collaboration & community team building approach to local food systems projects presentation by...

Collaboration & Community Team Building Approach to Local Food Systems Projects

Presentation by

Warren Miller, Fountainworks

www.fountainworks.com

•Understand a process for designing collaborative local food system projects

•Learn techniques to define your team’s project goals and strategies

•Learn techniques for managing collaborative meetings

Webinar Objectives

•Teams are able to develop and manage food systems projects that utilize a collaborative and community based approach.

•Teams are able to share this information and train others

Overall Objectives

•Engage the wider community

•Build a strong collaborative partnership

•Integrate social, environmental and economic concerns in the development process

Guiding PrinciplesFor collaboration and community team building

Source: Growing Home, Green and Hilchey

• Assess your community’s food system

•Identify potential partners

•What is their capacity to act?

Assess Your Readiness

Assess Your Community’s Food System

Source: Growing Home, Green and Hilchey

WHO ARE YOUR STAKEHOLDERSCURRENTNetwork

FUTURENetwork

Citizens/Community

Identify Gaps

Middle Businesses/Markets

Food SystemLeaders

Project Team

Producers/Distributors

Alliances

Citizens/Community

Food SystemLeaders

Project Team

Producers/Distributors

Alliances

Middle Businesses/Markets

•Your team’s readiness•Your partners’ and sponsors’ readiness•Your community’s readiness

Major initiatives require that busy people care enough to spend time and resources to create change.

Readiness Checklist

Multiple Sources

Bring together a leadership team for your project

A diverse core group of people with talent, relationships, resources and credibility is needed to facilitate and lead the charge.

ENERGIZING OURSELVES: Building and equipping a leadership team

Source: Facilitating Community Change, Darvin Ayre, Gruffe Clough & Tyler Norris

Hold a Project Launch MeetingWhy?

• Get project off to a good start

• Demonstrate importance and buy-in

• Clarify roles and responsibilities

• Communicate, allay fears, instill confidence

• Make “it” official – no more just tinkering around the edges

Using Team Performance Principles… …in a typical meeting

Purpose Why are we having this meeting?

Team Why has this particular team been pulled together? What are the roles?

Meeting GoalWhat do we need to accomplish or decide by the end of this meeting?

Commitment How will the agenda enable us to accomplish our meeting goal?

Organize the Project

• Establish the project roles/ responsibilities

• Define project parameters

• Plan the project framework

• Assemble the project definition document (this can be a 1 pager!)

Source: IPS Associates, Inc., Project Management Manual

What Does Success Look Like?

What’s your wow?

Is/ Is Not Exercise

• A group exercise to clarify scope and objectives

Classic Project Objective Statement

• Put a man on the moon and return him safely by December 31, 1969, at a cost of $9 billion

• Create a Fully Operational Farmers Market within 8 months at a cost of $xxx

Source: IPS Associates, Inc., Project Management Manual

Challenges Facing Project Teams

•Setting clear, compelling purpose

•Agreeing on specific goals

•Others???

Project Management Skills

• HARD SKILLS

•15%

•SOFT SKILLS

•85%

Create a Project Management Roadmap (Logic Model)

• Documents• Often one page (a one-page strategic plan?)• Maybe all text, maybe with diagrams, maybe

both• Can be text, table, chart, etc.• Various levels of detail articulating multiple

components of a project• Consider possibility that a project may need

more than one flow chart

Why do we use them?

• To map a process or part of a process from beginning to end

• To ensure common understanding of where we are now (at the beginning) and where we want to be (at the end) – mission, goals, outcomes, and strategies for achieving them

• To document the plan for all stakeholders• For communications and PR purposes (buy-in?)• For all of the above to ensure common language

Logic Model Template AYou may reduce the font size in the table .Assumptions: OptionalGoal(s): Optional

INPUTS OUTPUTS OUTCOMES

What we invest ACTIVITIES PARTICIPANTS SHORT TERM MEDIUM TERM LONG TERM

What we do Whom we reach and/or Whom we involve

What the short term results are

What the long term results are

What the ultimate impact(s) are

OUTCOME MEASURES

Source: USEPA http://yosemite.epa.gov/R10/ECOCOMM.NSF/webpage/measuring+environmental+results#LOGIC%20MODEL%20TEMPLATES

Get Early Wins

•Consider selecting an initial idea or a project that you and your leadership team can accomplish quickly

•Effective collaboration and stakeholder engagement is a critical success factor for local food system projects.

ENERGIZING The Community: Building Knowledge for Action

Source: Facilitating Community Change, Darvin Ayre, Gruffe Clough & Tyler Norris

Guidelines for Community Engagement

•Give the public a sense of how involved they will be in the process before the meeting takes place.

Source: Fountainworks

BeforePrepare the Community/ Participants

Prepare the Space

Prepare Yourself

Facilitating Community Change

Community Engagement

How to Manage the Experience

Establish a Clear Context for the Project

Hold the meeting in a safe and comfortable environment

Set a tone for mutual trust and respect throughout the meeting

Educate participants in the discussion topic (as needed)

Ensure every person participates

Keep the conversations focused

Ensure conversations are rich in content and ideas

Community Engagement

How to Manage the Experience

Community Visioning

• Begin by identifying the assets in your community

My Community’s Asset MAPProducers

UNCER

TAIN

TIES

Distributors

Governmental Markets

Consumers

• Asset 1

• Asset 1

• Asset 1

• Asset 1

• Asset 1

• Asset 1

• Asset 1

• Asset 1

• Uncertainties

• Uncertainties

• Uncertainties

• Uncertainties

• Uncertainties

• Uncertainties

Other Partners

•

Cover Story Vision Exercise

YOUR IDEA’S SPOTSTRENGTHS

+ Strength

+ Strength

+ Strength

+ Strength

PROBLEMS THREATS

– Problem

– Problem

– Problem

– Problem

Threat

Threat

Threat

Threat

Threat

OPPORTUNITY

CU

RR

EN

T/I

NTER

NA

L FU

TU

RE/E

XTER

NA

L

+ Strength

+ Strength

+ Strength

+ Strength

– Problem

– Problem

– Problem

– Problem

• Description• Description• Description

OPPORTUNITIES

Threat

OPPORTUNITY• Description• Description• Description





Threat

Threat

Categorizing Project IdeasHIGH

LOW

IMPACT

DIFFICULTY HIGH

Golden Nuggets PricklyPears

Low HangingFruit

II IV

I III

Source: Adapted from multiple sources

LOW

Stone Soup

AfterMake time to analyze data with your team immediately following the data collection step (community meetings).

As a team, summarize community data, determine its implications on your project/decision and decide what to do next.

Be respectful of all community input, even if you do not agree with it.

Decide how you will share you findings with others in your organization and with the community.

Facilitating Community Change

These are critical components of community initiatives and often don’t

get the attention they deserve.

Monitoring, Control and Evaluation

Developing Evaluation Questions

· Identify key stakeholders and audiences

· Formulate potential evaluation questions

· Define outcomes in measurable terms

· Prioritize and eliminate questions

Source: 2002 User Friendly Handbook for Project Evaluation

•First, plan it. Then do it!

•High performance teams succeed

•Meetings matter

•Work with your assets

A Quick Review

Ingredients for Success

•Be passionate

•Be a Problem Solver

•Be a Skilled Facilitator

•Be an Effective Communicator

Collaboration & Community Team Building Approach to Local Food Systems Projects

Thank Your for Participating!

Please Share Observations and Ask Questions