Our Mission
The Coalface Community’s mission is to help promote continuous improvement in the use and deployment of information technology by providing a forum where users can learn from the practical experiences of their peers in other companies. What we do The Coalface Community provides organisations with networking opportunities for their staff through a forum of regular organised meetings. These events are facilitated by the staff of The Coalface Community and focus on real-life, practical implementation experiences of senior local ICT executives. The topics for discussion are nominated by members to ensure that each meeting is pertinent to the needs of the members of the Community. In addition, The Coalface Community extends this networking by providing a conduit through which members with similar challenges can, on an ongoing basis, share and debate implementation tactics. How we do it
The Coalface Community is professionally facilitated by experienced senior ICT executives. These executives have a wide experience of the ICT industry gained over many years and fully understand the challenges organisations face in harnessing the full potential of ICT. This expertise enables them to recognise good practise in the implementation of ICT within business and provides them with the capability to bring these experiences to the attention of other member companies at the regular meetings of The Coalface Community. Who can attend? Any three staff from a member organisation can attend Coalface Community events. This ensures that the practical knowledge sharing provided by the Community is accessible to any appropriate staff member within an organisation. Furthermore, in order to ensure members can speak openly and candidly about their experiences, no vendors, consultants, service providers or journalists are allowed to participate in the activities of the Community. | Deliverables - 5 events per year, each of which is an end user case study of ICT by one of your peers.
- Bulletins
that provide a summarised transcript of each meeting, complete with
slides, and which, over time, will build up to become a valuable
repository of a wide-range of local ICT implementation experiences.
- Access
to a wide network of experienced ICT executives where you can discuss,
debate and share experiences to enhance implementations of ICT within
your own business.
- Inclusion in regular Audio Conference Management Briefings
Event bulletins After each event members are provided with a bulletin (see sample) which summarises the transcript of the meeting complete with slides and presentation materials. To see a sample bulletin please click here Request For AssistanceThe Coalface Community extends beyond the formal briefing sessions by helping members elicit advice for problems they may be facing at a particular time from other participating organisations in the Forum. It does this by contacting other members on their behalf with a formal request for assistance and then interviewing those who reply to produce a summary report that consolidates the views of the Coalface Community members who respond, (see example). Both the list of respondents with their contact details and the summary report and then forwarded to the person who made the original request and other members who have an interest in the issue behind the Request. This enables your organisation to pick the brains and practical experiences of a large number of fellow ICT executives and to reduce any dependency on external consulting services. A list of Requests that members have asked can be seen
here. If you wish to follow up any responses in these lists please liaise with a Coalface Community staff member quoting the Request for Assistance title"
Topic Voting form The topics that are covered in the Coalface Community are selected by the members using the topic voting form. We work closely with each member organisation to understand there topics of interested based on upcoming projects and form the meeting agendas based on this input. | 
