Research Team Meetings

From October 2002 until June 2004 the research group met six times and had eleven teleconferences. These meetings were important for several reasons. Many of our major decisions were thrashed out and decided upon at these face-to-face meetings.⁸ These meetings were also the places where the project moved forward. Whenever the team met, the practitioner researchers were able to push their other work and personal lives to the side and focus on the project. As many of us work to deadlines, the event of a meeting forced us to have our tasks completed and designated tasks done. The face-to-face research team meetings were also the preferred format because collaboration can be done much more easily in each other's presence. The team in Dancing in the Dark (Niks et al., 2003) speaks about the value of their team meetings:

Too sporadically we met face-to-face. We found these meetings to be the richest and most useful way of working together. The momentum we gained when we were together, everyone focusing on the project at the same time and without interference from our work and personal lives carried on for weeks after the meeting (p. 85).

The team meetings drove the project forward, got us focussed and reconnected to each other. Getting together however was not a simple task. It was a challenge to get away. The research group had to choose a period that worked for eight highly active people and organize all the aspects of the meeting: travel, accommodations, substitute teachers and parents where needed, food, equipment and of course, the agenda.

⁸ There were also many times during these meeting when decisions weren't made, when we chose, because of lack of time or energy or both, to defer the decision.