Personal Blogs

Helen's comment on the last post made me think. We have these three dynamic streams interacting: the fellows, the alumni thing and the environment. I realise now that I didn't explore enough the fellows' personal trajectory and now i have a lot of questions about that.

Some fellows want to use the alumni group as a way of sharing good practices and experiences about reaching the poor in rural communities; others want to use it to multiply the AWARD effect and build agricultural science leadership capacity in other cohorts of women and girls, others want to use it to increase their visibility and further their careers.

Now it could be that some people are more egotistical than others, but i suspect the difference lies with the fellows progress on their trajectory. Those who are now quite high in their career want to give back, make a difference, set agendas and influence policy. How can i explore this? Well, i guess i could look at the job title... but the job title we have on file is the one they started the fellowship with not necessarily current. Though I am sure i could find the current one with a little effort.

And/or i can share these findings - somehow in a way that does not judge fellows on the basis of their altruism - and see if it rings true to them. So, possibly sharing one to one not as a wider forum...?

[This does not come out very well in blog format. For an easy-to-read version, see the Word version in Dropbox http://db.tt/LkrN76MI ]

System 1: The Research Process - the WHAT SSM(p)

PQR: a system to design and carry out a project into COP praxis in the context of AWARD alumnae in order to complete a Master's in Systems Thinking in Practice by critical reading on COP theory and practice, on alumnae schemes and on research skills, by discussion with colleagues, tutor, experts and student peers, and by researching needs and wants of select AWARD fellows.

CATWOE

Customer:                  the ultimate, prime customer is me

Actors:                        Me, fellows, tutor, colleagues, (authors, experts)

Transformation:         no Master's --> Master's

Worldview:                  that this will be a personally and professionally enriching experience which is worth the sacrifice by myself, friends and family and the Open University can help me deliver it

Owner:                        Me, Open University (also Director, family but less so.)

Environment (constraints taken as given): I have the intellectual resources to do this, I will find time to do it, experts and fellows will contribute and engage, I can get hold of relevant material

Critical Systems Heuristics - boundaries of project as process

Comment:

1. I would like nobly to say that success is getting deeper expertise in and knowledge of Communities of Practice. However, if I don't get that Master's I shall feel like I have failed.

2. Where is Systems in all this? If this is a Master's in Systems Thinking in Practice, how is that reflected in the above? The simple fact of taking this approach to scoping it? Needs something more explicit in content of research?

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System 2: The Research Content - the WHY SSM(c)

PQR: a system to develop one or more models of alumnae initiatives in the context of AWARD post-fellowship based on high potential design principles for successful COPs in order to continue and expand the benefits of the AWARD Fellowships by conducting desk research into COP praxis, and alumnae services, and through interviews with select fellows.

CATWOE

Customers:                 Fellows, other non-AWARD African women in ARD?, Mentors (women and men?),

Actors:                        Me, fellows, colleagues

Transformation:         No alumnae services --> potential models for alumnae services

Worldview:                  Alumnae services in some form would be useful for the greater aim of continuing the AWARD fellows' empowerment trajectories after the end of the fellowship and drawing in other non-AWARD women into generating a critical mass of empowered, visible, skilled women in the African ARD landscape

Owner:                        Director, fellows, me

Environment: Fellows' time and desire to contribute, goodwill in AWARD team and donors, my own technical and intellectual skills or access to other people's, my time, Open University course deadlines and approach will enable not constrain

Critical Systems Heuristics - boundaries of project as process

Comment:

1. one main tension I anticipate is that AWARD would like to use alumnae services as a way of tracking fellows in the period post-fellowship, possibly by offering them services and events and asking for M&E data in return. That is not the way I feel the alumnae scheme should go - at this point, pre-research I see it ideally as part of the sustainability effect of AWARD - creating a self-organizing system in which fellows, mentors and whoever they decide should be inside the boundaries, continue to develop their empowerment trajectories (power within themselves, over resources and obstacles, to collaborate and take joint action, and to do better science). Instrumental purposes of the scheme I think risk clouding the purpose and hence the set-up.

2. About Witness: there is a temptation to include everyone but deep reflection is needed to make useful boundaries. A CoP implies that some people are in and some people are out, if everyone is in, the COP can have no shared identity, meaning and purpose. There may be a role however for boundary people, brokers, who have access and can contribute to COP but cannot be in the core (sympathetic men for example).

I had a brief correspondence with Chris Blackmore that made me think. The comment in particular was this:

I think there's also something interesting about whose and what purposes such communities serve and whose and what values underpin them, partly tied to who funds them.  So when you say 'keep the fellows engaged and productive and promote their research'  I'd be asking why as well as what and how.

In fact that uncovers one assumption i didn't know i had (though blindingly obvious once found!) - my starting point is that keeping the energy of the fellowship going after the fellowship ends is a given Good Thing. But perhaps it isn't. Perhaps it would be perfectly fine for the fellowship to end and the community, identity and so on that have been built to end there.

the belief among AWARD staff and donors is that it is necessary for the ripple effects of the fellowship program - so that it influences societall and institutional change. There could be other ways to influence the same.