Practice labs (group coaching & practice mastery circles)

The challenge

Most professional development still separates learning from practice.

People attend training, gain concepts and tools, then return to environments that make adoption difficult. Under delivery pressure, new practices fade, learning remains theoretical, and improvement relies on individual motivation rather than collective momentum.

Common patterns emerge:

• Good ideas that never quite take root

• Practices applied mechanically or inconsistently, without meaningful benefit

• People struggling alone with complex situations

• Expertise trapped in silos rather than shared

• Communities of practice that fade when pressure rises

The result is slow learning and shallow adoption, especially in areas that matter most: collaboration, leadership, change, and improvement.

Our point of view

Real capability is built in practice, and accelerated through shared experience.

Adults do not develop mastery by accumulating knowledge, but by:

• Working on real situations

• Reflecting together

• Learning from diverse perspectives

• Experimenting, adjusting, and trying again

Practice Labs create safe but demanding spaces where professionals work on real challenges, sharpen judgment, and build mastery together.

They combine:

• New perspectives, always grounded in how they are applied and the benefits they are meant to create

• The lived experience of people actively trying to make those practices work

Labs adapt naturally to the pace the organisation can sustain. They also strengthen informal peer networks, which are key to the long-term sustainability of change and improvement.

What we design and improve

We design and facilitate Practice Labs — structured group coaching and supervision circles focused on developing mastery in specific practices.

This typically includes:

Practice-focused cohorts

Small groups formed around a shared practice domain (e.g. collaboration, leadership, change, excellence, coaching cultures), with enough diversity to stimulate learning without losing relevance.

Themed session arcs

Each lab is designed as a coherent arc over several sessions. Short conceptual inputs open each session to introduce new perspectives, using existing playbooks for Services and Tech contexts or a tailored design for your specific situation.

Real-case exploration

Participants bring live situations from their work — tensions, challenges, decisions — which become the core material for reflection and learning.

Facilitated collective learning

Using proven supervision and facilitation techniques, we help groups:

• Surface assumptions

• Explore systemic dynamics

• Learn from each other’s experience

• Translate insight into concrete next actions

Light learning guardrails

Concepts are introduced only where they unlock reflection and practice — never as content to consume.

Continuity and rhythm

Labs run over multiple sessions, allowing learning to compound, trust to build, and practices to embed.

Practice Labs can be run:

• In-house, for a single organisation

• Across several non-competing organisations

• As public cohorts

The business outcomes

• Faster and deeper adoption of new practices

• Stronger professional judgement and confidence

• Shared language and coherence across roles and teams

• Reduced isolation when facing complex challenges

• Peer communities that sustain learning under pressure

Over time, organisations build internal practice communities that continue learning without dependency.

How to start

We begin by clarifying:

• The practice area to develop

• The participants to include

• The cadence to set

• The theme and arc of the lab — using existing playbooks or designing a tailored one

Labs typically run over 6–8 sessions, with a clear opening and closing, and can be extended or repeated as practices mature.

Participants are onboarded through our platform, which supports scheduling, communication, and continuity, while allowing programmes to scale when needed.

Some organisations use Practice Labs as standalone capability-building mechanisms. Others embed them as part of wider change, leadership, or operational excellence initiatives.