Until I met the creators of Propel, integrating learning into my daily work was not on my radar. But as I got deeper into this headspace within my workspace, I began to see the strength of applying knowledge management and organisational learning at every level of an organisation. 

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How can a learning-centric approach make a landmark difference? 

For one, as a young organisation, at Propel we are constantly trying to figure out what works best. Alongside this and looking through my communication lens, I need to make sure we reach audiences with relevant insights, stories and our product. To do this effectively, a big part of the work to be done is to continuously reflect on what we are doing right and what can be done differently or better.

When it came to our internal communication processes last year, we took learning seriously with the likes of planned reflection sessions. As a team, we would regularly pause and reflect to decide the best way forward. But what I did not have in place yet was a consolidated and centralised way of capturing our key lessons. As I prepared my own reflections for these sessions, I would note down my lessons manually, typing them into different documents and reports. 

However, when I started working on our Communications Strategy for 2025, the need for a consolidated view of insights became clear. While there was a lot of data and lessons from the year’s activity, it was stored in separate documents. Our biweekly metrics reports were packed with data and beautifully mapped content against performance, but they weren’t designed to store insights in a user-friendly, easily accessible way. This made it difficult to access all our insights in one overview to reflect on the whole year, particularly when needing to draw lessons to inform our plan.

Then it hit me: Propel was right in front of me. Here was a digital tool that could help me easily capture my experiences, data and insights, while plugging them into a collaborative space that anyone in our team could add to. By using it, we could literally learn from experience, together. We could stop losing our critical organisational lessons while leveraging past experiences to make smarter, faster decisions.

Without losing another second, I captured our communications activities, outcomes and insights on the platform. This is what I learned in the process and how it is making a difference:

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Brilliant blank canvas

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As I set up our Propel Communications space, I had a blank canvas from which to create the learning framework that would work for our strategy. 

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The platform allowed me to add learning questions in a way that worked specifically for the communications function. From social to digital channels through to brand assets, media and awards as well as communities and events, I was able to categorise where and how I captured our data. At the same time, this structure ensured that anyone in the team could quickly access insights, avoid duplication and stay focused on what mattered most for brand and reputation management work.

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Helpful learning guides

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The tool’s Open Activity option made life easy for me. It provided structured prompts to capture both data and reflections, eliminating the mental block of starting from scratch. This not only saved time but ensured consistency in how anyone in the team documented our learnings. 

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Beyond that, the platform offers a range of templates such as After Action Reviews, Contextual Learning, Outcome Harvesting and Stakeholder Feedback.  These give a user the flexibility to dig deeply into analysis or to keep their learning journey top line. It's a great choice to have.

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AI savvy summaries

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Propel has an AI-generated summaries feature. After adding notes under each Learning Question, I could generate a clean, concise summary with a quick click which saved me countless hours of distilling insights while keeping my original notes intact for verification. 

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Safe learning place

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As someone who tends to overthink every word and its implication, Propel gave me an objective space where I could stop agonising and just reflect. It also gave our team a judgment-free zone to document lessons openly.  The team often talks about "failing forward. I found out this is how to do that—successfully.

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The result is that with our insights safely structured and centralised, I have been able to make more informed choices—all the way from word to channel choice.

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Objective listening spaces

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Being a communicator who was trained to build and maintain communication momentum, I can get too focused on speaking rather than listening. Propel has helped me strike a balance, offering me a place to reflect on what did and did not work, and what can be done to improve either way. Of course, being a deadline-driven person too, the learning system has saved me from digging through folders and losing track of key takeaways, which is a productivity perk that I can appreciate. 

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Just getting going and tapping into this learning and listening space without overthinking has been my second biggest lesson so far; to be lessafraid of failing because learning is ultimately the steps we take to keep improving. 

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In conclusion, Propel’s digitised learning tool works well to structure complex, multi-channel insights from within the marketing communications function. Though over and above this and considering its impact further afield, I have seen it help professionals at dynamic International NGOs enhance their effectiveness. Now I can truly speak from experience as a Propel user and say that my learning journey helped me find my “how”—so that everything our team creates for our brand is built on insights and not assumptions.

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What’s most exciting is that this is just the beginning of my ongoing learning journey with Propel.

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Gail is a Communications Associate at Propel.