10-03 - ARP Focus

After a productive chat session with my learning circle, I've decided on a focus for my ARP. I'll focus on creating a community of practice among the staff and the community that we serve. Using Madre's examples from her web page, I was able to easily state a problem, a possible solution, a desired outcome, and mold that into a research question. I'm beginning to turn my attention to the cycle questions. I have generated a number of possiblies but these need to be tweaked as they overlap. I think I have too many - especially if each one has to be a new cycle. I don't know how many cycles I can complete during the year.

I have begun to investigate the connectivity of the staff members. Without hard numbers, and just verbal information from our technical person, it appears that many of our staff will only have dial-up access. This may or may not create an obstacle to what I want to do. However, I have noticed that our technical person often views things as "the sky is falling in." So, I will have to wait to get the hard numbers. If this turns out to be true, then part of my mission will be to get better connectivity for our staff.

I'm beginning to turn my thoughts to how can I accomplish my goal. Do I want to work with a small group at first and then gradually enlarge the group? Do I want volunteers? Do I invite specific staff members? These are things I'll have to begin to consider. How will I arrange the f2f portions? I think it's important to meet f2f. I was thinking of our Friday afternoons when staff do not have specific assignments. This might work well. We could meet for pizza and begin to develop our relationships. What do I want to do at this meeting? Do I want activities? I need to begin to think about this.

I must also admit that now that I have made my final decision, I'm a bit overwhelmed. My head is saying, "How can you possibly pull together a group like this? You're new--why will they want to do this.?"