The Lessons Management Award recognises efforts to develop lessons management capability within an organisation and across the sector. The 2022 Lessons Management Award was proudly sponsored by C3 Resilience.
Winner: COVID-19 Taskforce
Department of Defence
The Department of Defence established the COVID-19 Task Force to ensure coordination of Defence support to whole-of-Government efforts. In response to the developing situation, Defence commenced Operation COVID-19 ASSIST (OpCA-19), in support of government agencies and international partners. The Commander of the COVID-19 Task Force, Lieutenant-General John ‘JJ’ Frewen, approved the Defence COVID-19 Lessons Framework (DCLF) to provide effective lessons management for OpCA-19.
Technology Exploitation. A repository for raw Observations was quickly modified from the then embryonic Defence Lessons Repository and embedded in the Joint Operations Command OpCA-19 Dashboard in an effort to consolidate input. In addition the task force had a portal on the Defence network which linked to the repository. One month after establishment of the DCLF the number of observations in the repository went from three to 125, culminating in over one thousand observations submitted by the end of 2020.
The DCLF was linked to the overarching COVID-19 Strategy which identified four focus areas based on the four lines of effort in the strategy; and a fifth focus area to address Policy, Business Continuity and Strategic Communication. The DCLF was a phased approach aligned to deliverables every three months.
The DCLF worked on a principal of centralised coordination, from within the COVID-19 Task Force, and de-centralised lessons collection and analysis, performed by deep dive leads that had subject matter expertise in that particular Focus Area. The DCLF proved to be an innovative approach to whole-of-Defence business processes and facilitate lessons management throughout Defence.
Highly Commended: Post-Activity Review
Disaster Relief Australia
Disaster Relief Australia (DRA) regularly conducts operations in disaster-affected areas, traditionally filling a space between front-line recovery agencies and longer term, state or council-led recovery efforts. To ensure that these operations provide meaningful outcomes for all its stakeholders - including community, council, donors, volunteers and affiliated NGOs alike - DRA conducts a Post-Activity Review (PAR) after each operation.
The PAR process provides a critical analysis of the operation, capturing metrics, operational appraisal, stakeholder feedback and key improvement actions. Each of these sections satisfies a particular need - for continuous improvement, for reporting to other parties (be they donors or industry bodies), or simply for celebrating the efforts of our own and helping DRA grow. It sits alongside an After Action Review (AAR) that focuses on the volunteer experience and directly seeks feedback from our volunteers on how the operation succeeded or could be improved.
