ILfA East: Using Inspiring Learning for All to support organisational development

During 2005/06 MLA East of England commissioned a project to work with a small group of museums, libraries and archives across the region to explore how they might use and embed Inspiring Learning for All (ILfA) across their organisations. Consultants Anne Murch and Gaby Porter, who worked on the framework for MLA, were commissioned to develop and manage the programme called ILfA East.  The programme focussed on workforce and organisational development and aimed to:

• develop regional expertise in the use of ILfA
• support participants in reviewing the role of learning in their organisation
• enable a cross-domain cohort of pilot organisations to learn from and support each others' development.

It took place over an eight month period from October 2005 to May 2006 and involved a cross-section of museum, library and archive services:

Colchester Museums
Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies (HALS)
Museum of East Anglian Life
Peterborough City Council, Libraries and Heritage
Thurrock Library Services

In order to share the learning from this project more widely across the region, participants have written case studies outlining the experience of the programme within their organisations.

One of the main features of the project was that each organisation was asked to form and work with a 'diagonal slice team' of up to six people, representing a spread of experience and perspective, and to select three people from within this as the 'core team' to act as the champions group internally.  Diagonal slice teams typically included: someone with a background in/reponsibliy for workforce/organisational development; soemone working in front of a house role; someone who works behind the scenes (eg a curator, archivist, librarian) and a senior manager.

The programme was supported through two regional workshops for core teams, at the start and end of the project, and individual consultancy time for each organisation.  The participating services completed various tasks over the course of the programme including: running workshops with colleagues across the organisation to introduce ILfA, and the broad definition of leanring and to gather development priorities using audit resources based on ILfA; maintaining learning logs and undertaking reflection and review.  Although they shared a common starting point, the priorities identified by each service shaped their activities and the outcomes for their organisation.  Key priorities were:

vision and values for the organisation
facilitation skills and managing consultation process with colleagues
planning for learning and with a focus on outcomes
understanding and managing organisational change

Outcomes included: the creation of a 'buddy' scheme to improve communication, a new agreed statement of cause and values, a whole staff day to look at improving service delivery, new approaches to planning and evaluating family, learning and input into future plans for cultural services.

The learning from thsi project formed one strand of a new regional review of the use of Inspiring Learning for All across the East of England.  Other strands included a regional review event and evaluation of the longer term impact of the series of ILfA workshops run in 2004.  The review will inform the planning of a follow-on programme of support.