SIEMENS LEARNING VALLEY ABSTRACT SIEMENS LEARNING VALLEY EXPERIMENT

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The starting point of this experiment was the general agreement (in particular between the Training Managers and the Managemen

SIEMENS LEARNING VALLEY

Abstract

Siemens Learning Valley experiment is an innovative and unique model aimed to design, build and implement an open and flexible environment supporting the development of learning organization in which every user (Siemens employees) is potentially a trainer as well as a learner.

Description

The starting point of this experiment was the general agreement (in particular between the Training Managers and the Management) on the three following statements:

the main challenge of a knowledge-intensive company is to meet the training needs of all staff and clients in a technological fast changing environment. The Training Department cannot fulfill these needs any longer by traditional contact training
a growing number of companies and organization are developing a new learning culture, since they realize that learning faster than the competition is the only competitive advantage which is viable.
Knowledge Management, knowledge sharing, training and e-learning are solutions for learning. They are all sides of the same coin

In 1998, the CEO of Siemens Belux (Belgium & Luxembourg) started up studying how to integrate the activities of the different business units' training centers. The main concern was not to rationalize activities but to improve the training offer aimed at Siemens employees but also at clients. ICT as potential support of the training processes is one of the clue Siemens decided to follow up. The first task consists in answering many questions such as:

How could e-learning help us to achieve our goals ?
What did Knowledge Management mean to us?
How could it be implemented within Siemens Belux?

Year 1999 enables the project group to explain, demonstrate and convince the top management from the different business units to integrate SLV experiment into their global strategy. They gain support from the top management.

During 2000 the project group focused on the portal development as well as the organisation of a road show. Different locations were visited, more than twelve thousand people were concerned. The aim was again to explain and share the vision but also to give opportunity for hands-on experience with the different applications.

Year 2001 has seen the first re-engineering of the portal former version partly due to users comments and proposals. On November the 15th, the second version of SLV was launched.

But, the major challenge is not to implement a flexible training system supported by ICT. It is to transform the entire company in a learning organization where the “learning power” will improve the ability of the whole company to innovate and develop new and better products and services.

It is important to point out that this experiment is not to be seen as a sudden break with past practices even if it implies considerable changes and impacts at different levels: culture, value system, learning and training status representation, power sharing among the company, relation between labour organisation and training. Actually SLV came within the scope of a kind of continuum for the company has put a lot on the field of ICT applied to training for a long time (Technology Based Learning project funded by the ESF, Computer Based Training experiments, etc…): but, it is clear that they are going one step beyond with The Learning Valley.

The flexible system set up at Siemens aimed to design, build and implement an innovative open and flexible environment supporting the development of a learning organization: a learning portal called Siemens Learning Valley, http://www.siemens.be/slv/. This portal allows people to learn and share their knowledge with others.

This open space that rely upon many different functions (tools for the management of training, tools for the communities of practice on a worldwide intranet, tool for real time on line presentations and briefing sessions, search tools for knowledge management…) is one of the component and one of the conditions required for the development of a learning organization.

But, as Siemens project managers points out, E-learning & Knowledge Management are to be considered not as a results of the learning organization but as symptoms.

They consider there are three steps for achieving e-learning and knowledge management:

Install new, high tech e-learning and knowledge sharing processes. It is actually to give access to the information flow (the portal) and to an environment encouraging collaborative working and knowledge sharing.
Develop new learning skills (both technical and social) i.e. to encourage specific skills development such as « learning to learn»,
Increase learning tension by forcing a new management culture, that means to encourage and support the learning motivation (what Jeff Staes calls the learning tension); it implies and requires to re-engineer labour organisation, to redefine its purposes and objectives but also to imagine a completely new approach of the management modes among the different business units.

The first step towards such an ambitious project aimed at setting up the necessary infrastructures to reach the original goal : i.e "feeding the hungry learners".

Thus, they can choose their path of learning (what, when and how to learn) and be responsible for it: this is called empowerment.

According to Francis Verheughe, CEO of Siemens Belgium, “staff will have to choose à la carte. They cannot sit back and wait passively until specific courses are offered but need to go hunting for the information that will increase their competencies. They are in the middle of the valley and must know which information sources and knowledge streams they should drink from to flourish and bloom”. The valley metaphor is a significant symbol of Siemens’ innovative project philosophy: the water running through the valley can be seen as the knowledge flow which allows everybody in the company on the one hand to learn from the flow and on the second hand to contribute to it. The green fields represents the employees who, as plants in nature, have to be in the right place to grow. The sun in the valley represents the strategic vision of the company. So, plants (employees) should grow (develop their skills) towards the sun (to achieve the company’s goals).

Today, most users are « white collars » (engineers, R&D employees..), they are the main target. “Blue collars » represent around ten per cent of the overall staff at Siemens Belux. One of the first priorities was to “enrol” two thousand « knowledge workers » that is to say people with higher education.

The experiment has been funded upon private funding from the company. However, right from the start, project managers had to rely upon funding originally dedicated to training budget among their own business unit.

Jef Staes, a pioneer full of learning tension, is the architect of the project and a former training manage. Today, he is in charge of the Corporate Learning Services and member of the management team of SLV business unit.

Today, the SLV team (14 people) is subdivided into 5 teams :

- Sales & Marketing

- Technical Office (project management, installation, operation)

- Knowledge Management (facilitation and consultancy)

- Learning Services (training and consultancy)

- IT Training Centre (training and consultancy)

From concept (AAA-learning strategy) to incarnation (Siemens Learning Valley):

The system design can be considered as a continuous story of change. The Siemens Learning Valley is not just a selection of technology or applications, it is based on a challenging vision and strategy towards learning. Above all, it is the incarnation of a concept: the AAA-learning strategy. This concept is the fruit of experiences and much work led between 1998 et 1999. One of the basis is the notion of “Learning Power”. It is a process captured in Jeff’s Law® : Learning Power = Learning Tension * Information Flow (the analogy is based on the basic electricity law).

According to Jeff’s Law, the learning power is a person’s capacity to capture and use information in an effort to develop new skills, knowledge and attitudes. Without sufficient learning power, people aren’t able to adapt swiftly enough to what is happening in the world. Without this power the circle of innovation is fiction.

High motivated employees have a high learning tension. It supposes they are at the right place, in the right roles in their company. In that case, information doesn’t have to be pushed towards employees, they pull the appropriate information from the information flow (coming from the portal). Consequently, human resources management is of paramount importance to develop the tension.

Nevertheless, these “hungry” employees need to develop learning skills (social skills and emotional intelligence) in order to capture the right information among the flow. This learning skills will determine the way they are going to be able to learn: either by traditional classroom sessions, technology-supported sessions, elearning or sharing information through Knowledge Management applications... Consequently, the challenge is to promote PULL learning rather than PUSH learning in other words adapt the learning system to the different ways of learning and working.

The AAA-learning strategy has been the driver towards the application selection. It combines training (classroom), e-learning and knowledge sharing by means of Communities of Practice (CoP) . According to Jeff’s Law, the learning behaviour changes when their learning tension increases.

Awakening: if people have a low learning tension they can only learn in classroom environment i.e push learning.
Absorption: if the learning tension increases people will start using other learning systems such as e-learning or web-based training.
Action: if people have a high learning tension, they will start participating in CoP, sharing best practices for instance

Jeff Staes points out it corresponds to the “GATA” age, an age where people “Give Away and Take Away” information to develop their competencies.

The portal Siemens Learning Valley applications:

This portal allows all people within Siemens Belux and even worldwide to learn and share their knowledge with others. The first version designed in 2000 focuses on the applications. But the project-group realizes through the users’ prism that above all the portal should focus on clients. So the portal was re-engineered in November 2001.

The users, connected at work or at home, have the possibility to use ‘Remote Access System’, toll free call from home with modem connection (20% is using the toolset outside the office hours).

You can have access to the portal from three distinct levels :

Learning Services
CoP
Knowledge Management

Each level offers different functions. For full details on the applications and solution components of the system, refer to http://www.siemens.be/svl

TC Manager : the Training Center Manager is a client-server based application that fully supports the administration of an educational training center.

It supports:

organizational units
various delivery methods: e-learning, standard course, onsite, project, hotel seminar,…
e-learning management: modules publication, order and tracking,
all tasks related to course delivery: course planning and delivery, enrolment and billing, marketing, customer relationship, project and financial controlling, quality checking
user-defined lookup tables to customize the system
user-defined access rights
a graphical curriculum designer
catalogue publishing and course booking via internet
training history, customer relationship management at company, department and individual level on the internet.

Employees are thus able to browse through the training offer of the different training centres within the business units as well as on-line courses. There are 7000 titles available among which around 500 Netg modules (availability planned for December 2001). The domains covered range from product training to software solutions etc…

SLV focus on self diagnostic testing, self assessment. The system is open and encourages empowerment. SLV is thus centred on the learners who are supposed to be able to determine their “journey”, the different steps and means of transport, the tutorial modes as well as their planning. Consequently, individual autonomy is of paramount importance in the operation, management and development of the portal. Managers involvement is also a crucial element to guaranty the system compliance with the employee training needs . Flow of information is supported by the portal, it makes it available. The middle management should make it accessible.

Horizonlive : it has been chosen and installed y Siemens to offer on-line classroom learning with audio and video modules. This scalable platform allows the SLV portal managers to deliver on-line classes in an easy to use interface. It makes it possible to attend presentations live, to ask questions directly and to get an answer to that question without leaving your workplace.

The main features are:

eBoard (kind of whiteboard) allows the participants to enter text, place arrows, draw in free form, select colours and even import images,
LiveApp allows presenters to open any applications on their desktop and send screen images, lesson slides to the participants in the session,
synchronous interaction via a real time messaging window,
real time polling,
tracking of participant attendance,
virtual hand raising,
knowledge delivering and recording
archiving and indexing

Today, there are about 140 archived sessions in the square.

The Square: It is a collaborative platform developed by Siemens Belgium. It is a knowledge environment where every user can find questions, answers, presentations, documents, videos and other learning materials.

This web-based environment is built dynamically by the users themselves who add their own experience and know-how to the Square. It is based on a pool of domains (learning topics, learning communities, Cop). Each domain is managed by a domain manager who can activate several services (e.g. information, news, FAQs, mailing list, discussion forum, coaches, sources, etc…). The domain manager can control the access rules per service per user group. Creation of domains, user groups, users etc…can be done within two minutes. The Square is of course intended for those employees having a high learning tension. There is neither a filter nor a dedicated regulator. Actually, the Square relies on a distributed responsibility concept. Each employee, learner can open a domain after having determined the target. They become responsible of the domain and rule it .

The Squares helps employees to Give Away and Take Away (GATA) knowledge, to built network with peers throughout the world. Whereas the SLV started as a Belux initiative, more than 35% of the current users are from more than 50 countries and from different business units.

Some Square statistics:

Number of user logons: 61,000

Total number of registration: 3,858

Number of communities and sub-communities: 30 very active communities and more than 100 less active, some are international.

Number of discussions: 2,400

Number of sources and documents: 4,800

KLIX: Knowledge and Learning Index.

It is a pilot project which aimed at measuring the evolution towards the learning organization and at calculating the increase of Human Capital in the organization as well as the results and contribution of learning into business units’ results. Some criteria have been selected and are directly linked to the SLV different applications.

SLV Gazette: This communication tool is published once every two months and used to be distributed to the 1 000 employees who had subscribed. In a near future the Gazette will be published every month and distributed to all employees.

Regarding the different possibilities given by this open environment, it becomes difficult to determine one organizational structure, in fact there are as many uses of the portal as many training centres within Siemens business units and learners and trainers registered.

Potentially every user, is to be considered at the same time as the trainer, tutor, mentor of a learner and as a learner himself. There is no more trainers as such, the whole company is to be seen as a training company, a learning organization where every employee is involved.

Outputs

The entire SLV portal and its contents:

Tools for the management of training
Tools for the communities of practice on a worldwide intranet
Tolls for real time on line presentations and briefing sessions
Search tools for Knowledge Management

There are more than 4300 sources (continuous growth) developed by the experts on the floor:
more than 160 HorizonLive archives (on-line classroom)
95 Netg titles (technical) will be 500 titles (10/12/2001)
60 digital video’s Computer Channel
60 streamed, stand-alone media
... PowerPoint slideshows, URL referring to online learning material on the internet and Siemens intranet.

It is important to point out that the activities in the platform are part of the social balance but also part of the ISO 9001/9002 process.

Innovative dimensions

Innovation can be considered at different levels:

Technological: the tool itself is innovative. Instead of a typical LMS, Siemens develop their own system, because the market could not deliver a system with these requirements. Siemens need a decentralizing system which could support the different roles. The system must also be compliant with AAA-learning (learning strategy, see Slideshow in attach). Instead of a centralized system, where all the permissions are distributed by the IT department, the tool must support that the local learners/users can assign functionality on their learning domain. The training center isn’t the owner of the learning material. The user is defining the (strategic) learning domains. Only the management of the domain tree is centralized. Consequently, we can consider that Siemens Learning Valley support and develop the autonomy of the users.
Pedagogical: self-learning and learning communities are supported. The trainee is responsible of this own “learning journey”. He/she can shop out of a list of training programs referring to a job profile.
Organizational: Centralize the point of access (intranet portal), but distribute permissions and roles in the whole Siemens organization. Every user can choose different roles for different knowledge domains (trainee, coach, domain manager, reviewer, releaser, contributor)..

People are learning in a GATA environment (Give Away & Take Away). Normally, we live in a world of ‘Take Away’ if we talk about ‘training’. The users activity become visible in a way of ‘showing the expert level of the user and also the quality level of the contributions.
We need this toolset to become a learning organization. Learning isn’t always formalized in a separately time frame. On the job learning becomes available.
Professional impacts: Self-empowerment of the employees. The user’s visibility can gain. So he/she can become a key player for a certain knowledge domain. Learning and knowledge sharing become part of the daily work. SLV supports the development of Livelong Learning which is also part of the worldwide Siemens values. The different knowledge domains are open for all job profiles (cfr. The Internet, Information Society).

The first level of transfer is Siemens (BELUX)business units but actually the overall company is involved in the development of the system.

SLV, as a business unit, is regularly approached for training and consultancy. So, we can argue that the expertise developed through the project is already transferred "offshore" .

Nevertheless, the Siemens experiment is quite singular. This process comes within the scope of a specific environment which is of paramount importance. Organizational aspects, branch of industry, value system, strategy, history…are factors that makes us understand Siemens Learning Valley engineering. Nevertheless, some suggestions can be put forward.

The dissemination has to be supported by a learning strategy and the support of the top management. Without those 2 conditions, it will take to long, before the toolset can become a part of the daily work. Instead of focusing on the toolset, you should focus on the strategy and the support within the organization. The 4 main parts are: Support, Content, Technology and Pedagogy. To have a successfully dissemination, you will need a critical mass (min. 500 users) and good contents to start with. Most of the time, at Siemens they start-up different small interest groups, simultaneously. Again, you need the support of the management to empower and to self-empower the users.

The challenge is not to develop technological innovation, it is to support social innovation: that means organizational, cultural changes…

Last but not least, Jef Staes et Alex Vandeweyer are regularly called for seminars and conferences.

Some key points should be focused on if transfer is to be operated:

social innovation: identify how the social forces are appropriated to this technological and innovative system (means of appropriation, brakes and levers, ...)
impact on organization and professional practices evolution
means and ways to determine a strategic vision upstream the system design
the pedagogical output and the impact of the system on the company growth
...

Outcomes

KLIX (Knowledge and Learning Index) is a pilot project which aimed at measuring the evolution towards the learning organization and at calculating the increase of Human Capital in the organization as well as the results and contribution of learning into business units’ results. Some criteria have been selected and are directly linked to the SLV different applications.

As specified before, SLV is an ongoing experiment since 2000 and KLIX is a pilot project so results are to be obtained in a near future.

Flux (number of visits, people registered, domain managers, FAQs etc...) regarding each of the application as well as the numerous Outputs are relevant indicators.

Some positive items:

the definition of a common vision
the operational link between the concept (AAA strategy) and its "incarnation": the portal
an open environment which aims at encouraging self-empowerment
the project scale and its dissemination power
the significant flux and outputs even if the system is "newly born"
Siemens Learning Valley ability to live and progress taking into account the floor needs and comments.

Cultural resistance and the middle management poor involvement are the two main critical figures.

The level of impact:

local level: cross business unit in BELUX. The whole company as a learning organization is concerned. All types of users are impacted in their professional practices: employees, managers, training managers, human resources managers etc…
global level: the toolset is part of the worldwide Siemens Intranet, the impact will be visible in other countries. But this isn’t measured, because this isn’t part of the objectives (balanced score card). For the moment, 57 countries have users in the system. Because some communities are transnational with the headquarters (Germany). Typically is that countries with poor technical resources become (voluntary) member of the toolset (India, Indonesia, Bulgaria, Turkey, ...). Driven by the need for good information, they find their way over the Siemens Intranet. A lot of information / learning resources are shared for free.

Some other countries want to copy the method (Spain, Austria).

Accreditation

No specific procedure has been determined. Learners assessment is conducted through different methods.

The assessment organization:

Done by rating of the sources
Separately by post and pre-assessment for Netg courseware
Assessment by yearly evaluation by direct chef
Visit an assessment centre or passing an exam at the end of a training

Bibliography

Learning Organization and Human Resource Development Bibliography Books. www.brockport.edu/~prodev/bib.htm

NSLS Learning Organization Bibliography. sigma.nslsilus.org/ET/docs/bibliography.

Compilation of papers, resources, links, and bibliography with summaries.

Learning Organization Archive; Group Performance Systems (GPS) On virtual ...

www.brint.com/OrgLrng.htm

Collaborative Technology in the Learning Organization.

alexia.lis.uiuc.edu/~kazmer/biblio.html

Webliography

www.siemens.be/slv

http://www.engine-of-innovation.com

http://demo.the-square.com

http://euclides.the-square.com

http://idoceo.net

www.vov.be

www.vev.be

http://fsc.the-square.com

Contact

Jef Staes, Siemens-Atea, Atealaan, Herentals, Belgium.

mail to: [email protected]

Demo is available at www.siemens.be/slv

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