HUMAN RESOURCE METHODS

The Programmatic Chart 1

The Consult Method 2

The Art Form Conversation 3

The Workshop Method 5

Gridding 7

Creating a Timeline 9

Time Design 11

Space Design and Decor 13

Planning a Workday 15

Planning a Celebration 17

Keys to Single­Community

Development 19

Campaign Maneuver­Building 21

programmatic chart not scanned

THE CONSULT PLANNING METHOD

The consult method is used either to launch a Human Development Project or to assist any group to turn its vision into reality. In this method contradictions are treated as doors to the future rather than brick walls.



THE ART FORM CONVERSATION

An art form is a tool for reflection. The art form conversation is a series of questions that takes a group on a journey of consciousness. This method is also useful for reflecting on experiences such as the work of the morning, a village visit or a celebration.

PROCEDURES

Very carefully, put your questions in the following order so that a journey in consciousness or awareness takes place. Not that all the following questions are right for every conversation. Choose or create questions right for the experience your conversation is about.

1. Objective: What did you see, hear, notice?

2. Reflective: What is your relation to the experience?

How did you feel?

What did you like? Dislike?

3. Interpretive: What is happening here?

Where do you see this going on in life?

Where in your life?

  1. Decisional: What would you name the experience?

What story would you tell about it?

What would you name it?



THE WORKSHOP METHOD

The workshop is a way for a group of people to pool all the insights from its members on any issues, and then to give fore, and direction to the data out of the consensus of the group. It is a way to get everyone's wisdom into a new plan.

PROCEDURES

1. Context: Why do this work shop?

What is its topic?

What is its aim?

2. Brainstorm

Ask questions to which the answers will be brainstorm in which everyone participates. Put the brainstorm 1ists on the board. Honour all contributions. Each person's response should be short no long speeches or argument.

3. Gestalt

Gestalt the lists ­ that is, arrange data into groups of related items . This gestalt may reveal areas where more data is needed. Often it will reveal new relationships.

  1. Consensus

Name the gestalt. This clarifies the consensus of the group up to this point, allowing the group to move forward to create a model, such as a timeline, a graphic design or a chart.

5. Reflection

Reflection what you have done. What breakthroughs, what insights have become clear. Reflector, the original issue of the workshop and the work accomplished.


GRIDDING

Gridding is a method which helps you to become familiar with a piece of geography and what goes on within it ­ its sociality ­ and then, to create an image or line picture which holds this reality. It helps a group to form a consensus about how it intends to relate to a particular area. For example, how many stakes or neighborhoods are there, and where are they? Where is the centre, or where should a centre be created? Where do outsiders enter the community and how should that place be created? The grid is the first symbolic and practical step in taking responsibility for space by organizing it into rational geographic patterns.

PROCEDURE

1. Become familiar with the geography to be gridded (walk, drive, get population data, maps, etc.).

2. Art form the map of the area.

3. Identify and mark: population centers, cultural or ethnic divisions, nodes j landmarks, natural boundaries (rivers, lakes, etc.), political boundaries, arteries and pathways.

4. Discuss values to be used in gridding ­ such as population size, etc.

5. Draw initial picture of the area, share these and discuss the gifts of each.

6. Form a consensus on the grid. Symbolic power is the key and therefore, you want a grid that can be easily reproduced.

7. Check the grid against the economic and social principles and actual data on the area.

Draw large artistic form of the grid and put it in a highly visible public space.

CREATING A TIMELINE

Making a timeline creates a releasing image of how a total task can be completed by showing the parts of the task spread out over the time available. A timeline clearly lays out what must be done at each stage to ensure that the model or plan is implemented.

PROCEDURES

1. Start with the model or plan which has to be done.

2. Organize the tasks from the plan into arenas of activity.

3. List the details of these tasks in each arena.

4. Decide how much time is needed for the entire plan to be accomplished.

5. Draw a timeline chart with the arenas along the left side and the time along the top. The timeline can be for several years, several months, weeks or days, depending on the work to be accomplished.

6. Decide which tasks come early, which late, and put them in the appropriate space on the chart. .Post the chart.

7. Check the chart regularly and make any revisions that become necessary.


TIME DESIGN

A time design puts an imaginal framework around a period of time in order to claim day­by­day activities as significant. A time design gives meaning to the daily and weekly rhythms of a community.

PROCEDURES

1. Brainstorm the activities of the day or week.

2. Weave them into an ordered sequence, paying attention to the rhythm and the form of the day or week, e.g. when is the time for celebration, for teamwork, for a community workday, family events, etc.

3. Create the name, even a poetic phrase, that holds a block of time and relates it to the whole design.

4. Design a visual image, chart or art form that holds the time pattern.

5. Make up the design and display it. It can be made as a piece of attractive

decor.


SPACE DESIGN AND DECOR

The space in which you lead a meeting or study or work affects you, although you may not be aware of it. Arrangement of the furniture in a room and the decor can turn neutral or negative space into an ally. Decor on the walls or tables steadily send messages that affect the images of those who live with them. It can create an environment of intentionality and victory, or of weariness and failure.

SPACE

Taking care of space is an essential part of caring for people.

1. For a corporate meal or meeting, arrange the tables and chairs so that all the people can see each other and the front of the room.

  1. Set tables with precision. Arrange serving dishes in "islands" at specific

points so that everyone is easily served.



Decor claims space for a given purpose and sets a context for the activities that take place in that space.

1. Design a focal point for the room by placing an art form on the centre table.

2. Place wall decor at eye level.

3. Mount all wall decor on attractive backing

4. Hold both the global and the local in the decor. Use symbolic decor and working decor, such as a timeline.

5. Make all charts attractive and rational. Never post an unattractive chart.



A corporate work event is a symbol of pouring out your life into building community along with your neighbor. It is creating a sign, changing an image, and demonstrating a new possibility as it gets a job done. Sharing physical work and transforming space forges corporateness and makes a lasting impression on those who have a part in it.



PROCEDURES FOR PLANNING A WORKDAY

1. Choose the task corporately, as a group.

Talk to people in all the stakes or neighborhoods

Talk to community leaders

Have a workshop ­ Ask:

What needs to be done that can be done corporately

What will make a difference that all will notice?

What will engage all the troops for all the time?

(Think of twice as much work as you think you will need.)

2. Context the troops.

The best context is to have the people who do the work involved in the planning, but whether or not that happened, find a way to share:

3. Prepare materials

Many workdays have almost sunk in the bog of forgotten materials. Carefully brainstorm the materials you will need, and by the morning before the day you need them, know where you will get everything you need.

4. Answer these questions:

5. Celebrate the accomplishment. Take photographs, sing a song, do a ritual. Later reflect on the experience.




PLANNING A CELEBRATION
WHY
What do you want to happen to people?

(Everything else depends on that')


HOW
Mood

Theme

Activities

Space


Timing

Food

Music

Budget

exuberant, calm, wild, delighted meditative, intriguing.

what ties it all together

singing, dancing, performing, eating, drinking, making things, contests, set­up, clean­up

indoors, outdoors, familiar space, strange space, seating arrangements, lighting, col our, flowers, cloths. .

beginning, middle, end, transitions, high point, prelude.

type, how prepared and served, variety, theme . .

live, recorded, performed, equipment

available resources, cost, how cost will be covered


WHO

Roles

Participants


assignment and contexting for host(s) and for those in charge of food, set­up, etc.

how they are to be invited, what image they will be given as to dress, how they will anticipate and remember the occasion with delight.


KEYS TO SINGLE­COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

The Community Plans Together

The Community Works Together

The Community Invests Together

The Community Learns Together

The Community Celebrates Together

The Canadian Institute of Cultural Affairs is a voluntary organization working for socioeconomic renewal. It is one of 35 nationally autonomous affiliates in developed and developing countries.

The uniqueness of ICA's approach is its emphasis on human development ­ on creating the desire and methods whereby local people themselves plan and bring about lasting development in their own communities.



THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS

Montreal/Quebec Regions Toronto/London Regions Ottawa Region

5206 Ave. de l'Esplanade 99 Bellevue Avenue 121 Sherbrooke Ave.

Montreal, Quebec Toronto, Ontario Ottawa, Ontario

H21 2Z5 5T 2NB K1Y lS1

Tel. (514) 276­1933 Tel. (416) 961­29U9 Tel. (613)/23­6524