The Bright Ideas Expo

A great day, with Alan and Maureen leading the interactive workshop, and Peter, Stuart and sharyn presenting! The feedback for the induction resource was good, and we will continue our project into 2010 with the team reviewing the resource once a term.

This will enable us not only to get together, but also to ensure quality control, and that feedback about the online induction is acted on immediately to keep it relevant and current.

What's been happening

Our team met as sub teams, and then got to work on populating the online induction resource, at http:\\wiki.tafensw.edu.au At an all team meeting, with10 people attending, we showcased what had been done, edited as we went, and worked out what else needed to be done. We will have a penultimate team meeting next week, 2nd December, to polish up the "draft" edition, as well as prepare for an interactive session on 10 December to get feedback and make further modifications.

Somebody asked yesterday what the highlights of the project have been. For me it is about working as a team, and if I had to sum it up in two words, "authentic collaboration". It is not about one person, or one part of the organisation, but all, and how we can better manage knowledge to maximise the induction procss for all staff.

Where are we up to?

We have moved ahead with getting the online induction ready - everybody is contributing with responsibility for various sections and pages allocatted as we hit Term 4.

We have the report due in a few weeks, and then the Bright Ideas Expo on 10 December - we have our blurb ready, and the poster (fingers crossed). We have hit the pointy end of the project, and it is STILL exciting :-)

Strong Life Test for Women

Have a look at this - I am sure it applies to men too, and spookily, my main role is a teacher and supporting role as a Creator - very similar to the TMS results.

10 September

Media Wiki - a good session about the how to, and also structuring discussions. At our next meeting on 29 September we will have general information for all staff to edit, and determine the classifications for specific induction.

Bring your documents and information, thinking hats and ideas :-)

28 August

Team work - this is the most dynamic team I've ever seen, and other people comment on it too. Do we need to quantify what we've achieved - how do you show a return on investment? Obviously we will have an end product - the online induction Wiki, but we've also developed team skills, as well as team building skills and tools to use with our own teams; project management skills, with the team leaders powering with their ability to draw together information and to then share it with everybody else on the project, and to be able to use technology, which we've probably improved in by about 50%, especially SharePoint, which can be cumbersome.

On the 28th we revistied the TMS work preferences, discussing how we've been able to apply this in our workplaces, with different styles of communication, having your profile posted in your office, doing the abbreviated tool with your own team, and various other impacts that the knowledge we gained about ourselves has had.

We then worked out a rough time line for the induction online, with a Media wiki workshop on the 10th Septebmer to learn more about populating and modifying the resource, and also drew together the results of the research, content, and promotion work with the design. Another good meeting, and thanks to Sharyn for facilitating, but to all for your enthusiastic, positive and constructive input to this project.

Where are we up to?

A great day on Thursday 30 July with the TMS analysis - what are our work preferences, and how do they fit with others on our project team. At the same time, our mid-term report is due, and the feedback reflects the calibre of this team - constructive, dynamic, flexible to say the least.

We decided that for the induction resource introduction we need to emphasise the need for:

Trust, mutual respect and helpfulness, working together and how this relates to Teaching and Learning

The TMS looks at nine key success factors which make teams high-performing.

This was about different characteristics of teams – the different type of tasks that need to be completed to ensure excellent performance.

We had some great “real life” examples of these roles from the tem team members attending.

Discussion re Floor Robe - sometimes the incidental learning is the most important :-) any suggestions on how to get teenagers to get rid of their Floor Robe will be gratefully received.

We decided to advertise jobs looking for people in the North-West sphere - Advising and Innovation - to expand our workforce capability. A prize is offered to the first person to fit this category. We had no people in the ‘green sector” which is not a problem for our project, but may be for the organisation.

Our project people find the profiles a bit spooky in terms of the accuracy of the profiles. We recognised that our preferred roles did not necessarily fit with our current roles.

One of the most helpful things from today was about how to work best with other work role preferences.

e.g. The Assessor – Developer is:

· Analytical and objective
· Developer of ideas
· Enjoys proto type or project work
· Experimenter

When working with, for example, the Concluder Production

· Be structured and practical
· Give notice of proposed changes
· Stick to your word
· Keep deadlines
· Stay focussed
· Don’t waffle
· Don’t change your mind too frequently

Some things to work on:

· 2 things I’d like you to know about me:
· 2 things you can do to best communicate with me
· 1 thing I’d like help with

Maintaining

· Develop a personal action plan
· What could you STOP, START and CONTINUE to be even more effective at work?
· Swap profiles with your Manager/Section team/ Colleague. Discuss how to best work with one another.
· Build on your individual strength but remember if preferences are overdone, the strength can turn into a weakness.

Getting ready for the mid term report

Have sent out a Survey Monkey survey to gather information for this report, and had two responses, both fabulous!

Also getting ready for the TMS: Team Management System which all our team members will undertake in the next few weeks.

Mentoring

Part of the Initiative is to have mentoring conversations, half an hour on the phone. What did I learn from mine?

• That we have a good partnership and innovation strategy happening.
• That we have developed a good partnership with HR in particular, around performance development, TAA2, EEo and lots more!!
• Some sub teams will operate better than others
• The need to remove yourself sometimes
• Don't be too hard on yourself :-)

We need some photos!

WEll, I've titled this posting as a reminder for myself! We are using a SharePoint site, which is only open to our team. This is becasue SharePoint is the preferred site for the Institute, so we are all learning along the way as well.

We have used Survey Monkey to collaboratively write the mid-term report, with some responses; we've tried a survey from the SharePoint site where the team's reflection on learning show that they've "learnt where the SharePoint site is" :-)

In deciding to go ahead with the project, I needed a facilitator who would move the team along. We decided to have four sub teams at the first meeting, where we also did an excellent job of scoping the poject, giving us great parameters around the Research, Content, Design and Promotion of the online induction resource.

What I love about this project is the links that are being made across various Units, Faculties and Colleges within the Institute, and how it scaffolds communication. Our second meeting saw three of the sub-teams move ahead with their planning and actions, and we now have a two week holiday.

On the 30th July we will have completed the TMS profile, and be having a debriefing day with our HR Business Partner.

Testing posting to a blog from an email address!

Okay, so maybe we’re already outside the strict scope of what this blog is about (a project reflection, rather than just my individual reflection on the learning!) I couldn’t resist testing this email facility J

Actually the first post was really May 08, but I had it in my holiday blog on Vietnam, rather than in the right place. I have also been thinking about the need to balance risk taking and accountability today, in between a lot of meetings about recogntiino. At one meeting somebody said people are sick of the sound of recognition – are they right?

Learning reflections

Our project got started on Monay May 4, 2009. The first meeting, as is often the case, included icebreakers, but we also had an independent facilitator who helped us complete a task analysis in a 2.5 hour meeting, so we have the project scoped!

If you're part of this project, a question for you: "What learning did you do?"I'll start the ball rolling: I learnt that you can participate a lot more effectively by: listening, not taking notes and trying to be everything at once. I have also known for a long time that if you trust people, they will certainly stand by that trust, as most people do not want to not succeed....this reminds me of something a world-famous swimming coach said to me about an under 12 swimming carnival - they don't swim to lose.