Mike wrote:
> This is a case of not taking Holland's point of chunking down the
> original work, saving the chunks (analysis, circumstance information,
> etc) and then from time to time returning to the chunks rather than
> the larger chunk solution. It is also a frequently repeated
> condition because the general principle is not understood.
I responded to this message last night, but I thought about how to do what
Mike is describing here each time I woke up last night. When I first read
Mike's message I thought: How am I going to preserve this information?
Because I'm surrounded by technology the first thing that popped into my
head was either a database or our document management system.
As I pondered over the issue I thought of the work done by Art Kleiner and
George Roth on Learning Histories. It seemed to me to be a perfect fit. In
the instance where we recommended 250 users, we failed to document why we
came to that conclusion. We didn't keep a history of our thinking. Had the
three of us not been employed at Novell when the issue was raised again,
no one would have known why the limit existed. I did, however, keep a
history of the solutions support structure. It's just that the history
wasn't valued by the new management.
I'm not an expert on Learning Histories -- although I'd love to be -- but
I see their power as a way of allowing an organization to reflect rather
quickly on their own history, examine systemic forces as they emerge, and
continually come to know themselves as they evolve.
The type of chuncking Mike describes would seem to fit well within a
Learning History. I'll defer that conclusion to Art and/or George.
At any rate I want to encourage all those who wish to find a way to
"measure" learning to seriously look at the Learning History project. When
I read the AutoCo case a few months ago I could instantly see the power
and the potential. Having worked for both WordPerfect and Novell, I can't
help but believe that a Learning History could have done much to help
WordPerfect remain healthy as its own company.
--Ben Compton The Accidental Learning Group Work: (801) 222-6178 Improving Business through Science and Art bcompton@geocities.com http://www.e-ad.com/ben/BEN.HTM
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>