The InTouch report, entitled “The Crucial 30 Situational Learning Cases for Competitiveness” centres on what it deems to be the most crucial non-routine (non-occupationally specific) skills that should be targeted by SMEs, in the business sector, with a view to improving their competitiveness. The report covers each of the 10 transversal skills targeted by the InTouch project (communication; planning; conflict management; openness to change; decision making; teamwork; flexibility; strategic thinking; initiative; learning improvement) and, for each one, describes non-routine tasks describing the situation, the business objective and five possible options or solutions. As an example, Task 1 relates to communication whereby the "situation" is a meeting session that is becoming chaotic, the "business objective" is to control the situation and bring the meeting to order and "possible solutions" include dazzling or engaging meeting participants, remaining on track, posing questions or providing real world examples of complex topics or themes to sustain interest. Similar, and arguably more complex, tasks are provided for each of the ten core skills areas with 30 tasks provided in total.
Needs, Context and Use
The InTouch report acted, initially, as a prompt to game development through providing relevant learning scenarios tied to the ten identified skills areas. Report content extends beyond the original games-development landscape, however, and can easily be used to prompt traditional or technology-supported learning activity in the future. Companies or organisations wishing to embark on transversal skills development, for employees, will find this publication useful in terms of describing skills development goals in the form of challenges or example learning scenarios. These could easily be used to prompt in-company training or development activities. Companies wishing to develop or embark upon transversal skills training covering any of the 10 core themes (communication; planning; conflict management; openness to change; decision making; teamwork; flexibility; strategic thinking; initiative; learning improvement) will be able to make positive use of the described challenges or learning scenarios.