Modes
of Personal and Organisational Learning in Virtual BusinessTeams
Hans
van der Vleugel, Jack Gerrissen, Darco Jansen, Peter Sloep, and
Wim van Petegem
Open University of the Netherlands,
P.O. Box 2960, 6401 DL Heerlen
(The Netherlands),
tel: +31-45-576.25.03,
fax: +31-576.21.15,
e-mail: hans.vandervleugel@ouh.nl
Abstract
In
order to explore and expand possibilities for integrating working
and learning more closely, the OUNL started experimenting with
business-oriented learning. The initial approach was directed
at creating "virtual companies". In such a virtual company students
fulfil realistic tasks in order to expand their expertise in a
professional setting. A first experiment was dominated by a focus
on the individual student, gaining expertise, while working on
realistic, projectwise organised, business-tasks in a VirtualBusinessTeam
(VBT). Moreover during discussions with organizations potentially
interested in adopting the concept, it was found that individual
learning was only one of the possible fruits of our approach.
Organisational learning, knowledge management and the development
of organisational competencies are also possible outcomes of our
VBT-approach, especially when the teams are organised within an
existing company, combining professionals that come from different
content-domains. This
paper gives an overview of the concepts we developed for the application
of VirtualBusinessTeams for both individual and organisational
learning.
1.
Introduction
The
Open University of the Netherlands (OUNL) is a full-university-level
institution, dedicated to distance education. During the fifteen
years of existence its educational policy has always been to create
a truly "open" educational environment to their students. Because
of this open character, independent self-study is an important
didactical approach. One of the objectives of this "open"-ness,
is to enable students to organise their own study, as independently
as possible, with respect to time, pacing, and location of their
study. The development of self-instructive support materials,
both print and ICT-based, as well as the early adoption of newly
emerging technologies, has always been one of the instruments
of the pedagogical concept This is one of the reasons why most
of the OUNL-students combine their study with a job. The
increasing availability of datacommunication networks offers an
opportunity to stretch our concepts towards still greater independence
of time and location of both working and learning. In order to
explore and expand possibilities for integrating working and learning
more closely, the OUNL started experimenting with competency-based
learning. The initial approach was directed at creating "virtual
companies" [Wes98a, Wes99]. In a virtual company trainees fulfill
authentic tasks in order to expand their expertise1 in a professional setting. This paper gives an overview of the
concepts we developed for the usage of VirtualBusinessTeams for
both individual and organisational learning.
2.
Virtual work-for-learning communities
Assignment
of roles, functions or tasks, to trainees (students) organised
in a team or departmental unit, proves to be a powerful vehicle
for just-in-time learning, both at the personal and the organisational
level. Much better than with the conventional "from classroom
teaching to practicals" attempts to knowledge integration, do
teamwork and task-execution invoke in-context construction of
relevant and instantly operational capabilities2. Hands-on
and on-the-job approaches to learning have long since exploited
these principles of task drive and team commitment. Two drawbacks
should be mentioned. For one, real-life task execution does not
allow for errors or other quality-of-work degradation beyond certain
tolerance thresholds, whereas ideally the learner should be allowed
to experience some degree of failure. Secondly, with a primary
emphasis on the task at hand, learning tends to be shallow and
solely directed at overcoming barriers that withstand task progress.
The first drawback is generally countered through involvement
of senior expertise for timely coaching and quality assurance.
The second is left to similar senior expert intervention. In fact,
for this professional practice-driven learning to be on a par
with the usual learning in higher education, it often gets transformed
into a kind of apprenticeship learning. Unfortunately application
thus, turns expensive and hence, interest has faded. 1 In a VBT the term "trainee" is preferred over "student", because
of its connotation to both working and learning. In many publications
the term "competency" tends to be used for both the individual
level and the organisational level. This can be confusing, since
the context not always makes it clear which meaning should be
attributed. We would prefer the word "expertise" for the labelling
of the combination of "know-how", "know-why", and "know-when"
on the individual level. The word competency and its derivations
have already been used in that many compound words on both levels
(cf. competency-measurement, core-competencies), that introducing
another word will likely lead too even more confusion. In order
to avoid misunderstandings we will use the word "expertise" as
a synonym for "individual competencies", without trying to introduce
a range of derivations like "expertise measurement".
2 Here we use the term capabilities to stress the situatedness and
the functional qualities of knowledge and skill application.
Enter
networked communities and "virtuality". Given the adequate infrastructures
and (co-work) instruments, the task drive and team commitment
principles remain when individual members engage in networked
organisational settings. While accepting the consequences of time
and place gaps, the networking nature of the teamwork and the
" virtuality" of work organisation allow one to overcome the drawbacks
of the traditional apprenticeship approach at a fraction of the
costs.
Figure
1: Trainees "subscribe" to tasks or functions in a work-for-learning
community
Let
us briefly review what is proposed here: Asynchronous
work forms. The team of trainees runs (or "mirrors") a real project,
or implements functions in an organisational unit. Heterogeneity
of time, place, role and (often) personal capabilities do create
a sense of shared responsibility towards team quality, and the
consequent mutual quality control and assistance. Remote collaboration
appears to stretch the differences of perspectives employed by
the participants in the treatment of the shared issues. This constitutes
a first echelon of quality assurance and reflection on the appropriateness
of knowledge and insights applied.
Asynchronous
training and coaching. The different-place / different-time collaborations
(see previous item) allow for inclusion of logging mechanisms
to be used to monitor progress, relevance and quality by coaches
or trainers. Design or decision rationale discussions on the network,
for instance, could be supported in such a way as to help the
coach, at his/her convenience (place and time), check the overall
flow of reasoning without going through the detail of the debate.
Also, at the level of personal contact there is ample opportunity
for one-to-one (asynchronous) interaction between trainee and
coach, or any other expertise owner. Effectively, the coach or
trainer is omnipresent without the need to being "there and then
when needed". This is the network version of the master-apprentice
relationship.
Direct
transfer of training. Participation in the virtual work-for-learning
community has an on-off character. When logged on and active on
the task or function the trainee works and learns "there", but
the physical context is local. Books, instruments, computer applications
and other objects from the local ambient that feature in the task
execution are "here". New knowledge, methods and techniques will
be easily replicated in the local work when switched off, or,
transferred to the activities in another virtual work community
where the same trainee might be engaged in similar tasks. Being
able to concurrently subscribe to several virtual work-for-learning
communities is an important "virtuality" feature.
Flexible
window for intake. When a team means to implement an organisational
unit's function, part of the elementary functions might not be
available and hence be simulated under the control of a coach.
Then, when at some point in time a new trainee takes an interest
in taking up such a function, he or she may join the unit after
going through the logs (see second point) and some preparatory
discussions with the coach. Here we have a "virtuality" in the
sense that a virtual work-for-learning community permanently resides
in cyberspace while its inhabitants continuously or periodically
change.
3.
VirtualBusinessTeams are de-luxe virtual work-for-learning communities
In
another paper presented at this conference [Jans99] the Virtual-Business-Team
concept was introduced and first experiences and experiments were
being discussed. In this section, we highlight the typical learning
modes observed. Each
member of a VirtualBusinessTeam (VBT) interacts with people, work
objects, tools and systems by means of a (net)workstation that
provides for five functionality classes:
- Communication
& coordination;
- (co-)work
objects and tools;
- Corporate
knowledge, rules & identity;
- Just-in-time
learning & coaching;
- Competence
identification, monitoring & assessment.
More
details are given in [Jans99]. Figure 2 depicts the manner in
which certain groupings of functionality's facilitate or stimulate
three elements of our so denominated "business-task-driven learning",
a highly implicit and compound form of situated skilling and knowledge
construction. To the trainee the primary challenge is working,
and thus contributing to team performance. In this case organizational
knowledge management seems to play a far bigger part, in comparison
with more commonly used methods in educational-activities, like
case-oriented, problem-oriented, or project-based approaches.
The heterogeneity of the team-members entering expertise and the
diversity of (expressed) personal growth aspirations within a
team, do not seem to fit into a shared, for all members equal,
level. Collaborative learning using authentic business-tasks does
not aim at producing trainees with identical expertises. 
Figure
2: Three elements of our business-task-driven learning
We
briefly review the three submodes: Learning
embedded in team activities. The first level of knowledge exchange
in a VBT will be within the group ("peer-learning"), instead of
consulting a mentor, teacher, or trainer. This is made possible
because of the differences in expertise (both level and domain),
and planned expertise growth among team-members. This kind of
heterogeneity is a strength of a VBT, while the opposite holds
for almost all traditional learning environments.
Assessment-based
learning. Development of expertise aims at situated problem-solving.
There is not a single, pre-defined way to analyse a situation,
and collect and process the information needed to solve a specific
problem. Competence-assessment is to a high extend based upon
a process of getting to value previously unanticipated, experienced
capabilities. Peer-to-peer interactions, coach-trainee interactions,
and trainee-introspection's are sources of assessment. They offer
the opportunities for personal learning that are needed to convert
tacit knowledge into explicitness by the way of consolidating
knowledge, generalisation, inter-relatedness and association,
etc. A meaningful assessment of growth of both individual and
group-competency cannot be based upon antecedently defined, standardised
tests, because one does not know what kind of supplementary activities
will be needed to find a satisfying solution to solve the specific
problem.
Knowledge-management-oriented
learning. Stimuli in a VBT are rich and varied because the needed
information and knowledge is to be obtained on the moment it is
actually needed. The total of the organisational strategy, business
rules, internal procedures, standards, instrumentation, and last-but-not-least
organisational culture, are important rich resources to VBT-members,
collectively they are often referred to as the "organisational
memory". The trainee has to be active and creative in retrieving
sufficient sources like: peers, dedicated materials, coaches and
experts, structured and unstructured knowledge bases (both inside
and outside the organisational environment) for information that
will enable him solving his/her problem. This leads to insights
and concept-formation that has direct relevance in the context
of the task at hand. It can be connected to the individuals internal
"nomological network" [Cron55] and/or the knowledge base of the
organisation. Knowledge-management and -retrieval by members of
a VBT will both contribute to, and profit from, the explicit and
tacit knowledge on the organisational level. VBT's operating within
an authentic environment provide a situation that is incomparably
richer than any constructed simulation.
Since
knowledge management is particularly key to the personal and organisational
learning in VBT's, it is deemed important to elaborate on the
relevant processes.
Individual
growth of expertise with respect to organisational processes results
from active participation in processes of knowledge management
in a context of challenging tasks or functions in an organisational
context. Both the single individual and the organisation as a
whole are bound to complete one or more knowledge cycles during
the execution of a given task. For every task in a knowledge-processing
organisation3 there is a transformation of a certain
input (a number of documents), by way of a knowledge intensive
process (information collection and processing), into an output.
The knowledge cycles of the processes are schematically depicted
in fig. 3.
Figure
3: An elementary knowledge cycle in the execution of knowledge
based tasks.
Addition
of bits and pieces of knowledge ("knowledge chunks") leads to
a growth of the applicable body of knowledge. This improvement,
often in combination with already available internally or externally
available knowledge, leads to new knowledge and insights. A double
looped cycle of storing knowledge in a retrievable way and the
actual distribution and retrieval is used to make this knowledge
available on a "just-in-time"-basis. Knowledge-cycles
are applicable both on the individual level and on the organisational
level. On the individual level it is a mental process. On the
organisational level, building internally sharable knowledge is
a permanent process that can be promoted by numerous kinds of
policy measures. Knowledge management should assure an efficient
and effective interaction between individual and the organisational
knowledge-cycles.
Learning
in a VBT has a just-in-time character for the more or less foreseeable
elements of the task to be executed. In addition other, unforeseen
knowledge-chunks will also become related to the competencies
that are relevant to the task at hand, both for individuals and
for the team as a whole. The "new" knowledge-chunks, consisting
of information that has been additionally collected in connection
with execution of the task, can be stored in an easy retrievable
way using hypermedia. This will enable other members of the organisation
(not necessarily members of the same VBT) to find and use the
same knowledge over and over again. For the future users that,
due to a lack of knowledge get stuck in more or less comparable
tasks, the hyperlinking offers an easy way to navigate to possibly
relevant knowledge.
The
better knowledge management fulfils its supportive tasks, the
more likely is knowledge- and competence-growth for an organisation
and its participants. A VBT, with its strong focus on teamwork,
authentic tasks, just-in-time learning materials, self-assessment,
and peer-assessment, is most supportive to building this kind
of effective knowledge cycles.
3 In a recent pilot we used a method for improving the quality of
the process of software-development ("Fagan-inspections") as an
exemplary task of knowledge processing.
4.
Realism + commitment = motivation
A
team member in a VBT is a tele-worker in a networked enterprise.
The network might be the Internet, a real company's intranet or
extranet. Since
same-place-same-time (or co-located) interactions do hardly ever
occur within the remotely collaborating team members, the VBT's
need IT infrastructures and instruments that support the team
activities in manners that help establish group cohesion and (corporate)
identity. The typical individual workbench therefore is being
equipped with functionality's that go beyond the usual tele-workstation's
means of "communication and co-ordination", "manipulation and
sharing", and multi-user tool use. Much attention is given to
"presence" in group-events and to social-, or office-awareness
when members engage in team tasks. The resultant organisational
dynamics may seamlessly fuse with, for instance, a trainee's day-to-day
corporate context.
Figure
4: Mapping the three process settings for a VirtualBusinessTeam
A
recurring challenge at intake of a new team member is the matching
and mapping of three essential process settings for a VBT [Slo99]:
- the
(individual) competence-growth demand, as negotiated with
a given trainee;
- the
task or function class that optimally allows for the intended
competence growth;
- the
products or services that are waiting to be produced by the
VBT.
The
mapping or matching between 2) and 3) is a matter of sufficiently
effective decomposition of processes or assignments, in order
to have tasks and functions well distributed among the "contracted"
employees. Between 1) and 3) there is the question of realistic
external context for the work experience to be representative
from a professional-praxis point of view (e.g. nature of the client,
market or societal setting).
5.
Flexibility of design and deployment.
In
the course of developing a range of partial prototypes and the
concept testing in a few pilots, we have begun to consolidate
phases in the design of VBT infrastructures and instruments. Part
of the business structure and processes is now defined by generic
functional and object models, which enable relatively rapid "parametric"
tuning to a specific form and content of a business unit or project.
There is also flexibility in terms of deployment of VBT-type of
individual or organizational learning, as to the nature of an
institution's problems or demands. At present, we distinguish
four principal deployment modes of a VBT, as is illustrated by
Figure 5. 
Figure
5: Principal Deployment Modes of VirtualBusinessTeams
The
most basic VBT deployment mode might be labeled "Business-task-paced
Learning". Its primary aim is to immerse (university-level) students
in demanding company tasks, as an early and timely exposure to
their future professional practice. The need for functional elicitation
and use of knowledge and skills when exposed to the "real" problems
of a representative job highly motivates the students to engage
actively in the management of appropriate knowledge sources.
In
talking with Professional Development (PD) and Management Development
(MD) officers, we quickly came to understand the great potential
of a second deployment mode that we coined "Learning at Work".
It differs in two ways from customary learning-on-the-job. For
one, it is not meant to prepare a trainee to perform satisfactorily
in a particular job. Rather, it aims at preparing trainees for
whatever function and task that require a certain expertise. Secondly,
"at Work" means that the trainee continues doing his or her standing
job that is supposedly productive in the organizational context.
The crux is that in doing so, he or she is exposed to new methods,
tools or problems that demand improvement or broadening of capabilities.
Also, in contrast with the traditional company-external courses
or seminars, the Learning at Work approach eliminates much of
the transfer-of-training problems, and avoids the hassles of having
to make travel arrangements, of dealing with absence from home
and work, of coping with dairy mismatches, etc.
The
third mode, "Organizational Prototyping", focuses on the need
for evaluating emerging options for organizational change, for
instance, as a result of a Business-Process-Redesign (BPR) exercise.
As a rule, the team, that produced the new design of processes
and concomitant organizational structures, is optimistic about
the ease of implementation and the absence of breakdown risks.
Management on the other hand very much favors a realistic probing
of the ins and outs, before going ahead with the massive transition
and perhaps unwillingly passing the point of no return. Organizational
Prototyping is a well-proven approach to testing the feasibility
and sustainability of an organizational change. Building it on
a VBT substrate allows for greatly added involvement, realism
and "observability", as compared to the usual role- or game playing
practices.
The
fourth mode [Ger98], "Knowledge Management towards Competence
Growth", stems from our appreciation of the fundamental difference
between the learning mechanisms in VBT's, which is student-centered
on the one hand, and the mainstream teacher-oriented learning,
on the other. Just-in-time learning stimuli from the formal body
of knowledge and the informal learning stimuli from team and organizational
memory are merged in the process leading to a desired task progress.
In terms of knowledge management cycles, this is the part of the
cycle that connects the initial knowledge acquisition with the
result of personal knowledge processing. The next step, and the
actual onset of a new cycle, starts with the consolidation of
the improved or changed insights, which result from the produced
task result. VBT workstations may facilitate feeding these new
insights to the formal and informal knowledge sources at hand;
they foster the updating of inputs to have them available to the
future knowledge management cycles. Thus, there is a continuous
upgrading of the VBT knowledge sources for personal, team and
organizational memory purposes.
6.
Conclusions
Four
major deployment modes of VirtualBusinessTeams -- all combining
professional learning and working-- have been identified, ranging
from mainly individual growth to organisational development. In
addition a number of general conclusions can be drown on the basis
of our experiences in developing concepts for VirtualBusinessTeams,
and putting them (on a limited scale) into practice:
- Participation
in a VBT tends to be a highly motivating way of combining
learning and working, in networked communities that reduce
the need for "same-time, same place" contacts.
- A
VBT forms a rich source for both individual and organizational
learning.
- Usage
of VBT-concepts makes the need for organizational knowledge
management an apparent, and seems a practical way to introduce
knowledge-management in (parts of) an organization. The asynchronity
(different-time, different-place) forces participants to be
more explicit than would happen in ordinary synchronous (same-time,
same-place) contacts. This explicitness can be used to document
individual knowledge or expertise that otherwise would have
remained tacit, thus making it reusable for others in an organization.
- Although
a VBT relies upon usage of powerful ICT-infrastructures, it
is being implemented using , "off-the-shelf" groupware-tools.
Serious interaction-design is needed to facilitate trainees
to work and act in their organizational surrounding.
7.
Acknowledgement
The
VirtualBusinessTeam project is collaboration between the Science
and Technology Department and the Educational Technology Department
of the Open University of the Netherlands. It is very much a team
effort, which never could have come to fruition without the help
of the other team members: Jeroen Berkhout, Marlies Bitter, Jo
Boon, Erik Brok, Jan van Bruggen, Dieuwke de Haan, Desiree Joosten,
Gerrie Joosten, Theo de Kok, Karel Kreijns, Christel van den Maagdenberg,
Frans Mofers, Raymond Niesink, Wessel Slot, Dominique Sluijsmans,
Howard Spoelstra, Robert Schuwer, Marjolein Terken, Fred de Vries,
Wim Westera, Anke van der Zijl.
8.
References
[Cro55]
L. J. Chronbach, P. E. Meehl, Construct validity in psychological
tests, Psychological Bulletin, 1955, vol. 52, pp. 281-302. [Ger98]
J. Gerrissen, R. Schuwer, Convergence of personal and organizational
knowledge management in VirtualBusiness-based learning, Helsinki,
7th HFT workshop, December 13th, 1998
[Lip97]
J. Lipnack, J. Stamps, Virtual Teams: Reaching Across Space, Time,
and Organizations With Technology, May 1997, John Wiley &
Sons, ISBN: 0471165530.
[OTEC98]
D. Sluijsmans, J. Boon, D. de Haan, De alpharun van het virtueel
bedrijf. Een evaluatie (in Dutch: The alpha-run of the Virtual
Company. An evaluation), OTEC Report 98/W03, Open University of
the Netherlands, 1998, pp. 1 - 66.
[Schu98]
R. Schuwer, Een virtueel bedrijf als leeromgeving (in Dutch: A
virtual company as a learning environment), Informer, August 1998,
pp. 16 - 18.
[Slo99]
Peter Sloep, Wessel Slot, Dominique Sluijsmans, Dieuwke de Haan,
Competentiegericht leren in een Virtueel bedrijf (in Dutch: Competence-based
Learning in a Virtual Company) (in press).
[Vpet99a]
Wim Van Petegem, Peter Sloep, Jack Gerrissen, Darco Jansen and
Robert Schuwer, VirtualBusinessTeams: Enabling Competence-Based
Learning and Working in a Virtual Networked Enterprise, accepted
for presentation at the ENABLE99 conference, Espoo (Finland),
June 2-5, 1999.
[VPet99b]
W. Van Petegem, P. Sloep, J. Gerrissen, R. Schuwer, D. Janssen,
VirtualBusinessTeams for Professional Development and Team Learning,
accepted for presentation at the IFIP conference, University of
California, Irvine, August 4-6, 1999.
[Wes98a]
W. Westera, P. Sloep, The Virtual Company: Toward A Self-Directed,
Competence-Based Learning Environment in Distance Education, Educational
Technology, Vol. 38 (1), 1998, pp 32 - 38.
[Wes98b]
W. Westera, Competence learning in a virtual company: a paradigm
shift in education, presented at Online Educa Berlin, 3 - 4 December
1998.
[Wes99]
W. Westera, P.B. Sloep, J. Gerrissen, The Design of the Virtual
Company; Synergism of learning and Working in a Networked Environment
(submitted for publication).
3
In a recent pilot we used a method for improving the quality of
the process of software-development ("Fagan-inspections") as an
exemplary task of knowledge processing.
Resources
|
