November 2026
The Lab
At September’s Practice Foundations we welcomed Dr Debbie Goodwin (Tūhoe, Te Whakatōhea), kaupapa Māori evaluation researcher with the Tuakana Teina Evaluation Collective, and Dr Penny Hagen (Pākehā), Manukura at The Lab for a kōrero on Niho Taniwha as a live learning approach.
Niho Taniwha connects ‘on the ground’ learning with whānau and hapori about what works in place, with those working in the system to inform investment, policy and decision-making in near real time.
In this session Penny shared how public sector teams have been applying this “bottom up” way of working to:
enable more effective local design and co-delivery of regional service models;
improve national, regional and local coordination for public health outcomes; and
demonstrate what is needed to achieve whānau centred and relational delivery for tamariki wellbeing.
Here we share some of the key insights from the session - when a live learning approach matters, how it works, and six shifts it brings to how we track and measure progress.
When it matters
A live learning approach that connects on the ground expertise, intel and insights with local, regional and national functions is important when:
We want to activate local know how, enable flexible responses and allow for the variances of place in order to deliver effectively at scale.
We want to go beyond single interventions and track more intangible, relational aspects critical to successful implementation such as system coordination and capability, how effectively social and cultural infrastructure is being activated, or whether the collective portfolio of effort or investment is strong.
Improved outcomes are dependent on the implementation and evaluation of change happening at multiple points or levels in a system (e.g delivery processes, workforce capability, policy settings, funding allocations, measures).
The setting and issues are complex and change and outcomes won’t be linear - there is a requirement to be adaptive and responsive to what emerges.
How it works
A live learning system works on the principle of learning loops at local, and collective levels. People working at different points in the system (for example: locally, regionally, nationally) who may normally exist in a transactional or prescriptive top down information flow - actively learn together about how to deliver more effectively.
Learning loops enable decision-making to be guided by what happens in reality. This means identifying where policy and practice settings are creating barriers to achieving outcomes, and working together to address them. These barriers might include funding criteria and allocations, reporting mechanisms, workforce capability, procurement processes, competitive funding models or past ruptures and breaches of trust. Addressing these barriers, or advocating for wider change where needed, becomes part of the implementation process.
Regular, intentional and disciplined learning spaces enable the capturing and documenting of actionable insights and practice-based evidence as we go. They also create the room for change and the implementation of new practice to occur, i.e. for teams to work and operate differently together, to unlock local capacity, or distribute resource or apply effort in different ways. In this way learning is interdependent with delivery, rather than an assessment of delivery.
Six shifts to what we track and measure
Drawing much from developmental evaluation approaches, adopting a live learning approach extends, complements and shifts how measuring, monitoring and reporting is undertaken and what it seeks to achieve. Through our work with whānau and different teams these six points of difference show how the purpose and design of tracking and measuring can look different in a live learning environment.
You can see Penny and Debbie explore the first two points of difference in our Practice Foundations session.
We look more deeply at live learning approaches, the infrastructure to support them, and how our approach to tracking shifts, in an upcoming article with Ingrid Burkett.
Learning is part of the intervention
A live learning approach recognises that learning isn’t separate to doing – it is part of delivering and implementing change.
It can create new relationships, build capability and support changes in how we work and act together. The learning system itself becomes part of the intervention.
