EXPERIENTIAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT LEARNING FOR ENGINEERS

Engineers need more and more to be trained in change management in order to successfully lead projects and to generate changes in organizations. Teaching in change management requires being active and applied to reality, theoretical knowledge is not enough. In addition, it is necessary to observe different types of change processes that account for the great variety of difficulties and opportunities that arise in organizational changes.

For ten years in the faculty of Engineering of the University of Chile, in the Master of Technology and Business, the Change Management course has been held. The CHESS change management model has been used (by its Spanish acronym: Conscious, Holistic, Experiential, Systemic and Sustainable).
The Comprehensive Ontological Learning Model (MOAI, by its Spanish acronym) has been used as a pedagogical method.

This experiential and active methodology ensures that students are protagonists of their own learning process. During the semester, the course considers work in teams called "learning communities".

In the course they design and develop five simultaneous change processes:
1) a project of technological change in a company,
2) a project of personal change,
3) learn to work in learning communities
4) keep a log with the record of learning of the course and
5) learn to have an active participation in the course.

The CHESS model is used to design, monitor and redesign the change processes they lead.

Most of these processes of change have been successful. This course has been the best evaluated of the magister's program for several years. The students have declared themselves very satisfied with the course and with their learning. Surveys and evaluations have been conducted that show that this course has been very useful for their professional performance and is considered a central course in their training.