'La Caixa'

One day at the beginning of 2002, Jordi Sanchis, Director for e-Learning at 'la Caixa', had finished preparing his presentation for the Steering Committee session scheduled to take place that day in the headquarters building on Avenida Diagonal in Barcelona. Sanchis was due to give a summary report on the progress made in the e-Learning project in order to get the go-ahead for the next stage. He remembered the beginning of the project and his thoughts went back to June 1999, when e-Learning was still unknown in Spain. Adopting new training models was then a great challenge. These models were being used in US companies and surveys demonstrated their success. The new learning models, it was said, contributed to more effective training programmes and reduced costs compared to traditional approaches. In turn, new companies were appearing that provided training tools and solutions based on the new technologies. At 'la Caixa' the most they had done was to give courses in CD format, but nobody had even heard about participative work or computer-based space sharing. Sanchis remembered how, with support from the human resources department and mostly based on personal trust in him than on real persuasion, the proposal had been submitted for approval to the Steering Committee. The proposal dealt with managing knowledge, cultural change, and learning from success, and the attractive CD format presentation had persuaded the Committee members. That was not the specific purpose of the presentation, however, as it basically dealt with a training project and delivered a clear and sensible message to the Committee members: training could add value and save money. The training project was not intended to cover the whole range of company employees but only new recruits, providing them with efficient training in the shortest time possible. After testing the experience and its effectiveness, other groups would join the bandwagon. Given its pioneering and innovative nature, the proposal had been accepted without changes.