A Learning Defence Force? Conditions for Swedish Armed Forces Lessons Learned

FOI has received a contract for developing a handbook in lessons learned for the Swedish Armed Forces. This report is intended to lay the theoretical foundations for the coming handbook. Since the missions in Bosnia in the 1990's the issue of how to implement the lessons learned in missions have been on the agenda. Learning these lessons have proved to be challenging. Several organizations for learning lessons have been attempted, with mixed results at best. In this report we analyze the theoretical prerequisites for a lessons learned process in the Swedish Armed Forces. The foundations for analyzing our capability for experiencing our environment have been found in psychology, sociology and philosophy. To approach how organizations learn from their environment we have used ideas from organization science and complexity theory. To connect lessons to a military context research in the military profession have been used. Our main conclusions are: * The armed forces should widen the scope of the lessons that is included in the lessons learned process. * A portfolio of models and methods are required for a successful lessons learned process. * The armed forces need to understand individual and organizational limitations in learning from experience. * Learning from current missions needs to be balanced against analyzing future challenges