I think the efficacy of learning teams as a collaborative learning approach is directly related to downward pressure within a business to be a learning Organsiation. If the pressure is high, then the positive perception of gains to be made far out ways the argument that the people needed to undertake the activity are limited and the business is time poor. Therefore, the default is "a single investigator will do." This is a very unfortunate viewpoint as personally; I have seen fantastic results in a very short time utilizing the benefits of a leaning team's approach.
The juice is always worth the squeeze! Whether it be driving improvements in safety, quality, health or environmental impacts.

I agree with your sentiments Matt, we have been using the 4D's approach from Learning Teams to review significant incidents and also to look at how various teams in our environment can operate more effectively and improve delivery to our students. In particular the approach has been picked up and run with by the teams during the discussion with minimal input from H&S. In turn the outcomes have been used by the Dept Managers to continue the discussion. We still have a way to go but we are off to a good start.

I've come to H&S from Quality and lean manufacturing. As far as I can see learning teams are very similar to Kaizen teams, 4Ds are similar to removing Muda (waste) from the process, and failing safely is similar to poke yoke (error proofing). So the ideas are even older than that and are main stream practice in many non H&S areas.

They are all good concepts, and I've had them work extremely well in the right applications. In the wrong situation, and without buy in at all levels then they fall flat.

The juice is always worth the squeeze! — Matt Sadgrove

is very true.
If you decide that learning teams is the latest big thing, and look for problems to solve, then everything 'looks like a nail'.

But if you have a problem that involves several levels of the organisation, and bring in a learning team, armed with the right tools, and guided by someone that knows their stuff, then the results will exceed the sum of the parts.