FLEX 2011 Pamana Challenges and Accomplishments
Introduction • You can ask a good number of people about what went right with a project. Doing so would have its own advantages but, in my opinion, you can learn more from the challenges that the project faces. • FLEX can only keep getting better and better by working out the things that went wrong and improving what’s already good. • I hope sharing both the good and the challenging points of last year’s project can help you. • Good luck, FLTS 2012!
Challenges • VENUE • It took us a while to settle the date of the project. • This caused us to push back on our reservation of the venue. • We weren’t late with the submission but, with all the other orgs competing for venues for their own projects, we missed out on better venues for FLEX. • I advise you to work on logistics first. COMPLETE this and you can pretty much chill already
Challenges • Date • It clashed with an Ateneo-La-Salle game. • Although we had more than enough participants, we could feel in our hearts that those freshies were itching to watch their first Ateneo-La Salle game. • Some people left early
Challenges • Pinoy time • 7:30am call time IS 7:30am call time. • We anticipated Pinoy time on the part of the participants. There was a good number of freshies who went early and on time. We didn’t have anything prepared to keep them entertained while waited for more people to arrive. • Some of the freshies felt awkward at first. We had random people from the core team entertain each group by making kwento with them and fanning them =)) • Someone also had portable speakers with them. We played music while waiting. • It would be helpful to prepare something during the wait
Challenges • Controlling the crowd • We had a room full of excited freshmen. Some activities got them all hyped up that it become difficult for us to control their noise. They couldn’t hear our instructions anymore. • What we could have done was to be firm with how we carried ourselves so that the freshies could still feel the serious end of the project.
Challenges • Lacked in following up on the Mentorship program • Not all mentors were able to keep in contact with their assigned freshies • Suggestion: get people who will be willing to Mentor more than just getting nominations from VPs
Accomplishments • Building up the hype for the project • We started building up the hype when we searched for our core team members. We made them feel that what they were getting into was something awesome (because it truly was!) • For both the core team and the participants, we made them sign up on a first come, first serve basis. To encourage them to join, we asked quite a lot from the CC dept. for promotional materials especially for our teasers. Give people what they want bit by bit ;) • Ex. Teasers: scheduled releases of logos, teaser posters, invitation cards, countdowns, formal ad and the official lists
Accomplishments • Agendas and things to do • We structured our weekly meetings in such a way that we started knowing what was in store for us in that meeting (agenda) and what we had to do after (things to do/ homework) • There was a lot of work to do. What we did to manage everything was to break up the work into bite-sized pieces for all of us to take. • SLEs were completed days before the project. Materials were packed and readied. We did all of these things bit by bit and realized how much we’ve accomplished looking back at it all.
Accomplishments • BEST TEAMWORK EVER • Our core team was brilliant. The members focused and accomplished all the things that they had to. In our meetings and with talking amongst themselves, they took the initiative to give help wherever it was needed.
Accomplishments • Create a back-up plan for your back-up plan • We had back-ups for our venues and our schedules. It came to a point where we were down to the back-ups of our back-ups. • It’s harder to think of solutions when you’re stressed because of unforeseen events. Before the stress gets there, prepare your solutions already.
Accomplishments • SLE • I always forget what that stands for. They’re the GD’s and other activities prepared for the participants. Since it was for a leadership training seminar, the SLEs were themed accordingly • A lot of thought and practice went into making the SLEs. The people in charge of this function worked closely with Chris Nuevo to create them on behalf of the Training and Development team which had not been set up yet then.
Other Advice & Cheesy Quotes •
Settle logistics first.
•
Push yourselves to do better because you can.
•
Planning, implementation and evaluation are all equally important. Make sure that there’s room for evaluation during and after the project.
•
“Through involvement, people become committed to an organization.” Let your core team work for and have a say in the project. Let everyone feel that they own the project
•
Challenge everything that we did last year and do better.
•
Enjoy the time with your fellow Lex members. Spread the Lex love :D
•
You can look at what we did last year and the feedback that we received by going over our files: http://tinyurl.com/flex2011pamana
FLEX for LEX!