Change Laboratory method

Le LC2R est une structure dont les missions en près d’un demi siècle d’existence ont profondément changé. Ces modifications structurelles ont parfois été en décalage avec les mentalités nouvelles et les besoins dans le domaine de la prévention et de la santé au travail.
Après quelques changements ponctuels, une stratégie concertée a permis de résoudre des problèmes avérés dans la composition sanguine de certains salariés. On pose la question de l’insuffisante prise en compte des investissements dans ce domaine lors des commissions d‘appels d’offres qui constitue, de fait, une forme de concurrence déloyale.

Introduction: The Change Laboratory (CL) is a theoretical and methodological approach based on expansive learning concepts of Vygotsky and followers. It was developed in the 1990s by Prof. Engeström and his team at the University of Helsinki and has been applied in several countries, in various branches of production of goods and services. Its interventionist methodological emphasis is focused on the transformation of processes of work activities into organizations. In this approach, crises, dilemmas and conflicts in the activity are understood as manifestations of the contradictions in the system composed of subjects, the instruments used, material and immaterial means, rules, division of labor and communities. Rationale: The Workers’ Health Reference Center (CEREST) is a service that acts in the prevention and health promotion of workers ́ formal and informal sectors of the economy. Its activities are divided into two main sectors: counseling / rehabilitation and monitoring, which are dialectically connected. The goal of the rehabilitation/counseling to care for the pathological consequences of the activities performed by the employees, whereas the goal of the monitoring is to investigate such work processes to prevent new cases. Nevertheless, professionals of this service complain of a crisis in preventive action (dispersion performance without focusing on priorities, use of checklists that follows the regulations norms do not reach the organizational determinants). In this sense, the CL is justified to meet the challenge of prevention and was applied to improve the efficiency of the service performance, especially on the issue of surveillance with an integrated view. Those difficulties generated isolation of the professionals and loss of community at work. It was required a remodeling of the CEREST activity system. The LM in this service had the goal to engage with CEREST professionals, so that they could take ownership of the methodology and at the same time, intervene and improve the activity of the system itself, what would finally contribute for the actions in prevention of workers accident on the industries from region attended by CEREST Objective: To contribute to the remodeling of the actions of the service studied, to equate and create solutions to the structural problems faced by the service; take ownership of the formative intervention methodology; improve prevention actions performed by CEREST. Methodology: The study site was the CEREST of a municipality in the state of São Paulo / Brazil. The method used was the Change Laboratory, which allows the combination of ethnographic research with training intervention. Interventional researchers began by collecting mirror data through semi-structured interviews with Assistance and Monitoring professionals for CEREST, partners and the Coordinator of the union health
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surveillance area, and by observing the work as well as carrying out document analysis. The session topics of the Change Laboratory (LM) followed the proposed sequence for Engström: 1) Identification of the current situation and needs; 2) Double blind: Analysis and search for solution; 3) New design model and new tools; 4) Application test of the new model; 5) Consolidation and reflection of the new model. At the time of writing this article, the intervention is in phase 4. The sessions began in September and there have already been 11 2-hour weekly meetings,. The material was recorded, which facilitated its analysis and orientation of the conduct of training intervention sessions. The number of participants ranged from 9 to 14 people, reaching 19 in moments of decision on the change proposals in the past sessions. Results: In the early sessions, the object and the system of activities, difficulties perceived, the historical aspects of development of the work as a whole and the possible causes of the reported problems were identified. In the intermediate sessions the contradictions previously identified were discussed in depth and, in the final session, the group built a proposal for a new working model. In short, the group reflected that its object is transformed to produce a socially expected result, i.e., preserve workplaces and healthy workers. The contradictions raised by participants are related to the growth of demand and low number of staff, therefore, since its implementation in 1997, there have been advances in the quality of employment arising from search and appropriation of new tools for in-depth analysis of occupational accidents and care for the victims. It became evident the conflict between meeting the high number of demands and the failure to carry out a more skilled labor, using the broader approach of tools, most of the requests received, which creates significant contradictions between the subject and their object. It was also pointed out the decrease of exchange of information between sectors over the years, making it difficult to integrate activities. The new model proposed provides for an information room, which will update the data for the work-related accident victims and patients, as well as feed the planned actions of the service. A new division of labor is on trial, established to balance the demand, with the replacement of individual supervision by a multidisciplinary team, through a daily duty system in order to analyze the emergency demands, meet the priorities or refer them to the schedule of planned actions. At the sitting scheduled for next April, the results of the operation of the service will be discussed in the pilot format for validation and future remodeling of the activity system. Conclusion: The discussion about the origin of the contradictions and conflicts by Change Laboratory method allowed the participants to understand that the problems are systemic in nature, alleviating conflicts previously explained as the result of individual behavior. The engagement of participants resulted in the learning of the methodology, the beginning of more decentralized and democratic decision-making processes as essential attributes to implement the desired changes which were the re-design of the actions in prevention of workers accident performed by CEREST We thank all CEREST team for the availability to participate in the interventions and the writing of this article. The study is part of the thematic research project "Work Accident: The technical partner analysis to the social construction of change," Prot. FAPESP 2012 / 04721-1.

The purpose of the present paper is to address challenges and obstacles that educationists and researchers face while promoting expansive educational transformation through technology-mediated learning in developing countries. The paper reports challenges and possibilities encountered in Botswana Expansive School transformation (BeST) project by describing preliminary results of creating cross-functional networks, organizing ICT workshops and Change-Laboratory interventions in collaboration between European and African researchers.

Characterized by high initial void ratio, organic content and water holding capacity, fibrous peat exhibits high compressibility and low shear strength. Consequently, formation of deep fibrous peat layer often poses difficulties in construction. In practice, compressibility of deep fibrous peat layer can be reduced by deep soil stabilization technique. The technique is developed in such a way that dry binders are mixed with in situ peat soil to form columnar reinforcement in the deep peat ground prior to preloading. Preloading simulations of both untreated and stabilized peats were carried out in laboratory by loading of both soils using standard oedometer consolidation apparatus. Ordinary Portland cement, ground granulated blast furnace slag and siliceous sand were used to stabilize the soil. Analysis on the time-compression curves from the tests revealed that coefficients of vertical consolidation (cv of both soils were best predicted using square root of t52.6 method when compared to those evaluated using conventional curve fitting methods. Main reason for this is the experimental time-compression curves for the method best fit its theoretical curve. In addition, the method predicts cv of soil at 52.6% average degree of consolidation, which is less likely to be affected by secondary compression that usually occurs concurrently at the later stage of soil primary consolidation. © 2008 ejge.

ejge.com/2008/Ppr0862/Ppr0862.pdf

The Change Laboratory® is a new method for developing work practices by the practitioners. It facilitates both intensive, deep transformations and continuous incremental improvement. The idea is to arrange on the shopfloor a room or space in which there is a rich set of instruments for analyzing disturbances and for constructing new models for the work practice. The Change Laboratory is used by a natural team or work unit, initially with the help of an interventionist. The Change Laboratory was developed in the Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research of the University of Helsinki, and it is currently implemented in two major Finnish companies as pilot projects financed by the Finnish Ministry of Labour.

In this research, we begin with the problems academics experience as they navigate their way towards new ways of working associated with the recently emerged University of Technology sector. Using change laboratories' methodology, academics are taken through successive problem solving and solution developing workshops. This involves them, firstly, reflecting on past and current problematic experiences and issues in their daily lives. These experiences are then mediated through the application of Activity Theory principles so that problems are understood in a more systematic and related manner. In so doing, the academics collaboratively come to understand the contradictions which underpin current problems in working life and attempt to open up possibilities for future changes and improvements in the structure and purpose of the university. Even though a number of problems and potential resolutions are discussed in this research, this is not the focus of the article, and there are no grand claims being made about problems and their possible future solutions. Rather, the article aims to highlight how a change laboratory methodology can help academic staff develop more systematic understandings of problems emerging in universities in times of change. The focus is thus more on the learning opportunities afforded participants within the laboratory, both now and for the future.

Considérant la pertinence scientifique du CRIRES, les membres ont arrêté l’objectif de concevoir, en collaboration avec les partenaires du terrain, des modèles de nouvelles pratiques scolaires favorisant la persévérance et la réussite scolaires, et de les valider empiriquement à l’aide d’un cadre d’analyse commun, soit celui de la théorie de l’activité.

The Change Laboratory® is a new method for developing work practices by the practitioners. It facilitates both intensive, deep transformations and continuous incremental improvement. The idea is to arrange on the shopfloor a room or space in which there is a rich set of instruments for analyzing disturbances and for constructing new models for the work practice. The Change Laboratory is used by a natural team or work unit, initially with the help of an interventionist. The Change Laboratory was developed in the Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research of the University of Helsinki, and it is currently implemented in two major Finnish companies as pilot projects financed by the Finnish Ministry of Labour. 

The method used in Change Laboratory is based on the notions of re-mediation and dual stimulation, derived from the cultural-historical theory of activity (Vygotsky, 1978; Leont'ev, 1978; Engeström, 1987; Cole & Engeström, 1993). Within the Finnish school of developmental work research, activity theory has been applied in work settings for some 15 years (see Engeström & Engeström, 1986; Engeström,1991; 1993; 1995; 1996a). In the various projects, particularly in the project 'Learning and Expertise in Teams and Networks' (see Engeström, 1992; Engeström, Engeström & Kärkkäinen, in preparation) four new ideas emerged which led to the creation of the Change Laboratory:

Understanding what really happens in workplaces has become a central issue for the emerging cooperative methods of designing information systems. It is not enough to rely on the descriptive observations  or on normative accounts of work. It is necessary to find out how the work gets done and what the work practices are in the lived, everyday life of the workplace.
For that purpose, drawing from the field of activity theory and developmental work research, the author describes how the work of journalists was studied in a Finnish national daily newspaper, after the implementation of a new pagination system. The tools developed for analyzing and reflecting on work include a systemic analysis of the disturbances in the work practice.

African scholarly research is relatively invisible globally because even though research production on the continent is growing in absolute terms, it is falling in comparative terms. In addition, traditional metrics of visibility, such as the Impact Factor, fail to make legible all African scholarly production. Many African universities also do not take a strategic approach to scholarly communication to broaden the reach of their scholars'work. To address this challenge, the Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme (SCAP) was established to help raise the visibility of African scholarship by mapping current research and communication practices in Southern African universities and by recommending and piloting technical and administrative innovations based on open access dissemination principles. To do this, SCAP conducted extensive research in four faculties at the Universities of Botswana, Cape Town, Mauritius and Namibia.

This is a paper based on a three year ethnographic research in a large Finnish newspaper which was implementing a new layout system 1995-1997. A Change Laboratory was conducted at the site in 1996.
Journalists had quite conflicting notions about the purpose of their work varying from proof reading the commas to changing the society.
I discuss also ethnographic methods for studying journalistic work and new ways of doing "ethnography of change"