Is the CLO really the ‘fifth wheel’ in the organizational strategy wagon? Learning leaders tend to roll their eyes upward in sour-faced agreement about ending up as an after thought – after strategic alignment has been completed everywhere else in the organization, or being considered as a support service to enable and implement rather than a partner. So, what to wish for? First, I would wish for an organization that is mission-driven. This is what everyone wishes for, of course, so let me try to be specific. The mission should inspire, giving everyone something to strive for, to encourage people and structure to reinvent themselves to face global complexity – with clarity that reinvention is a constant, not a one-off. It would require strong leadership, not command-and-control, but modelling the values and practices of the organization and the acceptance that uncertainty requires calculated risk-taking, now and tomorrow. Such distributed leadership requires a strong, vocal chief executive attuned to the …
Online learning 101 for humanitarian managers and decision makers
I’ve just posted on LSi.io a comprehensive (65-minute) presentation intended for humanitarian managers and decision makers working in organizations without prior experience in online or distance learning. It includes numerous practical examples and case studies, as well as a description of the best available learning theory and best practice approaches most appropriate for the humanitarian learning context. Here are the 10 questions addressed: It’s not about technology. Really? What learning problems do you want to solve? What kind of online learning can prepare humanitarians? What do you need to know about costs, time, and complexity? Where’s the money? Do you need scale? Can you do more than transmit information with e-learning? If experience is the best teacher, how can e-learning help? Does e-learning work at all? How does all this fit together? This slide set was originally presented to the Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS) on 22 September 2014. It is available for LSi.io members …
Games for health: 14 trick questions for Ben Sawyer
Ben Sawyer is the co-founder of both the Serious Games Initiative (2002) and the Games for Health Project (2004). He is one of the leading experts on the use of game technologies, talent, and design techniques for purposes beyond entertainment. He answered 14 questions by e-mail ahead of his presentation to the IFRC Global Health Team. 1. What is your favorite game? I used to reference an old RPG (role playing game) called Ultima IV. But, in reality, it’s Minecraft. Just such a great achievement and fun to play. 2. What is the worst “serious game” you have ever played? Most of them. 3. What is a game, anyway? A game by definition is a system, defined by rules, where people engage in defined competition to achieve a quantifiable outcome either against an opponent or the system itself. There are many dictionary-style definitions. In reality, a game is a mediated experience. …
Making learning strategic in development and humanitarian organizations
This is the third in a three-part presentation about learning strategy for development and humanitarian organizations. It was first presented to the People In Aid Learning & Development Network in London on 27 February 2014.
What is a system?
Donella H. Meadows wrote the following simple, eloquent description of a system: “A system isn’t just any old collection of things. A system must consist of three kinds of things: elements, interconnections, and a function or purpose. A system is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something. The behavior of a system cannot be known just by knowing the elements of which the system is made. A system is more than the sum of its parts. It may exhibit adaptive, dynamic, goal-seeking, self-preserving, and sometimes evolutionary behavior. It is easier to learn about a system’s elements than about its interconnections. If information-based relationships are hard to see, functions or purposes are even harder. A system’s function or purpose is not necessarily spoken, written, or expressed explicitly, except through the operation of the system. Purposes are deduced from behavior, not from rhetoric or …