The Climate Agreement is clear; the district approach is an important instrument in making the built environment in the Netherlands more sustainable. The Netherlands has 355 municipalities, all of which must set to work to make more than 3000 neighborhoods gas-free. One thing is certain; working on this energy transition at disctrict level as a civil servant means pioneering in a complex environment with many stakeholders and uncertain outcomes. Everywhere pilots are being done, wheels invented and noses bumped. In this relatively new task, municipalities are in charge and because few conditions have been set at the national policy level, there is a lot of room for individual interpretation.. The lack of clear frameworks and guidelines requires civil servants to dare to experiment (try things out, learn and adjust) and to openly share their learning experiences both externally (between municipalities) and internally.

The VNG Knowledge- and Learning Programme is working hard to provide municipalities with the right competences for this task. The Institute for Brilliant Failures (IvBM) has joined in this effort and developed the learning line on energy transition in residential areas based on archetypal learning. This learning method, based on pattern recognition and storytelling, is used to support civil servants to share their experiences and insights in a systematic and structured way. This is stimulated them to reflect on their own projects, learn from things that turned out differently and actually apply these lessons to (other) projects.

Health Deals are agreements between the government and various other parties, including private parties. They concern concrete healthcare innovations that cannot be applied beyond the local hospital, the healthcare institution or region. These are care innovations that have social impact, such as improving the quality of life of patients, or increasing efficiency in the chain. To increase learning capacity in this context it is important that knowledge from specific Health Deals can be shared with other Health Deals.

Qualitative research into learning outcomes and making them shareable

The IvBM is committed to maximizing the learning benefits based on the Health Deals to date. The IVBM does not want to formulate a value judgment directly, but wants to share learning benefits on the basis of "double-loop learning" between completed, ongoing, starting and possible future Health Deals. We apply the following classification:

• Learning after: learning from completed Health Deals;
• Learning while: stimulating an interim learning process for ongoing Health Deals;
• Learning before: participating in the start-up phase of a Health Deal and stimulating the learning from previous experiences.

Healthcare is facing drastic changes. More customization, an emphasis on quality of life, targeted funding and a shift to "self-management" of the patient. Innovation will be accompanied by trial and error. Because new initiatives do not always go as planned. And that is just as well. After all, innovation is mainly the result of learning from what does not work. Learning ability is a sign of strength. But it takes guts. And an open dialogue.

Yet we often do not dare to be open if we do not achieve our goals. The Institute for Brilliant Failures wants to change that. Because in a professional environment, it is often the failures that lead to progress. During the learning process in healthcare, we are committed to increasing the learning capacity in healthcare. We do this, among other things, by presenting the annual Brilliant Failures Award in Healthcare and by publishing the Dutch Magazine for Brilliant Failures.. Ultimately we want to contribute to increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare by activating and enthusing professionals and organizations to learn from the outcomes and approach of innovation projects and to anchor what they have learned in the organization and the sector. (double loop learning).

The municipality is a dynamic and complex system with much interaction between different links and levels. As a result, preconceived plans sometimes turn out differently than planned. Commissioned by the Municipality of Amsterdam we have set up the learning process Brilliantly Failing and started to work with two departments. The goal of the program was to emphasize the core value "we learn from mistakes" and thus stimulate transparency and the ability to learn within the organization.. For this purpose, first of all a safe environment was created in which everyone felt free to discuss ideas and also failed ideas with each other. The participants were challenged to reflect on their own work and projects, to look for important lessons and then sharing them. Another important part of the program was an environmental check to see if there is room within the organization for making,, sharing and learning from mistakes.

Fixed components of the program were inspirational lectures, dialogue sessions in which experiences and learning moments were shared, the pitching of own learning moments and other exercises tailored to common themes and problems within the department.

With support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the IvBM presented the Award for the Best Learning Moment Development Cooperation with the underlying goal of contributing to greater transparency and entrepreneurship in the sector.. The trajectory included learning processes inside and outside the walls of the Ministry.

One of the winning cases involved the orginazation Text to Change (TTC), which set up an HIV / AIDS education quiz via SMS in Uganda. However, the code 666 assigned by the authorities raised many questions among partners. 666 is the devil's number and the involved (Christian) partners therefore wanted to stop the program immediately. Fortunately, the code could eventually be changed to 777… The example from Congo underlines the evolutionary character of projects, the example from Uganda shows the importance of not only paying attention to technical and external factors. In addition, both submissions showed that lessons were learned quickly and clearly for the future.