Network Project Comprehensive assessment

Comprehensive Assessment of Organizations and Networks Development Project

Identifying development needs: What is the starting point?

when you work in a company the processes cannot be held individually, there must be a team working together with a common goal or the workload would become unbearable for the one who tries to do all the tasks by himself. But when talking about teaching we tend to be very individual, working like islands even when we have a common goal, maybe because we are not used to have someone giving opinions about our teaching performance or the activities we do in class, or maybe because teachers do not accept the interference in their teaching. Anyway the objectives stay there and we must find a way to reach them as a team. In the SENA there are defined groups called “executing teams”, which are the group of instructors that teach a specific program in a school o center. Usually the executor team must be in contact and have to plan the course project together among some other tasks during the process. Unfortunately the communication among them is sometimes difficult due to different factors such as lack of time, work load, and overlapped schedules. There are some meetings institutionally defined to get together with the whole team, but it seems to be not enough, and sometimes they are so rigid that the topics covered in those meetings are limited, and the opinions of the students and the industry are not usually heard during those gatherings. That was the starting point of my networking project, I pretended to think in an option that can improve the communication in such a manner that those voices can be heard, and that deeper and more meaningful topics could be discussed by the executing team of software programming, the one that I belong to.

What are the aims of the development process?

An idea like that one cannot be developed in just two months, but with this project I pretend to implant the seed to future changes in the way the instructors see and perform their cooperation and communication. The first steps were to inform the subdirector of the school who is the head of the center, then contact the instructors and by means of an interview giving them a trigger to start the discussion in a closer and more permanent way, also involve the students, especially the ones who have the experience of being in the companies in their productive stage. Then reach the industries opinion by the students bosses in the practical stage, finally go back to the instructors and share as much possible of the opinions of the different participants of this network and start the process again, making it a cyclical conversation.

Designing a new model

The project of networking has changed a lot from its conception, although the main objective has remained from the beginning, but two moments gave a new north to the project, the first one was a comment made by Irmeli in which she proposed me to have personal interviews instead of sending formats or a survey to the participants, the second moment was when I heard on the radio about a new perception of companies worldwide which says that the best ideas come from the must unusual places, they made a concrete reference “the best ideas come from the cafeteria of the company” It caused me and impact that made me think in the experience at SENA, what is going on here, do we really pay attention to the fresh ideas, do we really have successful meetings. Then I investigated a little bit more about it, I found a blog about Steven Berlin Johnson, an American writer who in his speech of “the intersection of science, technology and personal experience, in the TED global 2010 conference” reaffirms the idea of the importance of moments free of pressure to create innovative ideas for companies. This concept is also taken for companies like Google that created a working model where the creativity is a valued instrument, and where the spaces and moments to promote creativity are highly appreciated, and the model of stress, common in other companies, is avoided a most. When I finally had the encounters with teachers, I found with big surprise, that the conversation after the formal interview was a lot more productive than the previous discussion; it appeared secrets, pedagogical tips, deep feelings, and even real compromises of future activities where I really got what I was expecting from the project. All the participants were willing to contribute, and all of them had something to say, but it was only after each interview, in a free of pressure environment, where the best information emerged.

Implementing and evaluating the development process

As I mentioned before in this document the first step was to inform the sub-director of the school, then contact the instructors and interview them a trigger, also involve the students with the same methodology; after that reach the industries opinion through the students bosses, finally go back to the instructors and share the opinions of the different participants. I am still on the third step, and I am going to continue with the company bosses in the future days. The data has been collected in two ways, initially by recorded interviews, and the second is through notes taken after every conversation, all the information of the compromises acquired with the participants has been sent through e-mails and two Facebook groups that were previously created for students.

Disseminating the results.

So far the dissemination has been done person by person; the second step for it was to become part of the pedagogical team of the center, something that I already did, I was accepted in it, but only until December I am going to have the opportunity to share the results of the project; finally the last step is to write an article in the new magazine created by the instructors school, I already made the contacts, and I was told that this trimester the first edition is already completed, but the next trimester they are going receive the articles from the teachers and I am invited to participate with one text, of course I am going to talk about my network development project.