A learning loop is a habit of continually learning from one’s actions.

To build a learning loop into a team cadence, you require (a) a planning process to make decisions and (b) an infrastructure of data and insight that informs planning decisions.

A planning process is simple to understand- it’s a regular process of looking forward and planning work within some time frame - a week, quarter, or year.

The tricky part is setting up an information infrastructure. This include information on customers that leads to net new products and features (customer development). It also includes the behavioural data about how a specific product or feature is doing. This infrastructure takes a while to build and should be considered a product in and of itself.

Part of the infrastructure are the events (meetings) to learn how things are going, and surface different perspectives on the same data. These often become the most important meetings for a team because they complete the learning loop.

Team learning takes work and intentional effort - but it pays dividends in the long run.