For further information contact:
Simone Staiger

Last update: 26 April 2004

From November 29 to December 4, CIAT held its first "Knowledge Sharing Week." Designed to improve communication, relationships, and collaboration within CIAT, KS week had 4 specific objectives:

• To enhance the integration of headquarters and regional staff and activities.
  
• To develop a shared understanding of the three Development Challenges and contribute to their effective operationalization.
  
• To promote effective work-planning on the part of project teams and collaborators.
  

In order to achieve these objectives, Knowledge Sharing Week included sessions designed for the following activities:

• A welcoming session with introductions for new members of CIAT.
  
• A two-day "Open Space" session in which participants identified topics of importance for them in relation to the three development challenges, established their own agenda for the session, discussed issues and options, and developped action plans for operationalizing the development challenges.
  
• A series of social events to allow people to get to know each other better and promote the interpersonal relations that are necessary for effective collaboration.
  
• A meeting of the Professional Staff Association.
• A "fair" organized by the research support service units, open to all but designed particularly to allow face-to-face interactions with out-posted staff.
• A "Expo Agronatura": a chance to meet our Latin American partners present on campus and get to know their research agendas, products and services.
  
• Time for self-organized meetings of project teams and others who need to review work and plan future activities.
  
• A set of "peer assists" that allowed staff to brainstorm and solve problems related to regional-headquarters interactions.
  
• A session designed to share and discuss regional and headquarters perspectives on opportunities for working together.
  
• An update on the planned Business Process Reengineering for fund raising and project management.

The week closed on Saturday with a wrap-up session, a workshop evaluation, and reflections on the week.