The challenges we face as a society are complex and no one person or organisation can solve them alone. Complexity is the result of the constant interaction of many interconnected, interdependent factors that are impossible to control. While there are often patterns in how different factors interact, there is too much unpredictability and variability to definitely establish and replicate ‘what works’. When working in complexity, we need to constantly come together to spot patterns and unexpected outcomes, testing and adapting our approaches in response to them based on what we are learning. It’s this work that lies at the heart of any test and learn programme.
At Collaborate we have been doing this for years, refining our approach by supporting teams, organisations and partnerships across the public and not-for-profit sectors through a range of test and learn initiatives. In our Autumn 2025 webinar series, we shared some of this work, focussing on the hallmarks of a strong test and learn approach: creating frameworks to bring coherence to complexity, building learning infrastructure, gathering (the right) data and collective learning.
You can read more about the focus of each of these sessions and access recordings below.
Session 1 – Bringing coherence to complexity
When working in systems, we know that linear models of change struggle to describe the impact of complexity on a system and therefore often fall short in describing how outcomes will be created. This means that we need to develop multi-dimensional frameworks and models to guide our understanding of how change occurs over time. In this session we shared some frameworks we’ve developed through our work and how they helped people to understand their context and make effective interventions in their system.
Session 2 – Building learning infrastructure
Too often we find there is a focus on producing insight, with little attention paid to working through how that insight will change how you work. Having the right learning infrastructure is therefore crucial to effective change processes, ensuring that there are spaces to explore insight collectively, make decisions about how best to apply it and reflect on the changes that come about after doing so. In this session we shared examples from our work of how to nurture learning cultures, skills and capabilities and how to design learning processes and rhythms.
Session 3 – Gathering (the right) data
Much of the public sector’s focus when collecting data is on evidencing quantifiable impact and cost savings. While crucially important, this doesn’t tell us much about why and how an approach has or has not worked. Whether the data we have is quantitative or qualitative, implicit or explicit – the methods we use to gather it should be ethical and equitable. In this session we shared examples from our work of how we’ve involved data subjects in making decisions about data gathering and making sense of the data.
Session 4– Collective learning
Learning is an ongoing, active process reliant on being able to come together. In particular, it requires an ability to bring different perspectives and make collective sense of insights. In this session, we explored how to set up an effective learning space, what considerations to take into account and how to manage these spaces effectively so that everyone feels welcome and everyone gains insight to help them improve and adapt in their work.
We hope those of you that attended the series, as well as those of you who caught up with it later, found it valuable. Please get in touch if you think Collaborate can support you with your own test and learn work.