Document your experience throughout the project
Your project can inspire others! Capitalize on your experience to learn and disseminate.
Step 1: Collect
The material can be collected in different ways:
- Archaeology: browsing meeting notes, working papers, calendars, e-mails and other correspondence
- Interviews: conduct interviews with different stakeholders to gather their experiences of the project.
- Camp fire: bring the project team together and tell each other your memories. Write down or record as the conversation goes on.
For these activities, you can use the following questions as a guide:
Rationale: what were you looking for when you started the project?
Early assumptions: what assumptions did you build your project on?
Chronology: if the history of your project has followed a few major steps, what are they? What characterizes each stage? In particular, what (new) issues arose at each stage?
Stances: what choices were made, from the beginning or along the way? What events guided these choices?
Pivots: did you experience a major change of direction? At what point? Why did it happen? What did you give up? In favour of what?
Results: what are you proud of? Your failures? What questions remain? What are your next challenges?
Transformation: what does your project highlight for the organization? For each of you? In other words, what is reinforced? What is challenged?
Step 2: Formalize
Who is the feedback you want to produce for? Therefore, what do you plan in terms of format, diffusion, schedule? Organize this work, and take action!
Step 3: Desires
Beyond this effort of formalization, does this work open up new avenues for your project? For the organization?
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