy is a structured approach to the capture and dissemination of lessons, good practice and innovation from major projects aimed at raising the bar in industry. Ten years after London 2012 launched the industry’s first learning legacy to much acclaim in the industry, and building on the subsequent learning legacies of Crossrail and Thameslink London Bridge, HS2 has taken the metaphorical baton and launched its own learning legacy.

I led the development of the London 2012 learning legacy framework as part of my role as a programme assurance executive for the Olympic Delivery Authority, and also set up the Crossrail and HS2 learning legacies. What is particularly brilliant, however, is that, having published the learning legacy framework for Crossrail, Thameslink developed its own learning legacy for London Bridge, demonstrating that the learning legacy is becoming an industry standard approach.

While I was scoping out the HS2 learning legacy, one particularly engaged main contractor whom I interviewed described the learning legacy as a social value initiative for the professions. That’s the best description I’ve heard to date. Giving back to the industry and supporting professional learning, and ultimately raising the bar, is the goal of learning legacies.

Project to industry knowledge‑sharing (public)

So how effective are learning legacies? Knowledge management purists argue that you can’t codify knowledge. Others say that 20 per cent of knowledge is explicit and can be captured, while the other 80 per cent is in people’s heads. I say that, while the articles and the resources on the learning legacy websites focus on sharing the 20 per cent, learning legacies can also tap into the 80 per cent through active dissemination programmes with industry partners that enable experts from across the project to connect with peers through presentations, discussions and conversations. At HS2, we’ll be rolling out the Author Speaker programme to do this.

Project to project knowledge‑sharing (private)

HS2 is the first project to launch its learning legacy programme this early in the life cycle. This has the benefit of being able to capture the learnings around the early stages of a project, such as procurement, initiation, enabling works and mobilisation, which were distant memories on previous learning legacies.

However, starting this early means that there is still some way to go, so it is important that learning legacy is not a one‑way vehicle, and that HS2 can share its learning but also learn from other projects. We are setting up reciprocal knowledge‑sharing agreements/mutual NDAs between HS2 and other major projects to enable detailed learning between projects and support candid conversations behind closed doors that you might not want published on an open forum. While this is necessarily a very HS2‑centric approach, I can see a future where there is a major projects knowledge‑sharing network with a standard approach to knowledge‑sharing.

Individual knowledge‑sharing

At the launch of the HS2 learning legacy we asked attendees: what would make you more likely to share knowledge? Fifty‑five per cent of the 159 people who responded said ‘Recognition of your contribution to the profession’ and 39 per cent said ‘Being published’. There has been a huge level of engagement on the HS2 learning legacy across the whole supply chain – 220 authors across 39 organisations in the first two tranches of content. This is a real step change from previous learning legacies, in which the majority of content was from the client body and where my conversations with the supply chain inevitably led to their concerns over guarding their IP.

A systems approach

Learning legacies provide a social value platform for knowledge‑sharing across industry and provide professional recognition for individuals. However, they are just one cog in the system of learning and innovation. A joined-up approach to lessons learned, innovation, continuous improvement and knowledge provides much greater opportunity to raise the bar in industry. 

A good example of this systems approach came from enabling works contractors on HS2, who have developed a series of learning legacy papers to hand over their learning and innovation to the main works contractors. They then got together at a knowledge‑sharing event to discuss them and transfer that learning. A systems approach to learning and innovation by major projects is the next big opportunity for improved productivity in our industry.

THIS ARTICLE IS BROUGHT TO YOU FROM THE WINTER 2021 ISSUE OF PROJECT JOURNAL, WHICH IS FREE FOR APM MEMBERS.