How organisations can learn from the research they conduct
Make sure your research findings get used – and don’t gather dust
What’s the point of research if you don’t apply what you learn?
All too often organisations conduct research because they have to meet government returns. Or they seek to use it to support policies they have already decided upon. Usually such research is not used and its findings are left gathering dust.
The solution is to be a learning organisation, one where research helps in developing services that truly meet the needs and desires of the communities it serves.
This doesn’t mean research has to be more expensive, complex or technically more difficult to undertake. But it does mean understanding what is meant by organisational learning – and knowing how research can help.
This challenging, thought-provoking day covers these critical points:
- What is knowledge?
- What’s the difference between learning and research?
- How can you change organisations which are not used to learning from research?
- How do you “sell” ideas about learning and research to other parts of the organisation?
- Where do you begin, especially where organisations have not engaged well with communities?
- How do organisations and communities learn – and how do you learn from those communities you serve?
- How do you plan research so that it is useful for learning?
- How do you prepare your organisation for research findings they may not like?
- How to carry out “action centred research”
- How to learn together with partner organisations
- What is the role of the consultation or research officer in organisational learning?