Literary Lots: Sponsorship Interview

Literary Lots, Kauser Razvi’s community revitalization project funded through Kickstarter, is a program that helps urban neighborhoods whip vacant lots into shape by transforming vacant lots into summer program spots for children. In Cleveland, several lots will take on literary themes from children’s books and spend the summer months as spaces for art and education. Working with Cleveland Public Libraries and LAND Studio, Literary Lots will transform 2 to 4 vacant lots adjacent to libraries into six-week summer program spots for children in inner-city Cleveland.

Between June and August 2013, local artists will use themes from specific children’s books to re-create places, concepts, or adventures from the book, creating a magical and educational space to engage local youth in art and culture.  The lots will be filled with books (naturally), and will feature reading and writing classes, in addition to providing interactive games for kids.  The hope is these spaces will bring neighborhoods, cultural institutions and artists together in creative collaboration to bring books to life… and keep books in our children’s lives.

UPD, a sponsor, was interviewed about our interest in the project. You can read Doug Austin’s, UPD President and CEO, interview here.

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Kauser Razvi, an Account Executive at UPD, brings over 14 years of public sector management experience to the team. Her consulting engagements have included the organizing community members, funders, and businesses around the establishment of Global Cleveland, developing long term project plans for the Chicago Out of School Time project funded by the Wallace Foundation and the development of technical and organizational strategies around data systems to improve business functions and operations in Government and non-profit organizations. She holds a BA in Sociology and BS in Journalism from Boston University and a Masters in Urban Planning from the University of Michigan.

Reinventing The Wheel

For years, many cities have undertaken the task of developing a citywide plan, agenda, goals, etc. around children and youth development and success.  In most cases, this work is a collaboration between multiple organizations, including the school district, city agencies (parks and recreation, libraries), city funded agencies and community based nonprofits.  While the core values that these organizations have around youth success are common, bringing these organizations together to discuss and arrive at a common mission and set of goals, objectives, standards, and measures to work towards can take years to accomplish.  Examples of this type of work are the Nashville Children and Youth Master Plan, Milwaukee Succeeds, Grand Rapids Youth Master Plan, Minneapolis Youth Coordinating Board, Chicago Out-of-School Time Project, Ready by 21 Austin, among many others.  Even more examples are included here, on the National League of Cities site.

A sampling of some of these plans is included in a table below.  Even doing a quick scan of these initiatives reveals many common threads in the goals and objectives that were the result of the months/years of collaborative work: youth/children are prepared for school, succeed academically, are healthy, are supported by caring adults, and contribute to the community.

In a recent conversation I had in discussing how to start this type of work, the question was raised “why don’t we just use what has already been done?”  So why spend years redoing the work when it has already been done?

“Reinvent the wheel – to waste time trying to develop products or systems that you think are original when in fact they have already been done before” Cambridge Idioms Dictionary, 2nd ed. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2006

The reason for spending the time, effort and resources is because the participation in this type of process is as important or more important than the output.  Bringing together leaders across the city who may or may not have worked well together in the past to discuss not only their own organizations, but also how as a city they can work towards a common set of goals and objectives is incredibly powerful.  Building these relationships and knowledge about each other’s work should increase the chances of success in work towards the common goals.

Even though there is a lot in common with the outputs (master plan, goals/objectives) from each of these efforts, they also each have a unique aspect to them.  Each of the efforts involved a unique set of people and organizations who have their own perspectives about priorities in their city and communities.  These citywide plans and goals are something that (hopefully) these organizations will be working together on for a long time to come, so it should be something that they each feel a connection with – something that they helped create.

Of course, this does not mean that efforts like this should happen in isolation, when there are clearly good examples of what worked well (and what didn’t work well) in the past.  So, these type of resources should be utilized to learn from, but not for the purpose of cutting out any of the important work in the development of the end product.

“At the same time “reinventing the wheel” is an important tool in the instruction of complex ideas. Rather than providing students simply with a list of known facts and techniques and expecting them to incorporate these ideas perfectly and rapidly, the instructor instead will build up the material anew, leaving the student to work out those key steps which embody the reasoning characteristic of the field.”

Questions like this continually come up in the work we do.  Why spend months developing a particular school district process with participation from unions, principals, teachers, parents, etc. when there are good examples that have already been developed using this same type of process in other districts?  Why hold another community meeting or  focus group session if you think you already know what people think about a particular topic?  Because the process of “inventing” is as important as the “invention.”

 

This blog was written by Cari Reddick. Cari is a Project Manager at UPD Consulting and has over 12 years of project management experience.

 

Samples of Citywide Youth Master Plans

Nashville	Milwaukee	Grand Rapids	Minneapolis
All children and youth will have a safe and stable home and a supportive, engaged family.	All children are prepared to enter school	Early childhood development, life-long learning & education	All Minneapolis children enter kindergarten ready to learn
All children and youth will have safe places in the community, where they are welcomed and supported by positive adult relationships	All children succeed academically and graduate prepared for meaningful work and/or college	Employment & financial independence	All Minneapolis children and youth succeed in school
All children and youth will develop valuable life skills, social competencies, positive values and become law abiding, productive citizens	All young people utilize post secondary education or training to advance their opportunities beyond high school and prepare for a successful career	Basic, physical & psychological needs	All Minneapolis young people have access to quality out-of-school opportunities
All children and youth will have confidence in themselves and in their future	Recognizing the difficult economic realities facing our families, all children and young people are healthy, supported socially and emotionally, and contribute responsibly to the success of the Milwaukee community	Mentoring, afterschool, cultural activities & strategic planning	All Minneapolis children and youth people have opportunities to prepare themselves for the responsibilities of an active civic live
All children and youth will have opportunities to have their voice heard and positively impact their community		Civic engagement, training & leadership
All children and youth will experience social equity regarding access to opportunities, resources and information that are critical to their success in the 21st century
All children and youth will experience a safe and caring school environment that supports social, emotional and academic development
All children and youth will achieve academically through high quality, engaging educational opportunities that address the strengths and needs of the individual
All children and youth will be physically healthy
All children and youth will learn and practice healthy habits and have access to the resources that support these habits
All children and youth will be mentally healthy and emotionally well
All children and youth will have access to and participate in quality programs during out-of school-time
All children and youth will have safe outdoor spaces in their neighborhood that provide opportunities for play and recreational activities
All children and youth will have safe transportation options that allow them to engage in activities, and access services and supports that the community has to offer

How to Run a Computer Based Training Session: Three Indispensible Techniques

This week I’m really delighted to introduce Frank Nichols a talented consultant from our strategic partners at Strategic Urban Solutions. Strategic Urban Solutions will be guest posting for us from time to time, and this week will be sharing a training post with us.  

At Strategic Urban we tend to do a lot of work with large institutions: Cities, Non-Profits, Schools, etc. Typically, these institutions will need to move on from their old paper-based methods of doing business and adopt an organizational system. Let’s face it, this is usually long overdue and necessary.  When an organization’s staff need training on these new systems, it can be both rewarding and challenging to be in the position of the Trainer. I will be honest and say that I have not always been good at this. In fact, I wouldn’t be able to offer up any of this wisdom if I haven’t been thoroughly beaten up along the way. After many years and nearly 100 training sessions, I’d like to offer up three techniques that I have found indispensable.

1. Don’t Be a Policy Middleman

Many times when you are introducing a new system or process, it is due to big changes in an organization. It is inevitable that you, as a trainer, will be seen as the middleman between staff and management. In order to prepare staff for the new system, you might have to give them an overview of recent policy changes. Make sure they also understand your role and purpose: to help them adopt new technology. Don’t let your training session become a place for the airing of grievances. Negativity about an organization’s changes can carry over to negativity about the technology that you are introducing.

If you are consulting for an organization, and are not management yourself, you can position yourself as an advocate on their behalf. Show sympathy for the staff, while also maintaining positive representation of the management. One way to avoid becoming the policy middleman is to have the contact information of the policy expert(s) on hand. Inform the staff that they can direct specific questions to that contact so that you don’t get off track. Even better yet; if a policy expert is available to address the policy implications in person, during the introduction, you’ll be free to focus on technology for the rest of the session.

2. Positives Before Challenges

Showing staff a new system or process and then asking for questions can sometimes, understandably, lead to a wave of complaints. If one person comes up with a complaint the rest of the staff in the room might feel compelled to pile on. This is why it is important to take a few breaks throughout the session to discuss Positives and Challenges. I always start with Positives by asking “Now that you have seen some of the system features, what do you like most? Why is this system an improvement on what you have done in the past?” You’ll want to discuss Challenges as well…but hold those Challenges hostage. I won’t move on to Challenges until someone can offer up something positive about the system.

For Challenges, I like to ask “Do you anticipate any challenges in applying this system to your work?”. When you frame it this way, you’ll get thoughtful anecdotes from the Staff instead of complaints. They will help you to understand what they are dealing with when they go back to work, and you’ll be better prepared to use that context for the rest of the session.

3. Demo Before Practice

If you have a room full of staff with a computer in front of them, good luck getting their attention. I’ve been in the front of many training sessions, but I’ve also been in the back. A computer is not only an invitation to check email and social media, but also an invitation to explore the system ahead of the instruction. Getting ahead of the class in a focused computer training session sometimes means getting lost. Each section of the system comes with explanations, demonstrations, and discussions…all of which will be missed by someone who is staring at their computer and going on their own personal journey. How many times have you tried to get through an entire demonstration, only to be interrupted at various stages because someone is trying to click on this or that and it is not working? The solution is: clearly state when you are demonstrating and that the opportunity to practice coming up next. Demo before practice.

Before you introduce a part of the system, explain that you are going to first do a demonstration. More eyes will be on you (More, not all…I’m realistic, you can’t get everybody) and those staff will clearly see the current system component, they will hear your explanations and guidance, and will have an opportunity to ask questions. THEN, you can put them on a mission: “Now that you have seen how this component works, go ahead and complete this step on your own.” The beauty of this is that you can free yourself up to walk around and help people individually, before you command their attention on the next demonstration.

I hope you find these techniques valuable and that you experience the reward of a successful training session. Happy training!

–Frank Nichols is a guest blogger from our friends at Strategic Urban Solutions

Management Consulting for a Startup

Startups are a swirl of excitement, energy, and ideas.  But they are also often chaotic and chaos lowers staff performance, and leads to missed goals.  Even startups that eventually experience great success go through a phase of chaos as they figure themselves out.  So, what determines whether startups will mobilize all that energy and enthusiasm, or whether they will spin their wheels, wasting talent and resources?

The most important factor is whether they can establish the right kind of management systems.  Management systems determine whether ten brilliant people will spend all their time fighting over whose idea is the most brilliant or whether they will contribute ten useful parts to a dramatically effective whole.  And management systems are where we can be of tremendous service as consultants.

In particular, project management systems are crucial for startups.  Project management turns ideas (which startups have in spades) into output (which can be hard to come by early on).  Project management also greatly facilitates staff management; without effective work processes it can be unclear if poor performance is due to a failing of an employee, of their manager, or of the organization itself.  So what is project management?

People often think of project management as the process of setting deadlines and assigning tasks to team members.  While that is in fact part of the process, this characterization misses the point. The fundamental goal of project management is to help people understand how to work together.  You can set a deadline, but if your team is not well coordinated they will fail to meet it.   You can assign tasks to team members, but if you don’t have their buy-in or they don’t have clarity, they will not do the task to your standard of quality, within the timeline you need, or sometimes– not do them at all.

Instead, project management starts by building shared understanding.  At its core, this means getting everyone involved in a project on the same page about:

A) The goals of the project

B) The definition of success

C) The three fundamental constraints:

• Scope of the project
• Resources available (especially human resources)
• Time available to complete the project

With shared understanding around these critical factors, timelines and task assignments can be made based on the reality of what’s possible, rather than on unrealistic hopes.  When unexpected problems arise (as they will), and changes to the plan have to be made, these changes can be made based on understanding of the tradeoffs they imply.

As consultants, we can help a startup go from a twinkle in the founder’s eye to a highly functional team.  The success of this evolution hinges on thoughtful project management.

–SK