Abstract—Due to the changing nature of the market place, both in private and public sectors, the United States (U.S.) Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has embarked on a Lessons Learned (LL) program designed to capture experiences from current and soon-to-retire employees. This program is critical in promoting the “doing-more-with-less” concept, and is viewed favorably in this time of budget constraints. The LL program was designed to capture lessons and potential best practices gained from programs, projects, and other activity successes and failures. The FAA operates in a dynamic environment in which changes are necessary and inevitable. Our goal is to transition from an organization that relies on corporate memory to one that embraces change and adapts to the new environment through continuous improvement. This change in culture will foster the notion of the FAA becoming a learning organization.
Index Terms—Lessons Learned (LL), Government, Best Practices, Innovation, Changes, Transition, Learning.
Francisco Eduardo Rivera is with Federal Aviation Administration, 800
Independence Ave. SW, Washington DC 20591
(Francisco.rivera@faa.gov).
William H. Howard and Michael S. Wei are with TASC, Inc 475 School
Street, SW, Washington DC 20024.
Cite: Francisco Eduardo Rivera, William H. Howard, and Michael S. Wei, "From Organizational Memory to a Learning Organization: A Government Experience in Transition," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 394-397, 2012.