Francesca Carmagnola, ENGIM Piemonte, Italy
Francesca Carmagnola

In Italy, ENGIM manages 23 Training
Centres and one Study Centre. It has
4 operational centres in Piedmont which offer training and guidance services in the fields of industry and craftwork, the service industry and
ICT, catering/bar and health care.
ENGIM has in our centre only around 50 employees full time and around 700 learners.

ENGIM TORINO
Training courses for young people & adults in these fields:
 Environment
 ICT
 Personal Development and Project Management
 Care and Health
 Catering and Food sector (kitchen)
EU PROJECTS
 IEE: Sustainable mobility
 Grundtvig: Language for migrants
 Leonardo: Training for SMEs
Francesca Carmagnola

This is what we do. But how we do it?
Our challenge: creating partecipation and improving collaboration and knowledge exchange between coworkers and between students.
PARTECIPATION
Between co-workers fosters innovation
Between students supports learning
Francesca Carmagnola

Partecipation between co-workers fosters innovation
Partecipation as collaboration between co-workers
Collaboration is a process defined by the recursive interaction of knowledge and mutual learning between two or more people who are working together, in an intellectual endeavor, toward a common goal which is typically creative in nature.
(Wikipedia) )
Francesca Carmagnola

The process of collaboration is often associated with ‘ teamwork ’
The main idea of collaboration
… is of working together … sharing of planning, making decisions, solving problems, setting goals, assuming responsibility, working together cooperatively, communicating, and coordinating openly (Baggs & Schmitt, 1988).
Collaborative Process
 Team Creation
 Idea Generation
 Decision-Making
 Work or Production
 Evaluation
Francesca Carmagnola

A “proper” team should be made of:
 Small numbers of people - < 12
 Complementary skills in group members
 Common purposes for working
 Performance goals agreed upon
 Shared working approaches
 Mutual accountability amongst all members
(Katzenbach and Smith)
How to improve the collaboration in a team to achieve better performance results?
Francesca Carmagnola

Improving collaboration requires a cultural change
OLD STYLE CULTURE
Command and control
NEW STYLE CULTURE
Consensus-driven
Formal and closed
Fear of making mistakes
Informal and open
Explore and evaluate
Francesca Carmagnola

… as well as a behavioural change
I interact with the others when I have the time
Old-style worker
New-style worker
I interact with the others often and self-initiated
I use only the e-mail
I use several tools
Francesca Carmagnola

Team creation = connecting people
Community of Practice
A Community of Practice is a network of individuals with common problems or interests who get together to explore ways of working, identify common solutions, and share good practice and ideas.
(Steve Dale Director Semantix)
Francesca Carmagnola

Communities of Practice: features
CoP are not a way to bring new knowledge into an organisation, but an opportunity to support and increase the knowledge that is already available in the organisation.
 CoP put you in touch with like-minded colleagues and peers
 CoP allow you to share your experiences and learn from others
 CoP allow you to collaborate and achieve common outcomes
 CoP accelerate your learning
 CoP provide the opportunity to innovate and create new ideas starting from existing knowledge
Francesca Carmagnola

Communities of Practice in ENGIM
 Meetings facilitator
 Pre-defined duration
 Pre-defined number of meetings
 Clear action plan with activities
 Pre-defined shared goals to be achieved
 Pre-defined maximum budget
 Different roles, competencies and responsabilities
 None chief but only shared leadership
Francesca Carmagnola

The meeting facilitator states that…
“We didn’t get out the average of our competencies, but the preeminences of every single member have been brought to the light”
Preserved working environment
Open network
How the success is possibile?
Shared goals and common interests
Greatly motivated team
Francesca Carmagnola

Which tools to foster collaboration into CoP?
Francesca Carmagnola

Basic tools
 Email / Mailing List
 Telephone Meeting
 Presentation Tools
 Document storage and exchange
Then web 2.0 and social software came providing greater support for innovation

Social software provide the infrastructure for innovation
(Steve Dale Director Semantix)
Francesca Carmagnola

Social software provide the infrastructure for innovation in ENGIM
Francesca Carmagnola

Main outcomes
 Behavioural change: thanks to the easiness of the partecipating tools every member of the CoP partecipates in the creation of content
 Reduction of the digital divide
 Continued and growing enthusiasm for collaboration
 Many self-organising networks
Francesca Carmagnola

Don’t forget that our customers are the students!
Partecipation between students supports learning
51% students study both on books and on web materials.
Only 41% of them use only books!
(AIE Research, 2010)
 Students are no more passive but active protagonists of the creation of content to be shared.
 Tools like Blog, Wikis, Podcast, RSS are commonly used.
Francesca Carmagnola

And the trainers?
 The trainers need to change their role from “dispenser of information” to “generator of knowledge”
 Young students are bewildered when they come in a typical environment of the XIX century that still characterizes the educational establishment
 Learning can benefit from sharing of content and free access to information, typical of the new frontiers of Web 2.0
 The biggest challenge, for trainers, is to interact with the digital generation.
Francesca Carmagnola

Which tools to foster partecipation between students?
Francesca Carmagnola

Social software provide the infrastructure also for supporting learning in ENGIM
Francesca Carmagnola

We are still alive
Main outcomes
Still to be confirmed but…
…and in good health!
Francesca Carmagnola

Thank you for the attention
Questions francesca.carmagnola@engim.it
Francesca Carmagnola