THE STRUCTURE AND SETUP OF THE CHANGE LABORATORY

The central tool of the Change Laboratory is a 3x3 set of surfaces for representing the work activity. Workers participating in the Change Laboratory process are facing the surfaces, aided by a scribe appointed from among them as well as by video equipment and available additional tools such as relevant databases and a reference library (Figure 1).  
  
Figure 1: Prototypical layout of the Change Laboratory  


The horizontal dimension of the surfaces represents different levels of abstraction and theoretical generalization. At one end, the mirror surface is used to represent and examine experiences from work practice, particularly problem situations and disturbances, but also novel innovative solutions. Videotaped work episodes as well as stories, interviews, customer feedback and regular performance statistics are used in the mirror.  
At the other end, the model/vision surface is reserved for theoretical tools and conceptual analysis. The complex triangular model shown in Figure 1 (for theoretical elaboration, see Engeström, 1987) is used to analyze the systemic quality and interconnections of work activity. Systemic roots of specific but recurring problems and disturbances are traced and conceptualized as inner contradictions of the activity system. In addition, a general model of the steps of an expansive learning cycle is used on this surface, to enable the workers to analyze the current and projected next stage of the evolution of their activity (Figure 2; see Engeström, 1987).
 
Figure 2: Steps of expansive learning  
The third surface in the middle is reserved for ideas and tools. In analysis of problem situations and in the design of a new model for the work activity, intermediate cognitive tools (Norman, 1993) such as schedules and flowcharts of processes, layout pictures and diagrams of organizational structures, categorizations of interview responses, formulas for calculating costs, or techniques for idea generation and problem solving, including simulations and role playing, are often needed. As the participants move between the experiential mirror and the theoretical model/vision, they also produce intermediate ideas and partial solutions, to be tested and experimented with. These, too, are represented on the middle surface.  
The vertical dimension of the surfaces represents movement in time, between the past, the present, and the future. Work in the Change Laboratory typically starts with the mirror of present problems. It then moves to trace the roots of current trouble by mirroring experiences from the past and by modeling the past activity system. The work then proceeds to model the current activity and its inner contradictions, which enables the participants to focus their transformation efforts on essential sources of trouble. The next step is the envisioning of the future model of the activity, including its concretization by means of identifying 'next-step' partial solutions and tools. Subsequently, the stepwise implementation of the new vision is planned and monitored in the Change Laboratory. Such a cycle of expansive learning induced in the Change Laboratory typically takes three to six months. One cycle leads to the next one, and within the cycles there are smaller cycles of problem solving and learning (see Engeström, 1996; Kärkkäinen, 1996).
  

Text from Yrjö Engeström, Jaakko Virkkunen, Merja Helle, Juha Pihlaja and Ritva Poikela (1996) The Change Laboratory as a tool for transforming work

What are the main challenges in using the Change Laboratory method?

The CL method is powerful but demanding. To use its full potential, the practitioners have to learn the meaning of the tools, and the steps of the process. One identified problem was that practicioners tend to do not use the tools in the way that they were originally created. For example, the activity system triangle is a tool for analyzing the problems in a historical and systemic perspective. In a pressure to make the process of learning quicker and cheaper practitioners tend to eliminate steps of historical analysis, what making the model a way of classifying elements.

Other practical challenges is related to the unit of analysis for analyzing networks. As activities are becoming ever more networked, it become a challenge to represent the most relevant activities and how they are related. Moreover, it is also challenging to define who should participate. The interventionist is put in a contradictory position where including many actors increase diversity and challenge collaboration, and excluding them would lead to incomplete solutions. How to deal with networking character of interventions?

Another challenge is the increasing pressure from the "clients" to reduce costs of the intervention and their length. Practitioners want to learn quicker and invest as less as possible. Shortening the number of sessions make it difficult to go through the whole process of learning. Moreover, there is a huge pressure to standardize the tools used so that costs could be reduced.The standardization is in contradiction with the need to tailor the method for each case.

Being aware of the practical challenges of CL method is crucial to improve it and increase it impact and sustainability as a tool for learning. Thus, your feedback is crucial.

Variations of the Change Laboratory method

Nowadays, there are several variations of Change Laboratory being used to develop learning and productive activities. Recently new variations of the method had emerged such as the Change Workshop created by FIOH and "Radar" create by researchers from CRADLE.  The method has proved to be suitable for other cultural setting, such as the project lead by Prof. Kai Hakkarainen in Africa. 

Another variation of the method is applied at Aalto School of Art and Design, Media Department where Merja Helle and Maija Töyry, have developed a version of the Change Laboratory method called Mediaconcept Laboratory. This method has been applied it in newspaper, commercial magazines, third sector magazine and website development and research projects.

What is Change Laboratory?

Change Laboratory is a method for developing work practices by the practitioners. Basing on the theoretical conceptions of the dual (double) stimulation (L. Vygotsky) and expansive learning (Y. Engeström) it facilitates both intensive, deep transformations and continuous incremental improvement. The method is developed and registered by the Center of Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research, University of Helsinki.  The idea is to arrange on the shopfloor a space in which there is a rich set of instruments for analyzing disturbances and for constructing new models for the work practice. Change Laboratory is used by a team or work unit or by collaborating partners across the organizational boundaries, initially with the help of an interventionist-researcher. In the KP-Lab, the potential of the digital tools and spaces in the Change Laboratory context are explored, designed and experimented.

The Change Laboratory brings work redesign closer to the daily shopfloor practice while still keeping it analytical. This brings forth a new dialectic of close embeddedness in and reflective distance from work. It brings together practice-driven redesign processes and idea-driven construction of visions for the future, which means a new dialectic of specified improvements and comprehensive visions. It brings together multiple parallel rhythms of development in work – a new dialectic of long, medium and short cycles of innovation and change. Also, it brings together the tools of daily work and the tools of analysis and design – a new dialectic of instrumentalities.

The central tool is the 3x3 set of surfaces for representing the work activity: In the time dimension of the past, present and future, there are 1) mirror surface that shows the work practices and challenging examples of problems and disturbances at work; 2) a model surface displaying the entire activity system that is used to make sense of the built-in contradictions generating the troubles and disturbances depicted in the mirror, and to construct a vision of the past and the future of the activity system; 3) ideas  and tools surface in the middle of the mirror and models for the potential capabilities and emerging formations for reorganizing the activity. Workers face the surfaces aided by a scribe appointed from among them, by video equipment and additional tools such as databases and a reference library.

Ahonen, H., Engeström, Y. & Virkkunen, J. (2000). Knowledge Management – The second generation: Creating competencies within and between work communities in the Competence Laboratory. In Y. Malhotra, (ed.) Knowledge Management and Virtual Organizations. London: Idea Group Publishing, 282-305.

Ahonen, H. & Virkkunen, J. (2003). Shared Challenge for Learning: Dialogue Between Management and Front-line Workers in Knowledge Management. International Journal of Information Technology and Management, 2(1/2), 59–84.

Engeström, Y., Virkkunen, J., Helle, M., Pihlaja, J. & Poikela, R. (1996). The Change laboratory as a tool for transforming work. Lifelong Learning in Europe, 1(2), 10-17.

Recent publications about the Change Laboratory Method

The latest Publications are: 


Educational context 


Teräs, M. (2007) Intercultural Learning and Hybridity in the Culture Laboratory. Doctoral dissertation. University of Helsinki, Faculty of Behavioural Sciences, Department of Education.  http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-10-3652-1


Media context


Helle, Merja,Töyry, Maija (2009). Media Concept as a Tool for Analyzing Change in Media. In  P. Oittinen ja H. Saarelma: Print Media. Principles, Processes and Quality. Helsinki: Paper Engineers' Association/Paperi ja Puu Oy, 497-530

Helle, Merja, Töyry, Maija (2009) . Changing Journalistic Work Practices. In P. Oittinen ja H.
Saarelma: Print Media - Principles, Processes and Quality. Helsinki: Paper Engineers' Association/Paperi ja Puu Oy, 13-39.

Helle, Merja (2009) Toimitustyön muuutos ja sen etnografinen tutkimus. Teoksessa Esa Väliverronen (toim.) Journalismi murroksessa, Helsinki: Gaudeamus, 91-111. 

Helle, Merja&Töyry Maija (2008) Mallilukija journalismin kehittämisen välineenä. Tiedotustutkimuksen vuosikirja. Tampere: Tampereen yliopisto.

Health care context


Kerosuo, Kajamaa and Engeström "Promoting innovation and learning through Change Laboratory: An example from Finnish Health care" in Central European Journal of Public Policy, Special Issue on Knowledge Governance (Vol 4, No 1, 2010) is available on-line. You can download individual articles or complete issue at http://www.cejpp.eu

Agribusiness context


Mukute, M. (2009) Cultural Historical Activity Theory, Expansive Learning and Agency in Permaculture Workplaces. Southern African Journal of Environmental Education, Vol. 26
Mukute, M. (2010) Exploring and expanding learning processes in sustainable agriculture workplace contexts. Doctoral dissertation, University of  Rhodes. 



Hill, R., Capper, P., & Wilson, K. (2007). Workplace learning in the New Zealand apple industry network: A new co-design method for government “peace making.” Journal of Workplace Learning, 19, 359–376.




Support learning among networks 


H Toiviainen, H Kerosuo, T (2009) “Development Radar”: the co-configuration of a tool in a learning network 


Other relevant studies 


Ahonen, H. (2008) Reciprocal development of the object and subject of learning The renewal of the learning practices of front-line communities in a telecommunications company as part of the techno-economical paradigm change


Bodrožic, Z. (2008) Post-industrial Intervention: An Activity-Theoretical Expedition Tracing the Proximal Development of Forms of Conducting Interventions


Pihlaja, J. (2005) LEARNING IN AND FOR PRODUCTION An Activity-Theoretical Study of the Historical Development of Distributed Systems of Generalizing 


Seppänen, L. (2004) Learnign Challenges in Organic Farming: An Activity Theoretical Study of On-farm Practices.