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Evaluating my progress...

 

What is the current situation?

  • Just had interim assessment & feedback from that

  • 5 designs 'passed'!

  • Small amount of work needed to get them up to scratch

  • Website needs tweaking

  • Have a previous ALP as well some feedback from another tutor on that version

  • I am spendin alot of time supporting Danny in his health recovery

  • It is almost Spring!!

  • Other ongoing projects: transition to vegan diet​, food garden maintenance & improvements, tree planting on farm,

 

What is going well?

  • Interim tutorial

  • Website

  • Ideas/Flow for next steps in learning pathway

 

What is challenging? 

  • Allocating time to the diploma

  • Documentation

  • Accepting the standards of my finished designs (not good enough in my eyes), Not getting effective results

  • Being critical of permaculture​

Reflections

A.L.P.

This part of the process highlighted some more of my resources and areas that the design needs to address. It helped inform the 'Integration' anchor point.

 

After these initial reflections on the content of this design I kept in contact with this anchor point by starting a design journal.

 

Each time I worked on the design I finished up by making some notes about my progress using these same questions plus the additional 'my next steps are..'. This I found very helpful, It was very quick to do, only a minute or two, and it meant that each time I came back to the design, even if it was a week I could easily get my bearings again and begin work quickly & efficiently.

Later on in the process I did a skills & learning audit to help me clarify what I need to learn on this pathway. This is another form of reflection. I considered: My learning so far, My other transferable skills, Gaps in my skills & knowledge regarding permaculture design, an additional things I would like to learn.

I identified the gaps as:

 

  • Improved mapping skills - quicker & more effecive use of tools

  • Apply Permaculture Principles more thoroughly

  • Website building skills -clearer presentation & quicker

  • Costings - measuring yields, successes, failures, inputs & outputs accurately

  • Evaluating specific design tools used

  • Overall ALP reflections

  • 'Symetry' -giving back

  • Endles technical skills, but specifically around water management, food growing systems, & building.

 

Additional things I would like to learn were:

  • Better growing -more with less! & better quality

  • Vegan diet & nutrition

  • Trees -optimising fruit tree production, grafting & pruning,

  • Engaging people....

One of the needs I identified was that the design must motivate me. One way to do this was to be clear about the expected inputs & outputs. I also began to identify connections between the inputs & outputs. I reminded myself that the design procces could be up to 80% & the maintenance as little as 20% of the time & energy,

Reflecting on Previous ALP design....

I wanted to know more about why my previous Action Learning Pathway design was not functional so I evaluated it using PNI -What are the Positive, Negative & Interesting Aspects to the design And How should this information inform this new design? This affects the Needs of the design which I talk about in the 'Integration' Anchor point.

Some of the key issues from the PNI analaysis:

 

Positive: Observation & Reflection rich, Nice Vision, I used the Principles as a guide

Negative: Unfinished! -Didn't explore systems, elements etc, Impatient/rushed, poor presentation, not genuinely accounting for my boundaries, very ambitious & vague at the same time, Functions & design solutions confused, implementation plan not broken down enough, too much what & not enough how! Not designed to accomodate change.

Interesting: My 1st design! (& now my 6th!), I have actually done/implemented quite a bit of my original vision somehow....

 

So How can this help now? 

Well,

  • I need to genuinely account for my boundaries, especially 'things cropping up',  so DESIGN FOR CHANGE! -use natural succession & regeneration

  • Ensure I have SMART goals

  • Be clear around Functions & design solutions

  • Use the design process clearly! -ie: don't skip sections...

Overall Reflections on this Design

Positives

 

Process:

Using the design web was helpfull & novel (for me), It's flexibility suited this design well and it suited the personal nature of the design.

 

Content:

It was good to revisit this design as it had been abandonned from early on in my diploma journey.

What I experienced here I wish I could have done at the beginning of the process!

 

 

 

 

Negatives

 

Process

I got a bit hung up on the action point for a while, not feeling able to commit to actually doing the design

 

Content

It does not entirely fulfill the original aims of the design, eg: some of the projects are not things I am very passionate about, I made compromises based on the timeframe I allowed myself.

Interestings

 

Process

I found most of the anchor points to be of an achievable size except for the 'Integration point' which seemed to get a bit tedious.

 

 

 

Content

The content changed, due to opportunities & constrainst that arose.                                                                                                                                                               

Reflections throughout the process....

 

"The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men Gang aft agley," -Robert Burns

 

I am beginning to conside the 'scatter pattern' more as an appropriate pattern to work with on this design, I find time & time again that the universe does not let me get away with creating neat little boxes around things! In which case, considering I want to 'work with nature, rather than against it, I should adopt a pattern for this design which accomodates change, unknown, & 'randomness' (or is that the same as unknown??).

I think Scatter is important for this.

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Update on what actually happened....

 

After almost finishing this design, as I mentioned above I for stuck on the 'Action point', I abandonned this then for about 6 months, until my next tutorial. For some reason I just couldn't get from the design to the action or implementation plan.

When I finally did come back & address this I was surprised to find that it was really easy! 

On reflection, I think the learning here is an awareness of seasonal rythms, & perhaps seeing time as seasonal & cyclical rather than linear, something which is naturally accounted for in land based designs and also applies to people based designs. So the 1 year observation period -or at least consideration of- is equally important here.

I was working on the design in Spring 2014, and I had put a target for finishing the diploma by autumn, but I was not working with nature. For me, Summer is a really busy time spent outside, garden, farm, courses, festivals & gatherings, It's a very active time, making the most of the daylight and warmth. So It's not a time for me to be planning & reflecting, definately not making a portfolio. It just wasn't the right time! This is something I could bring into my 'interior design' which is going to be my next project.

 

So, when I did get back to it in the late autumn, It just took off immediately, darker evenings, less social activity & less animals & plants to tend to gave the opportunity to carve out some space for focussing, reflecting & planning. 

It actually also gave me an appreciation of winter which I've not really had before!

 

So as for the action plan itself, once I had it done, things just rolled & the momentum has kept up since then by just following the design.

 

Trusting in the future, but not being tied to it is probably the other key lesson from the implimentation of this design, I wasn't entirely sure what all  of the next designs would be so the action plan used a template within which I could work from pattern to detail, The first half I could be pretty sure of so this could have alot of detail, the second half more vague. The template worked really well, the way I laid it out was really easy to follow, giving me specific small tasks at a time & being flexible enough to go ahead of myself or catch up. Identifying thre resources needed in each part gave me the much needed freedom to move around & work in different locations too. 

 

The only negative thing was possibly that I did put myself under a bit of pressure in the first half. The workload was quite heavy and I felt a but stressed out at times. I actually tweaked some of  it on the incredible edible design to eliminate some tasks that were not entirely necessary. In this sense I guess I learnt a bit more about being efficient when working for clients!

 

Now, I know I need to finish the diploma by early spring or else I'll find myeslf in the same boat as last year! Part 2 of the action plan has me ready for a final assessment at the end of Januray so I'm now going to tweak that part of the action plan & add in more detail to keep things rolling through the darkest day & out into spring!

 

Into Spring
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