09/13/2024
Colarelli Construction is proud to announce Randi Wikoff as the recipient of the very first CCI Innovation Incubator Award. Over the past year, Randi researched both the philosophy behind and the practical implementation of a “Lessons Learned Database.”
CCI’s Innovation Incubator Program was established in 2023 to institutionalize innovative thinking within the organization; the program invites employees to explore ideas that will both improve operations and positively impact company culture.
Driving Randi’s incubator work was the fear that, although CCI’s company culture has always been focused on learning, when those lessons are not documented or retained for current or new employees, we risk both repeating mistakes and losing valuable lessons learned. Thus, her research centered around finding a manner for CCI to document, retain, and disseminate organizational wisdom—and to do so in a manner that would serve as a bridge between the experiences of older generations and the web-based research tendencies of our younger generations.
Randi explored several avenues and technological platforms in order to generate her finished product: a Lessons Learned Database on the newly launched CCI Learning Hub. Thanks to Randi’s efforts, CCI’s new Lesson Learned Database makes technical lessons learned, unique solutions, project strategies, and more information readily available for Colarelli Construction employees on a web-based platform.
As a part of the new CCI “Learning Hub” platform, Randi’s Lessons Learned Database is easily searchable, and searchable through various methods—from locating lessons with keywords to sorting lessons by CSI Division number. It is also a database that is easily updated; as new lessons are submitted, reviewed, and approved for publication, they can be entered into the database in a matter of minutes. Thus, this innovative and dynamic tool is easy-to-use, both by employees searching for knowledge and by those inputting additional lessons learned.
Rather than scouring the internet for a quick answer to a question, this database encourages CCI’s team to search in-house, where we will find an actual Colarelli Construction employee who documented what he/she has learned and who can provide further insight and guidance through conversation and collaboration.
Ultimately, Randi’s Lessons Learned Database connects past CCI experiences to future jobs, so that we avoid repeating mistakes and avoid losing critical lessons that we have already learned to streamline or otherwise improve projects.
We would also like to acknowledge the contributions of Jen Buckley and Jessica Henry in this initiative. Both provided valuable insight and expertise to this process and were integral to the creation and launch. Thank you both.
