The Caledonian Academy

This project is an Action-Research Partnership betweeen the Caledonian Academy and Shell Learning to investigate solutions to key challenges faced by the organisation:

Dynamic, distributed, abundant knowledge is critical to successful working within an organisation. It is an essential component in solving the real world problems faced by companies every day. There is a direct correlation between available knowledge and the ability to problem-solve at work. However, this relationship is complicated by the fact that the very nature of work, and therefore workplace problems, is being transformed by global changes. This means that knowledge itself must constantly and rapidly evolve. Individuals at work must develop the dynamic capability to consume, create and share new knowledge. Until recently technologies primarily supported knowledge consumption, but emergent Web 2.0 tools and virtual worlds also allow rapid and easy creation of knowledge.

The consumption and creation of dynamic, distributed knowledge is central to addressing challenges facing Shell1 in the development of staff competencies and skills necessary to deal with the increased complexity of the petroleum industry:

1. Knowledge retention and redistribution necessitated by an anticipated major ‘crew change’;
2. Increased ‘time to competence’ for new staff as a result of reduced quality of the graduate intake;
3. Increased diversity of the workforce and the need to accommodate individual needs and preferences.

Shell Learning can solve these challenges by adopting a radical, new approach to learning that empowers and equips individuals to draw upon and feed into the ‘collective conscious’ distributed across the organisation.

Collective learning is based upon a metaphor of the ‘wisdom of the crowds’3, the idea that large groups of connected people are better able than an elite few to produce knowledge to solve problems and foster innovation. Within this metaphor the consumption and creation of collective knowledge is the responsibility of all individuals, rather than the organisation. Although this metaphor has been contested, it offers great potential for learning.