Friday, April 08, 2005
More Final Reflections
Final Reflections
Since my portfolio presentation was divided into phases, I will organize my reflection in a similar process.
Phase 1 - Preparation
Looking back at my initial reflections about my own mentors and their impact on me and each of the different ways they interacted with me made me really analyze how I had mentored people in the past during the preparation phase. I explored my own role in these relationships as well as the role of my mentors. I realized there were points in time when they as mentors received and learned from me as much as I did from them.
Looking at that information now, after my mentoring project has come full circle, these initial reflections take on a deeper and different meaning. All of these relationships I described in my artifact “Who Mentored You” were individual relationships, mentee-mentor relationships. I feel that much of my preparation was surrounding mentoring, but more geared towards one on one mentoring, not necessarily group mentoring or guidance. If I were to mentor another group, I would extend my preparation phase to include exploration of how I benefited from a group that grew and expanded and my role as a member of a community(group) as well as my previous roles as a group leader. I would also spend a significant amount of time reflecting on group dynamics and team leadership.
Phase 2 - Negotiating
Thinking back to this phase of “making the deal” the mentoring plan was especially helpful. It provided a tool for synthesizing the expectations, needs and goals of the upcoming mentoring process. Although I think my analysis of the community was quite accurate, what I didn’t realize at that time, but has since become clear to me, is the difference between a “want” and a “need”. Although my CoP WANTED to create this virtual community resembling their face to face community, it wasn’t a need or even necessarily a very motivated desire. This in conjunction with the timing issues, I believe pushed the community’s motivation for contributing to this online community somewhere further down on their lists.
Timing is another thing I would have explored a little deeper, although unexpected occurrences surface any time, sometimes there are planned events that might impact the community. In my case, there was a significant group project which consumed nearly all the members free time which contributed to the lack of motivation to get the virtual community off its feet.
In my plan, I didn’t have very specific goals since I was unsure of what to expect from thr community, however if I were to be involved in a similar process again, I would have a better idea of how to crystallize some realistic goals. I think reflecting back on my plan, the main goal was to create this online community and transform it from a face to face community to a virtual community. As my plan specifies, the measure of success was pure participation. Analyzing this success indicator, my mentoring process was not successful. However, I don’t think I realized how persuasive I needed to be to ignite participation in a group. That was something I definitely underestimated the difficulty of motivating members to participate when their time was being demanded elsewhere.
As I think about this negotiating process of jointly determining goals, needs and expectations next time around I would be more specific of the expectations for the members of the group. I don’t believe I could have known what those expectations would have been when I created my plan, however this process has given me a much more vivid understanding of realistic expectations and the time frames associated with them.
During my face to face time with the group when we discussed the plan and the technology we would use, I found out that only 3 of the 39 people had every participated in a virtual forum or message board. This awareness made me understand the scope would be a little different than I originally thought. At this point, education and exposure would become more likely goals than merely participation since this was a new technology for the majority.
Phase 3 - Enabling
Nurturing a group, I found is really about nurturing many individuals simultaneously. As this phase was well underway, I decided it was more difficult in many ways to mentor a group rather than an individual. I found that the best way to build trust and demonstrate respect for the group was to demonstrate it with members of the group. Since this group was 39 people, establishing trust and respect with every person in the group was nearly impossible. As with any group, there are key people which impact the overall attitudes and opinions of the entire group. I found that observing the group and determining which people these might be was helpful and efficient. I could then, concentrate on establishing relationships with some of these people. In my correspondence artifact, is an example of how I interacted with members of the group by going above and beyond my normal role, to assist them with a need. This actions on my part, I found made significant impact on how the group felt towards me, the presence of me as an insider of the group became more apparent, as more of these interactions occurred. I noticed members of the group would communicate things to me that were part of the “inner circle” of the group, this was an indicator to me, that I had made significant headway in establishing trust and respect with both members of the group, as well as the group as a whole.
I found that working with a few people or individuals made tremendous strides in the affect for the virtual community. Although I clearly didn’t accomplish the goals I originally set out to attain, I do believe I made headway with the group by elevating the “want” to a more motivated desire. I also know based on my final survey results, I educated and exposed the group by making them more aware of this virtual forum technology and in turn, more comfortable with the medium for establishing this virtual community.
On a related note, I also think that size of the community was a significant factor, I believe this group of 39 was too large to create a community. I think with this size of a group, there was a sense of anonymity which worked against participation. I believe the group was big enough, where people felt like there were enough others to participate, even if they didn’t.
These factors of size, creating trust and respect among a group are also addressed in the “How Are We Doing” artifact.
Phase 4: Closure
The closure really came earlier than I expected, since I determined that my original goals were not met. Despite that, I consider this to be a success since mentoring is a process where both parties learn. With that being an indicator, success occurred. I made major strides in understanding dynamics, traits, motivators and needs of virtual communities indicated in the prior 3 phases, the members of the community succeeded by exposing themselves to a new technology for communication and further establishing trust and respect with me.
In the survey artifact, I’ve gathered a sampling of responses. My results indicated 100% of the community is interest in being a part of a virtual community despite lack of prior exposure. The survey also indicated these members saw benefits to using this technology and had a clearer understanding of it’s uses. Many of them also indicated this technology might be a tool for accomplishing goals they had set for their personal development. This question specifically helps me to understand they equate value with the tool and the forum which is critical.
Overall, I’ve made significant gains in all 4 phases of the mentoring process. I feel this project has prepared me for future mentoring both individually but especially when working with a CoP or CoL.
The culmination of this closure process was the recognition of the good and the bad in this process and beginning a new process with a smaller, more focused group. I have actually already begun that process. I have used the process of reflecting on this entire process to come up with the next phase of this group mentoring. I have laid out specific expectations and goals and asked for only those that are interested in participating and can meet the expectations to participate. I am in the 2nd week of this process and just beginning the 3rd phase of nurturing. I have 9 people participating in this group and I’m very excited to see how this CoL will evolve and what I will learn.
Since my portfolio presentation was divided into phases, I will organize my reflection in a similar process.
Phase 1 - Preparation
Looking back at my initial reflections about my own mentors and their impact on me and each of the different ways they interacted with me made me really analyze how I had mentored people in the past during the preparation phase. I explored my own role in these relationships as well as the role of my mentors. I realized there were points in time when they as mentors received and learned from me as much as I did from them.
Looking at that information now, after my mentoring project has come full circle, these initial reflections take on a deeper and different meaning. All of these relationships I described in my artifact “Who Mentored You” were individual relationships, mentee-mentor relationships. I feel that much of my preparation was surrounding mentoring, but more geared towards one on one mentoring, not necessarily group mentoring or guidance. If I were to mentor another group, I would extend my preparation phase to include exploration of how I benefited from a group that grew and expanded and my role as a member of a community(group) as well as my previous roles as a group leader. I would also spend a significant amount of time reflecting on group dynamics and team leadership.
Phase 2 - Negotiating
Thinking back to this phase of “making the deal” the mentoring plan was especially helpful. It provided a tool for synthesizing the expectations, needs and goals of the upcoming mentoring process. Although I think my analysis of the community was quite accurate, what I didn’t realize at that time, but has since become clear to me, is the difference between a “want” and a “need”. Although my CoP WANTED to create this virtual community resembling their face to face community, it wasn’t a need or even necessarily a very motivated desire. This in conjunction with the timing issues, I believe pushed the community’s motivation for contributing to this online community somewhere further down on their lists.
Timing is another thing I would have explored a little deeper, although unexpected occurrences surface any time, sometimes there are planned events that might impact the community. In my case, there was a significant group project which consumed nearly all the members free time which contributed to the lack of motivation to get the virtual community off its feet.
In my plan, I didn’t have very specific goals since I was unsure of what to expect from thr community, however if I were to be involved in a similar process again, I would have a better idea of how to crystallize some realistic goals. I think reflecting back on my plan, the main goal was to create this online community and transform it from a face to face community to a virtual community. As my plan specifies, the measure of success was pure participation. Analyzing this success indicator, my mentoring process was not successful. However, I don’t think I realized how persuasive I needed to be to ignite participation in a group. That was something I definitely underestimated the difficulty of motivating members to participate when their time was being demanded elsewhere.
As I think about this negotiating process of jointly determining goals, needs and expectations next time around I would be more specific of the expectations for the members of the group. I don’t believe I could have known what those expectations would have been when I created my plan, however this process has given me a much more vivid understanding of realistic expectations and the time frames associated with them.
During my face to face time with the group when we discussed the plan and the technology we would use, I found out that only 3 of the 39 people had every participated in a virtual forum or message board. This awareness made me understand the scope would be a little different than I originally thought. At this point, education and exposure would become more likely goals than merely participation since this was a new technology for the majority.
Phase 3 - Enabling
Nurturing a group, I found is really about nurturing many individuals simultaneously. As this phase was well underway, I decided it was more difficult in many ways to mentor a group rather than an individual. I found that the best way to build trust and demonstrate respect for the group was to demonstrate it with members of the group. Since this group was 39 people, establishing trust and respect with every person in the group was nearly impossible. As with any group, there are key people which impact the overall attitudes and opinions of the entire group. I found that observing the group and determining which people these might be was helpful and efficient. I could then, concentrate on establishing relationships with some of these people. In my correspondence artifact, is an example of how I interacted with members of the group by going above and beyond my normal role, to assist them with a need. This actions on my part, I found made significant impact on how the group felt towards me, the presence of me as an insider of the group became more apparent, as more of these interactions occurred. I noticed members of the group would communicate things to me that were part of the “inner circle” of the group, this was an indicator to me, that I had made significant headway in establishing trust and respect with both members of the group, as well as the group as a whole.
I found that working with a few people or individuals made tremendous strides in the affect for the virtual community. Although I clearly didn’t accomplish the goals I originally set out to attain, I do believe I made headway with the group by elevating the “want” to a more motivated desire. I also know based on my final survey results, I educated and exposed the group by making them more aware of this virtual forum technology and in turn, more comfortable with the medium for establishing this virtual community.
On a related note, I also think that size of the community was a significant factor, I believe this group of 39 was too large to create a community. I think with this size of a group, there was a sense of anonymity which worked against participation. I believe the group was big enough, where people felt like there were enough others to participate, even if they didn’t.
These factors of size, creating trust and respect among a group are also addressed in the “How Are We Doing” artifact.
Phase 4: Closure
The closure really came earlier than I expected, since I determined that my original goals were not met. Despite that, I consider this to be a success since mentoring is a process where both parties learn. With that being an indicator, success occurred. I made major strides in understanding dynamics, traits, motivators and needs of virtual communities indicated in the prior 3 phases, the members of the community succeeded by exposing themselves to a new technology for communication and further establishing trust and respect with me.
In the survey artifact, I’ve gathered a sampling of responses. My results indicated 100% of the community is interest in being a part of a virtual community despite lack of prior exposure. The survey also indicated these members saw benefits to using this technology and had a clearer understanding of it’s uses. Many of them also indicated this technology might be a tool for accomplishing goals they had set for their personal development. This question specifically helps me to understand they equate value with the tool and the forum which is critical.
Overall, I’ve made significant gains in all 4 phases of the mentoring process. I feel this project has prepared me for future mentoring both individually but especially when working with a CoP or CoL.
The culmination of this closure process was the recognition of the good and the bad in this process and beginning a new process with a smaller, more focused group. I have actually already begun that process. I have used the process of reflecting on this entire process to come up with the next phase of this group mentoring. I have laid out specific expectations and goals and asked for only those that are interested in participating and can meet the expectations to participate. I am in the 2nd week of this process and just beginning the 3rd phase of nurturing. I have 9 people participating in this group and I’m very excited to see how this CoL will evolve and what I will learn.
# posted by Kari Hoien @ 8:56 PM 
