Joint Analysis and Lessons Learned Centre - Lessons Learnde Framework

In September 2011, the North Atlantic Council approved the revised NATO Lessons Learned Policy which provides the overarching policy for Lessons Learned in NATO.

The Bi-SC Lessons Learned Directive 80-6 provides guidance to all Allied Command Operations (ACO) and Allied Command Transformation (ACT) headquarters and organizations. Commanders in these organizations are directed to establish a Lessons Learned capability in their organisations.
Other organizations desiring to work with NATO are encouraged to establish Lessons Learned capabilities aligned with the NATO Lessons Learned Policy and Bi-SC Lessons Learned Directive 80-6.

The NATO Lessons Learned Capability

The purpose of the NATO Lessons Learned capability is to learn efficiently from experience and to provide validated justifications for amending the existing way of doing things, in order to improve performance for (subsequent) operations.

The NATO Lessons Learned capability comprises several important elements. Strong Leadership support and a positive Lessons Learned Mindset across an organization is extremely important, governing the success of real learning, sustained improvement and profitable knowledge sharing with Allies.

A defined and workable business Process, within which stakeholders can clearly identify their roles and responsibilities; Tools to support the capture, managing, searching and sharing of knowledge including lessons; and a properly resourced Structure wherein trained and experienced staff officers, supported by active Communities of Interest, can manage organizational learning. They all support Information Sharing and improvement of the performance.

JALLC supports the NATO Lessons Learned capability providing analysis expertise to operations, training, exercises and experimentation; managing the NATO Lessons Learned Portal and Database; and engaging with Member Nations, Partner Nations, NATO commands, agencies and other organizations to assist in establishing and enhancing their Lessons Learned capability.

The NATO Lessons Learned Process

The commander may provide guidance on the critical areas to address for improvement. An individual makes an Observation: a negative issue which requires an improvement of practice, or a positive issue which requires incorporation into standard procedure. The observer, supported by Lessons Learned Staff Officers and Subject Matter Experts within the chain of command, analyses the issue to find the root cause. The observer proposes a Remedial Action and Action Body. The appropriate authority within the organisation (for instance, the Commander or Chief of Staff) endorses this Lesson Identified, commits resources and tasks the Action Body to execute the Remedial Action. When the Action Body implements the Remedial Action, Validation of the results is carried out to verify if the original issue is successfully corrected. The lesson is now considered a Lesson Learned, leading to an improved capability. Dissemination of the Lesson Learned enables all parties to put the improvement into practice. Sharing of information takes place during the entire process.

Within the overall NATO lessons learned process, JALLC’s primary focus is the conduct of analysis projects that take Analysis Requirements (AR) through to Lessons Identified (LI), as well as the maintenance of the NATO LLDb.