Delivering Successful New Nuclear Projects – Lessons Learned

Not a day goes by where we don’t hear about the importance of Lessons Learned in improving the delivery of new nuclear projects.  And we agree.   It is essential to capture lessons from ongoing projects to drive better outcomes on the next projects.  However, what is sometimes forgotten is that “Lessons Learned” are two separate and distinct words that are both essential.  Often there are many lessons, but not enough learning. 

The nuclear industry has no shortage of lessons.  Every major nuclear construction project in recent decades has generated mountains of reports, corrective action items, and post-project reviews.  And yet we often see the same errors repeated on project after project: late design changes issued to the field, weld quality failures from inadequate oversight or training, procurement delays from poorly scoped specifications, etc.  The lessons exist but have not been learned by those who need them to successfully execute the next project.

Ensuring a lesson is captured is not a lesson learned.  It just becomes one of thousands of lessons in a database should someone look for it.  Documents can record what happened and why.  They cannot guarantee those who need to learn from them actually benefit.  This is the core problem.  Lessons are not transferred by rote.  They are acquired through experience.  Collecting them is a necessary first step but the learning happens in people.

Experienced personnel need to work directly with newer team members, and site briefings should connect each task to relevant project history before the work begins. A corrective action program that closes an item when the lesson is written is a reporting program, not a learning program. The loop closes only when there is evidence of changed behaviour in a procedure, a training curriculum, or a decision made differently than it would have been before.

Nuclear construction is particularly vulnerable to this gap.  Until now in many markets, a project is effectively a one-time event spanning a decade or more, assembled from a team that likely never worked together before.  Finding a way to learn from those who have relevant experience becomes a challenge.  And then when the project is completed, often late and over budget, there is no money left to spend in helping to prepare a future project for success.

Of course, lessons can only be implemented when there are future projects to incorporate the learnings.  Delivering on the nuclear tripling pledge will require massive scaling. This will need a strong fleet deployment program to take on the learnings and deliver continuous improvements as the number of projects continue to grow over time. 

This growth has already begun.  There are a number of new nuclear build programs just starting or recently underway.   These are at exactly the stage where investments in human knowledge transfer will determine whether the lessons of prior projects are genuinely absorbed – or merely acknowledged.  Remember, lessons are learned by people……