Goals of the Project:

Develop the self$-$reflection and action research skills that are critical to effective

management;

Use the first and second person tool kits from the course to design and carry out a personal

experiment to improve some relationship or situation at work or in your life;

Report on the results and describe what you learned about your current organizational skills

and reflective practice;

Suggest some concrete steps you might take to continue to develop your reflective practice.

This project begins by identifying some current problem or opportunity you are currently facing

in some relationship at work, at home, or in any organization of which you are a part. In short,

something concrete about a working relationship or project you would like to improve.

The simplest approach is to think of a recent conversation with a co$-$worker or other person in

your life that didn't turn out as well as you would have liked and begin by writing a two column

case in the format of the Tardy Twosome case. However, you can also work on something that

is not specifically a conversation, but more of a challenge or personal development goal that

you have for yourself, such as "manage distractions better at work" or "learn to facilitate better

meetings". You might also consider situations that seems familiar and frustrating $($e$.$g$.,$ "why am

I always the one who has to organize everything?", "how come I can never speak up in

meetings, even when I know the answer or have an important point to make?"$).$ These are

often good places to begin.

Ideally, the experiment should involve a current situation that you want to improve somehow.

Your goal will be to treat this situation as a personal case in which you will apply courseGoals of the Project: $*$ Develop the self$-$reflection and action research skills that are

critical to effective management; $*$ Use the first and second person tool kits from the

course to design and carry out a personal experiment to improve some relationship or

situation at work or in your life; $*$ Report on the results and describe what you learned

about your current organizational skills and reflective practice; $*$ Suggest some

concrete steps you might take to continue to develop your reflective practice. This

project begins by identifying some current problem or opportunity you are currently

facing in some relationship at work, at home, or in any organization of which you are a

part. In short, something concrete about a working relationship or project you would like

to improve. The simplest approach is to think of a recent conversation with a co$-$worker

or other person in your life that didn't turn out as well as you would have liked and begin

by writing a two column case in the format of the Tardy Twosome case. However, you

can also work on something that is not specifically a conversation, but more of a

challenge or personal development goal that you have for yourself, such as "manage

distractions better at work" or "learn to facilitate better meetings". You might also

consider situations that seems familiar and frustrating $($e$.$g$.,$ "why am I always the one

who has to organize everything?", "how come I can never speak up in meetings, even

when I know the answer or have an important point to make?"$).$ These are often good

places to begin. Ideally, the experiment should involve a current situation that you want

to improve somehow. Your goal will be to treat this situation as a personal case in which

you will apply course theories to design a new approach that you will implement and

then reflect on$.$ Your paper will write up the results of this personal experiment in the

application of course theories using the following outline as a guide: $1.$ Identify a

personal case This should clearly state some gap between an actual and desired

outcome you would like to see in a project, on your team, in your department, or in your

own individual behavior at work. Illustrate this concretely with a concise example. In

short, explain what you want to improve and why? If you are doing a two$-$column case,

this will be the first part of paper $($see the Tardy Twosome case for an example$).$ A two$-$

column case always starts with a $1-2$ paragraph description of the problem situation.

This is followed with two columns $($for a page or so$),$ with the right column containing a

reconstructed dialog from the conversation and the left containing the $($usually

unexpressed$)$ thoughts and feelings you were having at the time. If you are focused a

situation that is not a conversation, this section should describe the situation you will

be working on and provide a concrete example illustrating a performance gap or

opportunity for improvement. $2.$ Analysis Conduct an analysis of the situation using at

least one of the following sets of course tools and skills $($Ladder of inference,

schemas$/$mental models, $4$ parts of speech; personali