Learning while change unfolds

Examining practice together

Peer learning and peer review have been recurring approaches in the work with SISP and other innovation hubs. People with experience of similar challenges examine each other's practice, ask questions and compare the conditions in which they work.

An important part of this work is understanding why an approach works in a particular setting. What does it depend on? Which conditions differ? What needs to be tested in your own organisation?

This connects learning to action. An insight becomes the starting point for a new question, an experiment or a decision. The same ambition applies at portfolio level: experience from several initiatives needs to be able to influence how subsequent work is organised.

Start with the decision

It is easy to start with the information that can be collected. Another approach is to ask which decisions need to be made and what would help us make them better.

This gives monitoring a clearer purpose. The questions may concern what should continue, what needs to change or which assumption needs closer examination.

Interpret experience together

Data becomes useful through interpretation. Different actors see different aspects of change and may explain the same event in different ways. Engaging with these perspectives is part of the work.

Collective sensemaking can reveal what an individual report misses: patterns across initiatives, recurring barriers or emerging opportunities that have yet to be named.

Create a route back to action

Learning needs a route back into delivery. This requires time for reflection, clarity about who will use the learning and a real opportunity to adapt the work.

A simple but demanding question is therefore: what have we changed as a result of what we have learned? The answer tells us something about how firmly learning is embedded in the organisation.