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Method: Learning journeys

Find out what’s really going on, firsthand

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About

The best way to understand a complex system’s many dimensions is to explore it first hand, together. Learning journeys are trips through which a team can develop a shared, grounded understanding of the system they are trying to influence. Simple but powerful, these eye-opening journeys are often a component of social lab or transformative scenario processes.

How They Work

If you’re not part of the problem, you can’t be part of the solution. A “visit to the system” helps team members own and experience the problem, and flushes out the habitual thinking and assumptions that too often constitute our “expertise.” Projecting what we already know or think we know onto a situation is the biggest obstacle to seeing what’s really happening. Learning journeys ensure that team members bring real-world experience—and fresh thinking—to the problem at hand, and traveling together is also a great way to build relationships.

Design:

We tailor the journey to the needs of the particular group and the challenge that you want to understand and address.

Organize:

We arrange the visit itself, as well as travel, accommodations, and meals as needed.

Facilitate:

Our facilitation of the learning process includes offering tools for more effective perception, briefing participants before the journey and debriefing after, and guiding the group in reflecting on their experience and synthesising their learning.

Document:

We record the experience and its lessons. This may include film, photography, written documentation, or a combination of these.

Examples of learning journeys

  • North Sea Energy Lab: towards the North Sea as a Sustainable Energy Source
  • Sustainable Oceans Lab
  • Southern Africa Food Lab
  • South West Yorkshire Mental Health Lab
  • Bhavishya Alliance for Child Nutrition
  • Sustainable Food Lab
  • Waterloo Wellington Scenarios
  • EcoSocial Learning Journey
  • Triodos

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