Synthesizing Lessons Learned and Translating Them into Work Plan Activities

Breakthrough ACTION, USAID’s flagship social and behavior change project, has over 650 staff in 27 country teams. With the implementation of robust work plans happening mostly in silos, the project is challenged to fulfill a vision of linking people with each other, especially field to field. Teams work in many different technical areas, in different time zones, using different languages, and within different cultures. Reporting structures mostly focus on what the project achieved, not what it learned. Discussions among senior leadership pointed to the need for more intentional learning, feedback, and sharing systems.

Breakthrough ACTION implemented a lessons learned initiative, centered on a crowdsourcing and voting tool called 1-2-4-All. The initiative first brought together key technical staff within country groups to identify, filter, elevate, and synthesize the learnings which had applicability at the global level. The project collected over 80 lessons and then, in the first part of the initiative, chose 33 to work with. Staff implemented two additional steps—feedback and reflection—in a heterogeneous setting at an all-team meeting.

The light touch aspect of 1-2-4-All resulted in 57% of the country teams participating, despite the difficulties of juggling implementation, planning, reporting, and learning tasks at the same time. In a post-meeting survey, 95% of respondents said the initiative resulted in one or more of the following benefits: expected additions or changes to a work plan, enhanced team thinking about a project pillar, and plans for additional learning through a formal knowledge exchange.