Associate Name: Liam McDermott
Main Advisor and OP Reviewer: Jennifer Dauksha-English Morgan

Output Packet #:  	4	Year: Capstone MSc
Date Submitted: June 16th, 2016
Date Reviewed: July 29th, 2016
Mark: 75
Grade: B
Time Spent on Review: 3.75 hrs

Dear Liam,

I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to read your Output Packet. Thanks for all of your work on both self and planetary levels.

My review is broken into these sections:
1. Evaluation Form 
2. Comments Per Section

Required next step: 
- Do one more round of editing of OP 4 before we submit OP to final review. Same for OP 5.
- Ensure that OP 5 has a thorough design comparison between different models you’ve used.
- Do a short essay in OP 5 on world context, 200 words minimum.
- Be sure that you show a lot of evidence of critical evaluation skills in OP 5.

Recommended next step:
- Read over my feedback and incorporate any suggestions that resonate into your OP 5.

I respect your integrity in managing your pathway. I'm glad to be your advisor!

Cheers,
Jennifer

OP REVIEW-------------------------

1. EVALUATION FORM-------------------- 

(attached)

2. COMMENTS PER SECTION---------------

Prologue
- I like the professional look of this page with the ‘cover letter’ style opening.
- Note to reviewers section is well written. I like how you provide a small introduction to Gaia U and action learning. I’m curious how you decided to say that OPs are a chance to document progression as a learner, manager and designer. Why those three and not other skill areas, like leader or researcher, or? Also in this section, the content overview is useful, however I would suggest that you break it down into three small paragraphs (one per section).
- Good that you are explaining words like un/learning.
- Your summary statement implies that the person reading this would understand what you mean by “articulated in your LIPD”. First of all, not all reviewers even know what a LIPD means. Secondly, not all Associates do OPs on the subjects that are outlined within a LIPD, thus it actually feels as if you expect the reader to know you followed course. Your LIPD needs to be attached with a hot link and provide more context and definition. This paragraph is very confusing to me. And I would suggest changing the title to LIPD Update rather than summary. I had imagined it was a summary of contents and got very confused. 
- Liked your enthusiasm in the property tour video. Lovely place.

OP Commentary
- I think that this page needs an introduction. You just dive right into life context and I’m left wondering what the purpose is of this page.
- Nice explanation on how you went from specific to diversified OP topic ideas.  I like that land stewardship became the focal point. Would be great if you explained how that transition happened. And why land stewardship?
- Spell out all acronyms the first time that you use them. otherwise it’s hidden within the description of your design.
- Were these goals for the OP content and presentation?
- I like that you have an entire page dedicated to OP design. 
- So with OP outcomes (and actionable items), can you directly connect the outcomes to the goals you had? I encourage you to adjust your formatting to include more spaces or hyphen marks - anything to make it more organized visually. The lack of spaces with the outcomes, and how some sentences bleed into the second line, makes it hard for me to see the patterns within the text. On that same note, perhaps consider getting rid of the repetitious “I” statements and just focus on the action. Like start with Researched instead of I researched.
- On design, doesn’t evaluation also include assessing whether or not you met the goals of the OP?
- What are these actionable items - for this OP or the next one? It’s not clear to me.
- You say that you add design comparison on 4.1.3 and I just noticed you have it in the tab after 4.2.2 was that intentional placement? I look forward to reading more on your design reflection in a more cumulative progression and comparison.
- The OP Abstract has some wonky formatting. Similar to not starting your actions out with I, I’d also recommend not putting to in front. So instead of “to showcase Liam’s skills” say “Showcase Liam’s skills”. I think it’s much more powerful of a statement.
- After you list both of your primary functions of the OP, how about specifying the why and how for each?
- There are several grammatical errors on this page.
- On OP Management section, you didn’t say anything about what your intentions were on OP submission or how you ensured you were meeting the requirements or tracking your input of time, attention, human resources, etc… You mention renegotiating timing - perhaps add the when’s and why’s.
- This looks like the design framework from the Gaia U site.

Extra 4
- ? Why is this page here? Is it a navigational page indicating a break in the sections?

Core Report Design
- I like that you open with a statement regarding world context. I want more of this. 
- How are you tracking your desired ideal outcomes. As a grant writer I was taught to always state desired outcomes and follow up wth a way you’ll track or monitor progress. 
- I like your seed-shoot-fruit-root design process. I’ve seen others use this model. Is there an author or source that you retrieved the information?
- Why did you choose this design model over other models?
- Great overview of each application of the model. I like how you added permaculture principles.
- The goals articulated actually fee more like objectives that fit into larger goals. Could you state overarching goals and then see how what yo have listed here are more specific objectives on how you’re going to meet the goal?
- Awesome that you included specific actionable items, however I think this section needs a one sentence mini introduction to tie it into the rest of the content on this page.
- I’m so happy to see you include this section on ‘the field’. Cool inclusion of pattern level awareness. I appreciate how you go from the field to your context within the field. Then you add a section on what you specifically have contributed and how. I would still like much more of this. I do not see that you are doing extensive research within the field.
- On interventions - be specific about where and how you are intervening, and how you’re tracking the progress of this pivot points.

Core Report Outcomes
- So explain what you’re intention is on sharing outcomes on this page, at the top.
- I love all the instructional videos - well done!
- Great supporting evidence within the report!
- Nice that you linked outcomes in relation to the goals you shared. Maybe consider a graphical image so we can see direct links.
- So was the Esalen workshop after you returned from Baja?
- It seems that the design reflections section might be better fitted to the page on design.
- 5 P’s get addressed.

Commentary
- Great that you added a section on why the project is important to your skill building in Applied Permaculture. Clear about why you chose the project. Why is this important though, to the world?
- I like all your life lessons and how you broke it up into sub projects, such as layering.
- I love how important family is to you Liam! Great that your nephew helped you plant!
- On the LIPD reflection, are you actually tracking your skills? Like making some value metrics?
- You included a section on project management and leadership! Great. What is the difference between being a leader and a project manager?
- You definitely do have a skillful manner of communication. I love the you say that you want to learn realistic time management. Something that helped me - for a few years I literally tracked the actual time that things took me. Here’s how I learned to be more real with time. 1. I would each Sunday, project my times for each tasks within my iCal. I’m talking about anything that was 15 minutes or more. For items less I would lump that together in general admin time or something else. 2. Each morning I would adjust my calendar based on what I thought would actually be doable in that given day. I’d bump the extra’s or low priority into my overflow day (Friday). 3. At the end of the day I’d actually track how much time the tasks actually took. So after a year or two, I’m sure you can understand that this was an amazing asset in figuring out projecting real time for tasks.
- In your response to the 4 questions, it would be helpful if you distinguished between the OP and the project. I’d also like to see you clearly articulate whether or not the goals for the OP were met. I call that the OP Process Reflection.
- Again lots of grammatical and formatting errors on this page. Did you edit twice as you stated you intended?
- I love that you added all of these key un/learnings. I’m wondering if you did this in a table if you’d be able to more likely see some comparative patterns emerging?
- OK, here I see you do have skill flex metrics - fantastic. Disregard my previous comment asking about assessing skills. Can you show where you were compared to where you are at now?
- I love that you added a section on the Kolb Kite. It is especially helpful to hear how you active experiment. Consider defining what each means.
- Excellent that you added Permaculture Principles section! I like how you gave examples for each one. Perhaps consider explaining the principle, what it means, for readers that aren’t in that field. Who’s list of principles is this. Holmgren and?
- On design, did you actually compare GaSADIE and ORGBADIE? What does the later acronymn stand for? Are you saying that competence and awareness are synonymous and same with attention and articulation? I wonder if you have identified when the use of one design model may be more useful than another?

Supporting Evidence (3)
- Good annotated list, yet I think it would be ideal if you had a bit more resources and specified how they helped with the outcomes of the project, not just state the content. Also state if they are a book or an article, etc…
- Nice images to support your outcomes and process.
- Explain air layer with the picture.
- It’s interesting that you combined pathway management with project outcomes on one page of support. Perhaps consider keeping those separate so that someone could just look at OP - Project - Pathway in unique sequence.
- Good overview of peer support and feedback. I really value how much you took advantage of Gaia U community resources.
- Digiphon - check! Did you use a tool to make the videos?
- On the second page you list applied permaculture design - I’m confused by the intent of this page.  Why is this information here and what are you assessing? This page definitely needs an introduction and then some conclusion at the end. Or at least state how it relates to the core report.
- Well done on consistent journalling.