Time for feedback, planning & work

Yesterday we met with the mentors of the course for a project clinic. We discussed how far we had come, what our focus is now and how to proceed to make our final product, report and presentation. What the outcome should be is not very strictly regulated by the course; there are only some guidelines the headings that have to be included in the final report. In our specific case we got the recommendation to include the background information and research that we did on water and sanitation even though we in the end product chose to have a wider scope than that. Another thing said during the meeting was that we should try explaining why we chose some methods for participatory processes and why we left others out. 

For the final presentation the mentors encouraged us to be creative and try to have interaction with the other students of the course. One thought was that we could test one of the methods for problem solving on the students of the course during the final presentation in order to make presentation attractive, interactive and interesting. For the final presentation the university has invited guests invited from NGOs, the Finnish foreign ministry and we were also welcome to invite more people that might have an interest in these topics.

We felt like we got good feedback on the project clinic and we also got compliments for being a dynamic group. It was nice to hear and to feel that we are on the right track!

 

Today we had a breakfast meeting where we figured out what content we want in our final report. We organized who should write what and where, and what sections we should write together. We renamed some of the headings so it follows a more scientific format that we found would be easier to understand. Until next week we will make drafts for the final report and the final products. The deadline that we decided on is 24.04.2014 and in before that there are Easter holiday. In order to enjoy some holidays as well we will try to use our time efficiently and now continue working!

Brainstorming

This time we had a longer brainstorming meeting to get our further directions and actions concerning our final product. This final product will be a guide to "train the trainers", e.g. ASSCODECHA activists (but in general the goal is to design the guide for a broader target group, i.e. everybody, who is able to read and motivated to organize and solve problems) to create an atmosphere, in which problem solving becomes motivating and fun.

We refined our project plan and schedule and about our guide we decided on following goals:

• delivery to ASSCODECHA, Taksvärkki and Aalto
• format will be a printed ABC step-by-step guide from easy-to-organize (A) to more difficult to realize (C) solutions as well as one booklet, which describes the C-solution (e.g. hackathon) more extensively; we will publish it in the internet via website and maybe a video
• the final language of the product will be English and Portuguese

The ABC solutions seemed to be a good idea to get people motivated in the first stage. If organizing a hackathon sounded like a too difficult task for somebody, he/she could start with organizing a smaller event, e.g. workshop about a certain topic. If this approach works, then the level of difficulty could raise and the person tries a B approach, until finally the C step is reached. About the actual content of the A, B and C steps we will discuss in our following meetings.

Furthermore, to work more effectively on the different tasks, we assigned project managers to every to-do on our list. Now it is all about summarizing our earlier research and pick the important parts that shall end up in our guide!

Time to figure it out.

Today we met again to go over the feedback we got yesterday at the mid-review and to decide how to proceed.

The core of the feedback was that we need to find our focus (which we already knew). We have to be ready with our objectives and a vision of our end product by the project clinic in two weeks.

We had a long discussion about our end product. Currently our vision is to produce something about

different participatory methods focusing on building the problem-solving atmosphere (such as hackathons) rather than implementing solutions. This something would be a tool primarily aimed at ASSCODECHA's activists, as they call them, to support them when they plan their projects.

The final format is not yet clear, but we all agree that the format plays an important role. Possibly we'll make a package of a report, a booklet, videos, and a website or a wiki.

We'll meet on Friday at 4pm at Design Factory to workshop and figure everything out. 

What a journey!