Our intention is not much to answer questions such as "should we assess innovations?" but rather to ponder on the view that assessments can be valuable in a context of change.

Enovation and emergent change

If we agree that education equals transformation and self-transformation, we therefore agree that educational mediators are change agents. We will consider two major types of change management strategies: organized change and emergent change.

The first strategy has been thoroughly studied and relates to the comprehension of psychosocial phenomena such as support and involvement in the process introduction and the opposition to change. The second strategy relates to the three following postulates: first, consider reality as complex; second consider diversity as valuable; and finally regard change management as an appropriative process, that is a process through which the participants develop a larger control on their actual realities and on the process enabling them to change these realities.

Innovation is commonly in keeping with a strategy of organized change and enovation with a strategy of emergent change. That way, the methodology of emergent change is concerned with enovations of human activity complex systems.

The Methodology of emergent change

The Methodology of emergent change (MEC) is theoretical and an interventional methodology, a pragmatic strategy of problem solving conceived in systemic and constructivist terms.

In terms of method, we distinguish four steps that operate under a nonlinear process (Schoonbroodt & Gelinas, 1996). These steps are the following: problem setting, model setting, decision-making, and context setting.

Problem setting

This step aims at distinguishing the diversity of meanings that participants convey to the problem-situation (including the purpose of the project). As any representation is in connection with the concerned actors, it is important for the mediator-analyst to identify in real situation the individuals concerned with the set up problematic. From a request or a wish to act on a situation, the analyst’s intervention strategy starts with the identification of these characters in real situation and distinguishing them round three roles connected with the problem-situation management. This way, we distinguish:

• The customer’s role: designates the character requesting an intervention and wishing for something to happen, for himself and/or for the other participants
  
  
• The owner’s role: designates the characters concerned with the set up problem
  
  
• The decision-maker’s role: designates the characters that may act on this particular situation at their own involvement level

These three roles are not exclusive to an actor or a group of actors.

Problem setting is a major and deciding workshop in this process. Indeed, the methodology acknowledges the actors’ legitimacy to identify the problem. It is therefore a workshop that allows each actor to make explicit what is creating a problem.

Concretely, the analyst invites the actors to ponder over the problematic situation, to express their own visions and the context within which problem take up a meaning for them. In this workshop, participants are taught to examine the problem-situation objectively and to provide it with a meaning.

Problem setting is not the search for solutions. These interviews will help the analyst to search and understand what these individuals perceive, this way the analyst will be able to proceed to the next step:

Model-setting

It is used to translate the discussions on the problematic situation into logical models. The analyst uses a structuring language, on another level than the participants’. The analyst avoids reproducing or repeating what was said.

As a matter of fact, one of this workshop’s goals is to allow participants to look at the problem more objectively and become aware of the various interpreting options of a problematic situation.

Model setting allows temporarily leaving the world of constraints and resources, the world of solutions and alternatives, in order to invest in a purely rational and logical projection. The analyst takes care to create several models, one discourse leading to several models.

Besides, the introduced models should be directly connected with the problematic situation; the actors should recognize themselves.

Decision-making

The models are materials to the decision-making workshop. This step aims at allowing the participants designated as decision makers to collectively examine the results of information gathering and their processing that is model setting.

Decision-making is also a particularly essential phase in order to assess the autonomy margin that the participants will consider having in order to take the problematic situation in hand.

Context setting

The actions suggested during the decision-making phase will actualize at the step of context setting. It consists of replacing decision-making in a real context. This context leads to reality requirements, resources and constraints, culture and practices, tradition and symbols. The intervening party sees to take the variety of actions into account.