Best Practices as Learning Processes

1. Best Practices as Learning Processes TimoSuutari Towards Best Practices 2.0 8.10.2013

2. Structure of the presentation • Best practice as a concept. • Contextuality, learning processes and communities of practice (CoP), social innovations. • “Parallel realities” of best practices. • Is there a lesson to be learnt from ESF projects?

3. As a concept best practices are interlinked to business sector. There is no unambiguous definition for the concept. Concept is context dependent and flexible (E.g. Arnkil 2006, 58-59; Aro, Kuoppala & Mäntyneva 2004, 10.)

4. Best practices – three viewpoints • Best practices are contextual, they are always created in certain (local) context. • Best practices originate from learning processes within the communities of practices. • Best practices are reformative by nature, best practices can lead to social innovations.

5. “Parallel realities” of Best practices

6. Best practices – reflections based on ESF experiences • Conceptual ambiguity causes problems when trying to recognise and report best practices (what is meant by best practices etc.). • Sometimes best practice seems to be so mundane (“business as usual”) that it is difficult to recognise (e.g. good method for training, ways of managing collaboration between partners). It might also be so abstract that it is difficult to detect. • Publishing (hand books, journal articles etc.) is traditional but still very usable way to leave a memory trace from a project and to promote the dissemination of best practices. • Channels for dissemination and places for descriptions of best practices (e.g. web pages, portals) can not be easily found or they are rather scattered. • Still, the question remains how vivid those (textual) descriptions actually are bearing in mind that learning occurs in social interaction and mainly in forms of tacit knowledge.

7. Best practices – reflections based on ESF experiences • The final stage of the project cycle is critical for the recognition and dissemination of best practices. Unfortunately, temporary structures of the projects might cause problems: organisations may not have chance to (or sometimes are not committed to) disseminate best practices when projects have ended. • Professional identity and professional pride of project workers and developers within communities of practices can create a fertile ground for best practices to emerge and diffuse. Appreciation of peers might be even better incentive for bringing forward best practices than rewards. • From the programme point of view best practices should be transferred into national and EU level. However, from the individual (ESF) project point of view, there is a giant leap from the best practices on a project level into national or EU level development policy. • Active partnership in extra-local and national networks gives an opportunity to learn and disseminate best practices. • Individual projects can be seen as “R&D tools for the development of society”. However, should there be more emphasis on disseminating and embedding new operation models than just endlessly developing and testing them?

8. References • Arnkil, R. (2006). Hyvien käytäntöjen levittäminen EU:n kehittämisstrategiana. Teoksessa Seppänen-Järveläinen, R. & Karjalainen, V. (toim.): Kehittämistyön risteyksiä. Stakes. Gummerus Kirjapaino Oy, Jyväskylä 2009. 55–72. • Aro, T., Kuoppala, M. & Mäntyneva, P. (2004). Hyvästä paras. Jaettu kehittämisvastuu ESR-projekteissa. Hyvät käytännöt -käsikirja. Työministeriö. Oy Edita Ab, Helsinki 2004.