(1) Norms & Values – Contribute!

A number of important values and principles surfaced during the workshop. We welcome your help in fleshing them out and folding them into our initial evolving principles for the pilot. To do so, we’ve copied them into a shared doc; feel free to comment directly in the document or over the list.

In particular, several people emphasized the value of “failure” – that is, the learning that may come from experimentation, unexpected results, or unanticipated consequences, and the need to incorporate that limberness into our teams, our documentation, and our understanding of the program overall. Self-reflection—as individuals, as teams, and as a community of practice, also figured prominently in our discussions, as did the value of transparency—shared resources, communication, and outputs as a means of fostering our collective creativity and experience.

(2) Initial Ideas: Project Management & Communication

While each group will develop their own approaches and modes for their shared work, we are happy to offer project management resources and tips for anyone who might need additional support. As noted in our closing session on Wednesday, you should feel “comfortable with ambiguity” during these first weeks of scoping, refining, and re-framing the driving questions underlying your particular problem. You may wish to give yourself a time-frame of 2-3 weeks to brainstorm expansively before tightening your vision and next steps.

Once you’ve defined your scope and initial milestones, please share them via the the Google Collection and/or the mailing list. We recommend that each group nominate a reporter or project manager (perhaps on a rotating basis) to contribute to our shared resources and conversations on your team’s behalf. These resources will also be essential for those participants who were not able to join the workshop or who may, potentially, join teams later in the semester or year.

(3) Building our DPSI Community

As discussed during the workshop, a central goal of this effort is to build our DPSI community and to foster connections between teams. Over the course of the year, we hope to have a series of informal events and opportunities to come together as a group. As a starting point, please reserve the following dates for a monthly Happy Hour/First Monday from 5-7 at the HLS Pub: October 7th, November 11th, and December 2nd.

In addition to food and conversation, we hope to bring in experts from various backgrounds and disciplines to offer a brief provocation, idea, or question for the group to discuss. We welcome your suggestions of speakers and conversational event formats to draw on for these get-togethers.

We also look forward to working closely with all of you to identify additional ‘community’ dates, including an opportunity for a mid-point check-in among the teams and a final gathering in the spring. More soon!