Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center - Organizational Learning

Organizational Learning

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How Organizations Learn:

One of the Center's main objectives is to improve organizational learning within the wildland fire community. Read about organizational learning here, discover how it will add value to the wildland fire community and understand how you can become part of the solution.

A Learning Organization is skilled at continuously:
1) creating, acquiring, interpreting, transferring and retaining knowledge and
2) at purposefully modifying their behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights.
(Definition by David Garvin 2000)
View the Six Critical Tasks of a Learning Organization created by Dr. Garvin.

David Garvin, Harvard Business School The Center has been working directly with one of the world's leading experts in Organizational Learning, David Garvin, Cizik Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He has worked with over fifty organizations around the world on organizational learning and strategic change. He is the author or coauthor of eight books, including the highly acclaimed Learning In Action, A Guide to Putting the Learning Organization to Work.

Managing Naturally - Ignited Fires Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1MB Doc)

This paper - along with its companion DVD program - tells the comprehensive story of this country's history with naturally-ignited fire.

Interagency Aviation Safety Alert Effective SAFECOM Use (77KB pdf posted 7/14/2008)
The interagency SAFECOM system is misunderstood, under-utilized, and on occasion, misused. Failure to understand and use the system as it is intended can not only prolong an unsafe situation or increase cost, but can result in injury or loss of life. Misuse of the SAFECOM system, or use for purposes other than reporting safety concerns, jeopardizes the communication needed for the SAFECOM system to work effectively.

Wildland Fire Safety Awareness Study (TriData) Phase Three - 10 Year Anniversary Project (742KB doc posted 6/12/2008)
This year (2008) marks the 10th anniversary of the release of the TriData Phase 3 study. This was a landmark safety study for the interagency wildland fire community that helped shape fire management direction during the past decade. Several of the NWCG Safety and Health Working Team (SHWT) projects and initiatives came out of this study as did the formation of the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center (LLC).

THE U.S. ARMY’S AFTER ACTION REVIEWS: SEIZING THE CHANCE TO LEARN (128 Kb PDF) An Excerpt from: David A Garvin's Book, “Learning In Action, A Guide to Putting the Learning Organization to Work” (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000), 106-116. Reprinted with permission of the author.

Organizational Learning and Wildland Fires (128 Kb PDF) Recommendations to the Wildland Fire Community from David A. Garvin, August 2003 was sent to the Center shortly after our first 3-day meeting in June 2003.

Readings in Risk, Organizations, and Wildland Fire

Researchers from the University of Montana and the Rocky Mountain Research Station have published an annotated reading list of resources related to the human side of fire management, focused primarily on understanding organizational dynamics in wildland fire. The publication contains a very useful section on organizational learning.

Lessons Learned in the Development of the US Interagency Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center

Professor Geoff Cumming and Dr Mary Omodei of the La Trobe University Bushfire CRC Safety in Decision Making and Behaviour Project visited the US Interagency Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center (LLC) in July and October of 2006 in order to gain some perspective on how to develop an Australasian center.

Our 2008 Accomplishments

This report to the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) Chair highlights several of the key accomplishments made by the Center for the interagency wildland fire community.

Organizational Learning Survey:

Asses how well your organization learns. You can choose either the complete survey, which takes about 15 minutes to complete, or the condensed version, which takes 2 - 3 minutes to complete. You will receive a report at the end of your session that scores your data.

During the summer of 2005, 196 people from the Wildland Fire Community took the initial Learning Organization Survey created by Harvard Business School in cooperation with the Lessons Learned Center. Learning Organization 2005 Survey Report

Wildland Fire Safety Awareness Study Phase 4 - Developing a Cooperative Approach:

TriData Phase IV, "Developing a Cooperative Approach To Wildfire Protection" paper, presented to the Federal Fire and Aviation Leadership Council in Boise, ID, on January 6, 1998, by Charles Perrow, Sociologist, Ph.D., Yale University.

Deep Smarts

The Fire Management Deep Smarts Project was initiated to capture the experience of our seasoned employees who are acknowledged by their peers to have high expertise in planning and implementing fire programs. The Deep Smarts project personnel video-tape interviewed more than thirty people with extensive expertise in prescribed fire, fire behavior prediction and wildland fire use. These experts, some retired and some still working, represented all fire agencies, most positional levels within fire organizations and most geographical sections of the United States and Canada. View the background paper at The Fire Management Deep Smarts Project.

To view the videos created from this Deep Smarts project, follow this link, Learning From the Experts, which is on our videos page. You can view them through streaming video and download them to your iPod!

Bob Barbee, Deep Smarts Interview

View the NEW montage video Voices from the Past - Lessons for the Future, which incorporates clips from numerous Deep Smarts interviews on the subject of the Yellowstone Fires of 1988.

Dorothy Leonard (dorothyleonard.com) was a professor for 20 years at the Harvard Business School, where she taught courses on innovation, creativity and knowledge management. She has consulted for industry and government and has written hundreds of cases, articles and book chapters.

Walter Swap is Professor of Psychology, emeritus, and former Chairman of the Psychology Department at Tufts University. Dr. Swap served for nine years as the Dean of the Colleges, responsible for all aspects of undergraduate academic life at Tufts.

Disclaimer: Information is provided with the intent to share knowledge to improve safety, performance, efficiency and organizational learning throughout the entire wildland fire community. However, no warranties or guarantees are implied because much of the data provided is beyond the control of the Center. No endorsement of any company or product is given or implied.