sustain:if:able kiwi

making endings visible

Part of my current life includes research projects for industry partners. Organisations have questions about their future and I set about finding ways to explore those questions. I conduct feasibility studies, undertake co-design or interview people for reviews. It’s the type of work I love – in rapidly changing times, finding creative ways to help organisations clarify their futures.

One of the realities of this work is that endings are fuzzy. Let me explain.

• As a project ends, I write a report.
• This is often sent to a key individual, for fact-checking. They need time to digest.
• Often there is a follow-up meeting, for them to clarify the report.
• Sometimes there are changes made.
• Next the report is circulated to a group. They again need time to digest.
• Often there is a meeting with that group, during which I present a brief summary and respond to questions.
• After I leave, the meeting continues with decisions needing to be made. I often offer to conduct other work outside, in case they have a specific question. Sometimes this offer is accepted, other times not.
• Sometimes I found out after the meeting what happened after, other times not.
• Sometimes the decisions made include asking for more work from me, for example, conversations with those impacted by the review or preparing a public statement. Other times not.

So the endings are fuzzy. There is the adrenaline of the final draft, the finished report, the meeting. But when is the project ended? When do I actually celebrate a job I consider well done?

To help with fuzzy endings, I’ve taken to making the project personally visible in other ways. This involves going looking for an object, generally in a second-hand shop, that symbolises the project. It might be a pottery cup, a handmade brass jug, or a clay person. Ideally, it is cheap. Ideally, it is whimsical. Ideally, it captures something of the project. Here is a recent project symbol.

I like the unique handmadeness of this brass object. I like the slender fragility, how it was small in size, yet graceful in shape. The object is made for pouring and as I brought it, I prayed that the mission I was researching would indeed find ways to pour out grace and love for community.

I brought this around 3 February, the day I submitted a 23 page, 10,000-word review, to a funder. I scoped the project and wrote a brief in early October. The project was commissioned in mid-October, projected to require 11 days of work. Over the next 4 months, in between a range of other tasks, I interviewed 9 people, initiated an online participant survey and prepared an annotated bibliography summarising current best practices. I then spoke to the report on 24 February, responding for an hour to questions from the funding committee.

This object now sits on my desk. It reminds me of work done – the craft of interviewing, the skill of question selection, the creating of safe space in caring for participants, the organising of words to tell a story that is contextually located, the developing of recommendations to help sift future possibilities. It invites me to keep praying for the project. It feels good to make a project visible.