Practitioner’s reflections (part 4)

To facilitate the group’s work, and improve the group’s productivity during our encounters, I have conducted background work in preparing, analysing, and rewording some draft texts. Although I have reworded the theme, for example, for a better understanding, I was clear that it was a suggestion open to debate. So far in this project, my pre-work was meant to be a trigger for further and deeper discussions, and I made sure there was no imposition of ideas or content by:

– Communicating to the group that the purpose of my pre-work was to trigger the discussion and insights because I was aware that: (i) there is limited time for us to meet, and; (ii) my team’s work-lives, which are already very busy, don’t allow for the immersion needed to generate the meaningful insights this project deserves. (Recognising this issue of group work-time, further along, the project’s timeline there was a change from our evening sessions to full-day but less frequent sessions. The participants welcomed this change which was put in effect on the 14th of March) 

– Asking the group the same questions I asked myself during my pre-work;

– Not showing my work to the group before we discussed any content; only showing my proposal after the discussion was well advanced, and only if the group was struggling to progress; 

– Showing my proposal and stressing that it could be ignored;

– Making changes to any content that merged my pre-work and the group’s discussion. For example, making sure some words or sentences were kept in our theme’s description, like one key contribution by a young person which said: “having a corporate family through love and relationships, not blood”.