Collaborative Learning Methodology

“No one is as smart as all of us.”

The collaborative learning methodology for Do No Harm has been developed through experience since the 1980s. We have found that when large numbers of thoughtful people think about a problem in a structured way, they develop insights that have practical application in solving the problem.

In this methodology, there are three phases for learning lessons and a fourth phase for spreading the lessons through trainings, briefings, articles and books, and so on.

Three Phases of Collaborative Learning

Case Studies: Field Visits and Group Analysis

The first step is to visit many places to gather actual experience. People in the field are confronting problems in their day-to-day work. The case studies capture those confrontations, the difficulties people face and the solutions they have developed.

Consultations are held to read and analyze the case studies. The participants come from many different areas of the world. Patterns begin to emerge from the case studies in these sessions.

Fifteen to twenty case studies are written based on field visits. Two or three Consultations are held. This process generally takes two to three years.

Feedback Workshops

The patterns that come from the case study process are brought back to the field through a series of workshops. Participants are invited from all agencies working in the place where the workshop is held. New insights are gathered as the patterns are tested against the experience of the people in the room. The patterns are either confirmed and strengthened, or challenged and discarded or reworked.

At some point in the process, a set of the patterns becomes established as a body of practical knowledge and the workshops begin to look at ways to address the patterns through developing a set of concepts and/or a tool that can be applied through action in the field.

Fifteen to twenty feedback workshops are held over one to two years. A secondary reason for Feedback Workshops is that they offer a platform for spreading the findings while the process is ongoing. This phase can begin before all Case Studies have been completed and generally takes between one and two years.

Implementation and Use

The tool and concepts are taken to field sites where people use them.

Consultations are held that bring people working with the concepts together to share experiences and to refine the concepts. The tool is adapted to the conditions of actual use. This generally takes between two and three years.

All three phases are necessary. Case studies alone are just stories. The effort to tell the story as it appeared to those involved is hard enough without attempting to force an analysis on them as they are written. Cases can be, and often are, colored by the framing presented to the writers. This is why the feedback sessions are so crucial. The feedback tests the findings from the case studies (not the case studies themselves). Bringing so much additional experience to bear on specific issues pushes those issues. They are either real for some people or they are not. The implementation is where the rubber meets the road. If real lessons have been learned, then they should be applicable to the work people do.

The “Fourth” Phase: Spread

Once lessons have been learned, they need to be conveyed and taught. Training programs, books, articles, speeches, and so on can be developed to get the message out and to help people use the lessons.

Once the lessons are being used, the whole cycle of collaborative learning can begin again to learn more about the lessons and their ultimate effectiveness.

Do No Harm has gone through the full cycle twice.

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