Learning by Writing: Applying Continuous Improvement and Innovation Principles to Project Management by Formal Documentation and Publication

Abstract

In recent years we have been involved in designing, implementing, monitoring and assessing a number of agricultural RD&E projects that have had a specific outcome focus on increasing the profitability of the participating businesses. These projects are based on ongoing research and development of the Sustainable Improvement and Innovation (SI&I) model which has Continuous Improvement and Innovation (CI&I) as its key process. A number of issues and dilemmas have arisen in managing these projects. One solution has been to write down in a formal way, at frequent intervals, what we have designed, what we have done, what we have achieved, and consequently what we need to do better. In this paper we describe several of these recent writing tasks, spread over several years. Apart from attempting to resolve the broad range of issues and dilemmas noted above, we have had two additional objectives: first, to expand interest in the concept of CI&I in the broader RD&E community and to stimulate its adoption in RD&E projects; and second, to use the writing task itself as a CI&I process to stimulate new thinking and action and to improve and innovate in our project management. We conclude by offering some lessons we have learnt from this process.