Etienne's background is ethnographic work in organizations. To understand
human systems, he says, "there is no substitute for human intelligence. No
substitute for engaging your own intelligence in a dialogue with the
people in their practice." To that end, he goes to live in the workplaces
to see what is happening.
He emphasizes the concept of a "community of practice" in areas of human
endeavor. Learning includes building shared practice among a group of
people.
I'll continue with approximate quotes of Etienne's points:
A community of practice, has:
- 1. an entrprise. Self defined, not formally by the work unit, but in
the community. For example, in insurance claims, it might be not just
doing the work, but also how to maintain identity in a job seen as "lower
level."
- 2. an automatically created regime of accountability. For example, in
claims, If you showed too much interest in the job, that might be a
violation. The community will hold accountable and deal with violators.
All practices are local. Assessment is also local.
When the whole day's work is reduced to one number in one report, so much
information is lost. The info passed between communities is so little... A
business organization is already flat. At the level of who knows what,
there are no inherrent hierarchies of ways of knowing.
Remember the joke: a person has lost his keys and is searching under the
streetlight. What are you looking for. My keys. Did you lose them here?
No, over there. Then why are you looking here? Because it's light over
here.
There is tenson between how visible something is and how close it is to
the relevant topic that you want to know.
Four Types of assessment
- Inherent, occurs in the day to day dialogue of the community. We assess
the appropriateness of doing one thing or another. There is inherent
reflection. Over lunch, about whether the new phone unit will work, about
the appropriateness of ..., who are we. Inherent assessment are not made
for outside consumption.
- Exportable. Learning Histories are made not just for the community
itself, but for outside consumption. Prepared by people in the community
for some outsider.
- Extractaive assessment. For example, extracting a piece of info out of
a practice, number of claims processed today. The form of assessment is
externally defined; it is not the community deciding what should be of
interest to the outsider.
- Systemic assessment. Trying to know, how does the local community and
it's activity fit into the whole, how aligned with larger goals, etc.
Now, cross these four types with these two:
- Particiipative, negotiatiable assessment; where the form of assessment
is tailored to the setting, context, community by community.
- Standardized, reified assessment -- a pre-determined standard. For
example, piecework pay may be seen as desireable in that the worker is
protected form arbitrary judgements.
Four types x 2 = an eight cell matrix of types of assessment.
Inherent, non-standard assessment is going on all the time, locally. What
about other forms of assessment?
-- Rick
--
Richard Karash ("Rick") | <http://world.std.com/~rkarash>
Speaker, Facilitator, Trainer | email: rkarash@karash.com
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