
Lessons Management Forum*
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The Lessons Management Forum, co-organized by the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council (AFAC) and the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR), brings together lessons management practitioners, those interested in this area, and those new to the area to share good practice, learnings and innovations. It consider lessons, good practice and innovation in knowledge and lessons management from a broad range of sectors. Presentations cover lessons that have been identified as well as how to manage lessons.
The AFAC Lessons Management Award is presented in conjunction with the forum.
The National Security Knowledge and Lessons Management workshop series, organized by the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR) in 2011, 2013, and 2014, might be the quasi-successor of the Lessons Management Forum.
Conference History:
Lessons Management Forum 2026, 19-21 May 2026, Brisbane, QLD, Australia / Virtual venue
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Conference program TBD
Topics:
Learning from recovery
Lessons management in recovery contexts
From lessons identified to lessons learned
Technology-enabled lessons management
The future of lessons management
Applying historical insights
AFAC Lessons Management Award Ceremony & Winner Presentation
Lessons Management Forum 2025, 20-22 May 2025, Wellington, New Zealand / Virtual venue
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Workshops:
OILL (Observations, Insights, Lessons Identified, Lessons Learned) Workshop
Leadership Challenges: Influencing Decision-Makers for Continuous Improvement in Emergency Management
‘Don’t tell us what we need’: an interactive workshop on how to engage communities to identify lessons from disasters
Knowledge Café sessions:
Lessons Implementation. Getting from identified to learned
Lessons Management – How do you get started?
Lessons capability development
Keynotes:
Lessons from Leading on the UK Resilience Lessons Digest
Presentations:
Introducing the Lessons Management Framework
Exercising Resilience: TfNSW’s Lessons Management in Motion
Focusing on our people: lessons management culture and capability building
How changing the focus of the After Action Review process is reaping benefits for international deployment management
Te Ara Ahi: Embedding a continuous improvement approach at Fire and Emergency New Zealand
Lessons Management Myths and Legends
What’s required to move from insights to lessons? Exploring the elements of organisational change
Demonstrating Continuous Improvement Using Real Time Learning
Lessons From 2022 and 2023 NSW Flooding – Improving Service Delivery and Community Preparedness
Organisational learning and operational responses in policing: understanding how review processes lead to genuine change.
Flood Lessons Adoption
The Journey from Uncertainty to Opportunity: Lessons Management and Positive Risk
How Victoria’s Inspector-General for Emergency Management is applying a strategic lens to tailor its assurance and continuous improvement methods
Beyond After-Action Reviews: The application of Lessons Management methodology to agency-wide operational improvement success.
Shaping Lessons Learned with Artificial Intelligence
Leadership Challenges: Influencing Decision-Makers for Continuous Improvement in Emergency Management
Building and Leading a culture from learning lessons – a real world case study
Lessons Management Award Ceremony & Winner Presentation
Lessons Management Forum 2024, 28-30 May 2024, Adelaide, SA, Australia
Lessons management: where to from here?
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Workshops:
Real Time Monitoring and Evaluation (RTM&E)
OILL (Observations, Insights, Lessons Identified, Lessons Learned) Workshop
Introduction to Emergency Management Evaluation
Keynotes:
Building a culture of learning, How FEMA’s continuous improvement program has grown and continues to evolve
The AI storm comes: are we ready for AI’s impact on disaster management?
SESSION: Organisational learning and development
Lesson on lessons – a unique view of continuous improvement by Queensland’s Inspector-General of Emergency Management
Lessons learners as learners in lessons – A lessons occupational development continuum.
Status quo is not an option
SESSION: New technology
The SASES new Lessons Management WebEOC Board and the potential application of AI
Empowering emergency response: harnessing Microsoft 365 Power Platforms for enhanced lessons management
Lessons as a blueprint for an uncertain future
SESSION: Reviews and reflections
Three strategies for embracing learning culture across all levels of emergency management
Community-led post-bushfire learning review
Sharing lessons management in Africa
SESSION: Capability
Mainstreaming emergency management lessons into exercising: A process development initiative
Building evaluation capability the key to lessons management
The road from lessons not learned to learning from experience
Lessons Management Award Ceremony & Winner Presentation
Lessons Management Forum 2023, 27-29 June 2023, Canberra, ACT, Australia
Closing the loop: the challenges of change
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Workshops:
Communicating lessons and research
Real time evaluation
Keynotes:
Learning lessons in the era of consecutive, concurrent, compounding and complex crises
SESSION: Learning
Learning lessons – one agency’s approach
Using lessons identified to improve health service delivery to First Nations communities
Learning from the June 2021 extreme weather event
SESSION: Organisational change
Capability – closing the loop on the challenges of change
What do we have to sell? Garnering executive support
SESSION: Operational learning
Fire and Rescue NSW operational assurance
Fire Rescue Victoria knowledge sharing
SESSION: Implementation
Creativity and imagination for positive and sustainable change
Real time learning – why do we wait for post event debriefs?
SESSION: Future thinking
Forum reflection and discussion
Panel Discussions:
International lessons
How do we learn best to influence policy change?
Lessons Management Award Ceremony & Winner Presentation
Lessons Management Forum 2022, 22-23 March, Brisbane, QLD, Australia & Virtual venue
What does success look like?
Note: The forum was originally scheduled for 6-7 July 2021. It was rescheduled to 2022 due to the evolving COVID-19 situation, border closures, and conflicts with other sector events.
Keynotes:
Using research to learn future lessons about disaster exercises
SESSION: Learning from lessons
Lessons management: an important enabler for change
The learning process: what’s missing?
Regaining trust in debriefs
SESSION: Lessons management recognition
Selling the need for Lessons Management: bringing the workforce along
SESSION: Community driven lessons
Community Centred Learnings from the K’gari (Fraser Island) Bushfire Review
Success: a great reality check
Success is learning from and with our communities
SESSION: The future of lessons
Closing the loop: moving from lessons we don’t learn to lessons we do
SESSION: COVID-19 lessons
Lessons from a unique response
Defence lessons identified from COVID-19
A terror attack, a volcanic eruption and COVID-19
SESSION: Change in lessons perspectives
Disaster recovery from an Indigenous service perspective
Finally: a whole-of-government framework for lessons management
Lessons Management Award Ceremony & Winner Presentation
Lessons Management webinar series 2020, 28 July & 14 October 2020, Virtual venue
Note: Due to the COVID-19 situation the webinar series was held instead of the forum.
Webinars:
Learning lessons from recent Australian bushfire seasons, Jul 28
Learning lessons from reviews and Inquiries, Oct 14
Lessons Management Forum 2019, 30-31 July 2019, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Are we learning?
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Workshops:
Observations, Insights, Lessons Identified and Lessons Learned (OILL) training
Getting the best ‘bang’ for your research utilisation buck
weLearn – Developing a learning culture
What to do when you don’t know what to do – decision making in complex situations
DAY THEME: Lessons identified from incidents/operations
Australia’s whole-of-government response to offshore contingencies: insights and lessons learning
Lessons from Defence response to domestic emergencies
Lessons from catastrophic events and multiple recovery operations
A climate for lessons
The perfect storm – learning from acute capacity surges
Learning from learning – the South West fires
Building lessons management capability organisationally
Trends and insights from Victoria
DAY THEME: Successful approaches to lessons management
Towards an effective lessons learned process: practices that have proven effective at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA-JPL)
Developing an effective lessons sharing process
The Australian Disaster Resilience Lessons Management Handbook
Our changing landscape – adapting our learning journey
How do you beat ‘The Silo Effect’ and share lessons across sectors?
Our business-facing approach to lessons management
Lessons foundation for aviation firefighting
How Army are using lessons (TBC)
Are we learning? Personal reflections and what would Yoda say?
Lessons Management Award Ceremony & Winner Presentation
Lessons Management Forum 2018, 14-15 August 2018, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
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Workshops:
Communications for lessons management
Having a ‘no blame’ approach … equals more gain – preliminary results from the CFA
Observations, Insights, Lessons (OIL) model
DAY THEME: Lessons Identified
National lessons management
We learn as one – lessons from Victoria
TBD
What’s right in disaster management? Learning, trust and accountability.
Lessons from Defence’s domestic operations
Lessons from agriculture biosecurity operations and exercises
Knowledge is power – learning from when the lights go out
Lessons learnt from the community perspective
Turning lessons identified into lessons learnt
DAY THEME: Implementing lessons
Learning in real time – operationalising lessons management
The challenges of developing a system-wide lessons management program
EM-Share: how technology is supporting the way we learn
Improving lessons management in the NSW emergency management sector: the journey so far
Army’s lessons management approach
AMSA’s approach to lessons management
Learning lessons about teamwork
Managing lessons from the frontline
Learning from After Action Reviews
Weather: from impact forecast to post-event review
Operationalising the emergency management assurance framework – Queensland Health’s approach to building a disaster resilient health system
Community resilience networks – strengthening relationships between communities and emergency management
Evaluating lessons
Lessons Management Award Ceremony & Winner Presentation
Lessons Management Forum 2017, 14-15 November 2017, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
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Conference program n.a.
Post-conference Workshops:
Lessons Analysis Workshop
Lessons Management Forum 2016, November 2016, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Lessons Management: Towards an end-to-end approach
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Conference program n.a.


