Since the late 1990's the founder of The Reinvention Network, Dr Ron Beckett has been documenting and reflecting on industry experience, and exploring questions raised along the way with academic and industry colleagues. Some dominant themes are represented in the research sub-categories identified in this moodle site.
It is not common for industry practitioners to document experience in a formal academic style, but sufficient benefit has been gained for it to become the norm for us. Benefits can be summarized as follows:
- A process of reflection on experience is induced. In most industry settings, once something is dealt with or implemented, practitioners just move on to the next task, and there is very limited diffusion of the knowledge gained. The practice of reflection and writing things down enriches the learning outcomes.
- In the formal academic style, it is expected there will be some research into what has gone before and some comparison of that with the current experience. It is expected that similarities and differences will be highlighted, based on a coherent method of data collection and analysis. This introduces elements of benchmarking and quality control.
- Documenting things may take some time. But understanding the nature a document to be produced at the completion of an activity can mean that information collected whilst undertaking an activity can be captured and organized in a structured way. This has the potential to save time. Conference papers are the most common outcome for a number of reasons.
- The production and review cycle times are relatively short.
- Our objective is knowledge diffusion, with an emphasis on content and relevance.
- And finally, there are opportunities to share experiences with like-minded people and identify opportunities for collaboration