As some of you know, I’ve spent the last decade focusing on good design for change projects and programs. A couple of months ago I was asked by the SESA Program to convert my 2-day Changeology workshop into an eLearning resource.
jet_guy.W300.H335About a week ago, having almost completed this, it hit me that I’d created something rather different and a little bit amazing: a real-time project design system with in-built mentoring, controlled by the users.
As far as I know it’s a first.
In the Self-drive model, I split the Changeology process into 7 stages and ask people to apply it to real life projects. (I always insist that people design real life projects in my training workshops anyway. Why? Because designing for real people, in real places, with constraints you can see, touch and feel, is always infinitely better than designing for theoretical people. Being able to see those people in your mind – and talk to them – really is a condition for successful change projects.)
Of course people can still do the Changeology Self-drive with a theoretical project, and treat it just like a training course….but that’s way less interesting.
The next step was to add online mentoring. Google Docs enabled this nicely. I simply converted the Project Design Template into a Google doc, and now I can literally watch people type in their information, and offer my comments on the fly. Then they can comment on my comments, making it a discussion! (At least in theory – it’ll be interesting in practice.) And I’ll also interact via Skype and emails.

Like all innovations, it’s an experiment and I’m very curious to see how it rolls out.
Changeology Self-drive goes live today!
Note to waste and water professionals: Lucky you! The SESA Program has fully funded 12 FREE positions for water and water professionals, for thoese who contact SESA and are first to complete registration with SESA.
If you want to be one of these, you should immediately contact SESA at sesaproject@gmail.com and put your name down. If you are one of the happy 12, you’ll participate for free.