Action Learning Case Study – LIFE Moves
WHO was the client?
Drumchapel LIFE – Life Is For Everyone – were a National-Lottery-funded initiative based in the West of Scotland. Based in an award-winning health living centre in Drumchapel, it served as an umbrella organisation for a huge range of groups across the region, drawing together local organisers, community bodies and charitable associations.
WHY did they need help?
LIFE Moves was proposed as a vehicle to help an eclectic, sometimes disparate, organisation draw together and forge some common purpose and direction for the region. This was clearly set out in four key aims:
To identify barriers and issues faced in the reality of delivering programmes in the area.
To explore which actions work and which do not when looking to improve programmes in the area.
To build and deepen inter-agency relationships and collaborations.
To utilise the shared learning through adjusting and improving future programmes and communications.
“Through the process of Action Learning, I have asked myself more challenging questions about how I plan and organise what I do.”
- Participant
HOW did we approach the issue?
The LIFE Moves programme was designed to run over a year, between April 2010 and May 2011, with two major Action Learning Sets running over a total of 21 half-day sessions, together with two large-scale events. This involved representatives from a large number of the organisations from across the region – with development workers, managers and strategists taking part. This series of sessions offered the opportunity for each to bring their own complex issues, working through them as part of the set.
To make this happen, the sets were facilitated by a small team of experienced consultants, including me. We were all seasoned professionals when it came to Action Learning, having regularly led sets in Scotland and internationally. We were on hand to help the sets through the process when they met, as well as documenting the observations and working ideas – ensuring that we drew as much value as possible from each session, as an action research exercise.
At the end of both series of meetings, there was a larger event held. This brought together all the participants from all the sets, for additional learning under broad themes. The first was focused on ‘Resistance to Change’ while the second concentrated on ‘Influencing’.
WHAT did we achieve?
“No one individual or organisation has all the answers. It’s critical that we learn from and with each other and hopefully improve service delivery and influence strategy”
- Participant
On average, we found that at each set, two issues were fully addressed – where a member of the set unpacked and worked through a complex issue, discerning a strategic action to take. That means the programme as whole therefore helped LIFE Moves identify 112 strategic actions.
We found that these fell into four broad categories:
Partnership development: helping members of this broad, eclectic network come together to do joint marketing, develop joint research and more opportunities for cooperation to support service users.
Internal structural changes: helping create more ownership and new supervision structures, as well as restructuring a team to help cut delays – a single action that reduced waiting times from 3 weeks to 2 hours.
Addressing gaps in provision: Organising transport to fix a gap in a programme, while piloting a new case-coordination system.
Role development: Helping a range of leaders reposition and redefine their roles, from taking on greater responsibility to letting go of an assumed role which was actually impeding others.
““I have learnt through Action Learning that we work very much to assumptions about others, and that those assumptions need to be questioned and either confirmed or denied.””
This is just one example of how Action Learning can transform organisations, empower individuals and deliver positive outcomes. You can find out more about the process with my piece on Action Learning: Harnessing the Power of Peers. Alternatively, please feel free to get in touch and ask me all about it.