Week One of My Laidlaw Experience
Good progress was made in this first week. Me and my partners, with the help of our graduate supervisor, started exploring what was being asked of us by our stakeholder, and what our research would entail. There was tangible outcomes achieved, with us refining our research proposal, drafting questions to ask in our semi-structured interviews with the stakeholder next week, and analyzing the material provided to us. We also became closer as a team, leaning on each other for support and having open discussions in our meetings, which I am very proud of because I believe this will no doubt be the key to our success. All of the team has different skills to offer and so being able to use all of them will help us progress. So far, we have been continuing nicely with no major setbacks, however I do believe we will need to plan carefully when it comes to relying on people external to our team, because we will have to depend on schedules other than our own, and so that will start to come in this following week when we visit the stakeholders. I will personally work on my time management, as I do not wish to stall the team in any way, which may have happened in the times which they have had to wait on me to start a meeting for example. Our communication has been good and the team has been understanding however, I would like to prove my dedication to this project by being consistently on time for them. A moment that stood out to me this week was the team getting together to work on our next steps at the start of this week; I felt as though we all collaborated nicely and understood each other well, which is a good sign for us being united as this project progresses and possibly become harder. My role this week was fairly focussed on learning, with having different IT sessions to understand the more technical side of things, and a bit of leading, where I was trying to formulate how we should assign tasks, and with organizing the research proposal, which was my main task. I would say this had a positive impact, as the organization helped our team start off strong. As I mentioned, I would like to work on my time management, both within the context of the team meeting and the personal tasks I have been set. I would also like to implement the Laidlaw value of curiosity in the next week, specifically during our trip to discuss with the stakeholders: being engaged, furthering the interview with asking different questions, being keen with the observations we shall hopefully be making. Finally, one concrete action I would like to take this next week to improve my leadership is, following the meeting with the stakeholders, voicing my opinion on how we should proceed with the new information gained (still being under the guidance of the graduate supervisor however). That is all from me this week!! It has been lovely reflecting on the start of my experience.
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Hi Isabella,
Thank you for your reflection. It is really encouraging to read how positively your team has started. One of the things that stood out to me was your emphasis on collaboration and recognising that everyone brings different strengths. Research is often a team activity, and building those relationships early will put you in a strong position as the project becomes more demanding.
I also appreciated your honesty about wanting to improve your time management. Being able to reflect openly on areas for development is an important leadership quality, and it's great to see you already thinking about practical ways to contribute more effectively to the team.
As you move into next week and begin meeting stakeholders, I'd encourage you to keep one question at the forefront of your thinking: 'How will this help your community partner to evaluate its impact more effectively?' The brief isn't simply asking you to understand outdoor education or impact evaluation—it is asking you to help develop a practical, meaningful and sustainable evaluation approach that a small charity could realistically use in its day-to-day work.
As you ask questions and analyse information, try to connect everything back to that end goal. For example, if you identify a challenge with existing evaluation methods, what practical recommendation might follow? If you hear about a successful practice, could it become part of the framework your team is developing?
Overall, this is a really positive first reflection. Your enthusiasm, willingness to lead, and commitment to supporting your teammates all come across clearly. I'm looking forward to seeing how your thinking develops once you've had the opportunity to engage directly with your community partner on Monday, and begin translating your early ideas into a practical solution for the organisation.