Output Packet Pro Review

Main Advisor and OP Reviewer: Laura Kaestele
Associate Name: Carolina-Therese Winter
Output Packet #: 3
Program: Bachelor of Science
Phase/ALC: PreCAP-ALC2
Date Submitted: October 12th 2018
Date Reviewed: October 25th 2018
Mark: 74
Grade: B
Time Spent on Review: 3 hrs + 0.5 for review forms

Dear Carolina,
fantastic work, this was possibly your strongest project-focused report so far. The highlight for me was your improvement in design articulation, process reflection and diverse application of design methods and elements to create great results in your project. In addition, to expanding your action learning, critical thinking skills, and holistic life design from personal, family, project, local to world engagement. Main learning edges are in the areas of editing, time and project management, active experimentation, and professional development. I am glad to be your advisor and witness your development and the grounding of many of your dreams on a piece of land and home for your family. I wish you all the best in setting up a land-based permaculture, home, and livelihood design and look forward to reading about it in your OPs.

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

Required Next Steps: 
�	Create a preliminary pathway, project and output timeline with estimated phases and milestones even if you don't know how long things take. You can always renegotiate and change, but this will provide structure, creative cornerstones and aid time management.
�	Pay attention to project management and professional development, share your challenges, goals, methods, plans, outcomes, skill-building and next steps in both areas. 

Recommended Next Steps: 
�	Continue to improve your English writing skills, use grammarly and do proof-reading.
�	Experiment with one new genre and writing style for your next OP, try it as an experiment.
�	Apply two distinct design processes and frameworks for your OP creation and project work.
�	Share the motivation, set up, process documentation and outcomes of one active experiment or prototype of some kind as part of your next OP.

Cheers, 
Laura

OP REVIEW

1.	PoDAPO EVALUATION FORM (attached)
2.	COMMENTS PER SECTION (see below)
COMMENTS PER SECTION

Title and Summary
 •	Beautiful first impression looking at the title and image in the right, nice way to match the colors - purple and green with the flowers and bees photo.
 •	Small correction this is your Output Packet #3, not #2, which was about the life transition pregnancy, but the 2nd project focused OP. Please change this for clarity and orientation. 
 •	Clearly structured and easy to read summary of your OP and project work. I would have liked for you to share more specific content and outcomes. What is your concept and vision for life in one sentence? Or what does „first experiences with bees“ actually mean? 
 •	An abstract is supposed to share the essence and outcomes of a report and just be a teaser or introduction. Here are two references for writing good abstracts: How to write an abstract and  Guidelines for writing an abstract for academic papers.
 •	Love the table of contents chart, super clear with the columns and division into commentary, core report and supportive evidence and visually engaging with bold titles and color transitions – all viewable in one look, no moving around like in mind maps.
 •	Guidelines for reading explain the different technology and navigation of the OP on Mahara well. I do find the seemingly random use of bold, italic and capital letters distracting.
 •	Great to see a whole section on incorporating feedback. However, I would like you to not just copy paste feedback from the peer or pro reviews, but to write how you respond and make changes in this OP based on the feedback received e.g. feedback → my response in bullet points or a spreadsheet plus also mention where and from who the feedback is from.

Commentary
 •	Excellent to see you have created a project design process for yourself and documented it well, concise and informative OP process reflections and structure of Mahara pages.
 •	I found the combination of OP and project design, development and evaluation a little intermingled at times e.g. you describe permaculture zoning once as OP design and then on the next page as giving structure to the project work. 
 •	From what I see you apply the CEPIA framework kind of for both the project and OP design. Was this a conscious choice? How did that go for you? What are the consequences and benefits of mixing or in comparison to two separate design processes?
 •	For the LIPD re-design and learning intentions, a clear overview of what goals from the LIPD were met, postponed or discarded and which ones newly added would have been great. Also add the old LIPD goals directly in this OP, so readers can see all in one look/page.
 •	You have really come to develop an amazing flexibility and capacity to be with changing and unknown circumstances and manage transitions in life well. Life is an incredible teacher!
 •	I appreciate your manage time and promises section and how you share a new tool you are successfully using and other key outcomes and un/learning experiences. 
 •	Nice to balance the structure of regular documentation with ZIM with the flexibility of open timeframes and learn how long things take you have never done before. Congratulations to managing your time so well and continuing your study work as a full-time mother!
 •	Exciting to witness you landing on a piece of land and starting a permaculture and life design grounded in this new place and situation as well as integrating professional goals.
 •	Tracking goals and outcomes can be done similar to project management in a kanban board with „to do“, in progress“ and „done“ with for example a structure like this: „SMART goal“, „implementation“, „progress“, „outcomes“, „changes and renegotiation“, and „comments“.
 •	What I am missing in the commentary is an evaluation, tracking and next steps regarding your pathway and program requirements e.g. main and skillflex advising sessions, presentations, OPs, and Gaia Radio Calls. 
 •	Besides, you can make a projected timeline for now – even if you don't know how life develops - and change it again later. I found it helps to give yourself a time frame as a creative limit that can be renegotiated as needed.

Project Overview
�	 Great choice to apply permaculture zoning for intentionally making and mapping out your interventions in different systems or levels (personal up to world) and areas of your life and work. Seems to be a beneficial design method for creating a life design.
�	Great graphics of the zoning wheels and attention to different levels of your design and engagement. Maybe a helpful addition to the graphic and design would have been areas of your life as sectors in the circular zoning model e.g. education, career/work, house/home, land stewardship, and farming etc. to structure your goals, interventions and next steps.
�	Both graphics the „Central Thread for OP3“ (where you use the correct OP number) and „Project Timeline“ are great. Please add a few sentences to describe, summarize and give context about the application, purpose and/or outcomes of these visual elements.
�	Nice to see a section where you explain the design method zoning from permaculture, how and where it is normally used and how you have adapted it for this project and your life.

Zone 0
�	Short comment regarding page titles, it would have been a helpful little reminder for me to add to the title „Zone 0 – Personal“ or „Zone 1 – Family“ for the second page.
�	What do you mean by „high speed of implementation for new knowledge and information“? How could you link the transformation that you want to see in zone 0 with specific intervention and leverage points in your personal life to achieve these changes?
�	Interesting how this zone 0 is much like a re-design of a LIPD sharing your goals, wishes,  and motivation as well as the river of life graphic. And yes, I do think being an adult means taking up to 100% responsibility for your life and actually the world, plus it comes with higher levels of consciousness, connection, and freedom as well.
�	I just briefly read through the inner critique section and was wondering whether you actually went through with the prototype, implementation, and evaluation of this experiment. If yes what were the results and un/learnings? What changed?
�	Excellent documentation of your research and reading, I particularly value and acknowledge the critical book evaluations you share here demonstrating how you process, compare and critique knowledge and create a process to validate and test knowledge.
�	Clear skill-building and tracking spreadsheet that shares your progress and attention given to each skillflex in relation to personal and professional development. These things do take time and unfold for your entire life, so patience is helpful. I have observed the same pattern for things clarifying and evolving step-by-step over time.
�	There is some confusing mixture of languages in documents and information you share in this OP mixing English and German, which I understand but international readers won't.

Zone 1
�	Why is writing and sharing your blog part of zone 1 family? Doesn't the blog create an online platform and communication channel to reach and inform people in other zones?
�	Whole-heartedly agree with the statement about nuclear family by Christopher Alexander and in our times we have the pleasure, freedom, and responsibility as adults to either connect more closely with our blood family or create family-like bonds with a people we choose to spend our lives with e.g. in communities or eco-villages.
�	Fantastic design cycle and graphical presentation to find a place and home for your family. I really appreciate the simple and clear design cycle from wishes, research, places to visit and evaluation and including also the temporary solution and benefit of the tiny house.
�	I am a little confused as the result here is that you have not found a place, but in our email communication, I understood that you did, in fact find a place in Austria to move to?
�	Cool image to assess the community and land-based projects you have visited and share some of the many evaluation and decision-influencing factors.
�	Well done for observing your process of reflection and decision-making for finding a long-term place to live and work with the land and putting this observation into a process flowchart. What is/not working in the process? Where is good flow or where stress?
�	Clear and critical reflection about the benefits and downsides of living in a tiny house.
�	Excellent implementation and progress on your website and blog to share experiences, project and learning with a wider audience. Congratulations on publishing 8 blog articles as part of this output cycle. Again not sure why you put this in the zone 1 family? 
�	In the next OP I would like to see an additional assessment of the outreach, how many people read the blog, comments etc. and maybe some feedback on the value from readers.

Zone 2
�	I feel glad to see your design ideas and concepts for creating a land-based permaculture project, I know you have been looking and longing for the opportunity to implement your dreams and learnings and take care of a piece of land for a while.
�	Excellent reference and best practice to bring in the permaculture three-zone garden by Markus Gastl as an inspiration and actual model you and others can use for their design.
�	Beautiful and actionable design graphic for your own permaculture project. I love how you presented and mapped out the design with some guiding patterns and ideas at the center, required resources and inputs on the left and expectations and outcomes to the right, both giving attention to personal, project, peer, professional, and political levels. This is a helpful foundation to start and develop this land project, manage and track progress.
�	Clear and detailed process description of finding a place to live and implement your project ideas demonstrating determination, flexibility, need assessment, reflection, clear priorities, and an intentionally created system and set of criteria to search for and choose a place.
�	Happy to read about your observations, knowledge building, reflections, experiments and first practical experiences with regards to natural bee-keeping. I hope you can test our different practices and gain advanced experience at your new home place.

Zone 3 and 4
�	Fantastic work to research initiatives, projects and government programmes related to your intended project work and map out what already exists in the field and local surrounding.
�	Well done for networking and reaching out to schools and seeking out opportunities for you to join in the beekeeping educational programmes of a school, even though you could only assist once, great to take steps and also critically reflect on bee-keeping practices and how natural, ecological and bee-friendly they really are.
�	Nice to share about the main advisor training, your learnings, and outcomes, as well as the bee Gaia Radio Content Call. Having an impact on a world and political level is not so easy or fast to achieve and I think one of the best strategies is joining existing large-scale organisations and networks that have more „weight“ together and make a global impact.
�	Also, I see your main focus of your energy, attention and work for now and the short to medium term on a personal, family, land and local level that is/will be more than enough to work on and keep you busy and fulfilled for some years. I think it is worth considering what level you are most interested and driven to work and contribute to and then go and do that – some people thrive with local engagement on the land others as political influencers.

Result
�	Super excited and happy for you and your family to have found such a fitting piece of land to by, take good care of, develop and implement your permaculture project on!!!
�	Great first steps laid out for a productive land-based design and project start at the new property you are settling on as a home. Interesting and informative field analysis of different sectors, aims and connection points to the field as part of the goal articulation and assessment stage of the design in combination with an initial concept write up to summarize the context, background, goals of the project and draft implementation plan.
�	I am really looking forward to seeing the full land-based permaculture design project and implementation plan for your new home and land in future OPs. Wishing you success!

Supportive Evidence
�	Annotated resource review with an extensive list of online resources and books, great to incorporate links for easy reference and write comments to share a summary and value.
�	Clear and descriptive digiphon listing all the tools and platforms used for project management and OP creation. 
�	Good community engagement and participation, glad that you found a good build buddy in Mona – do you two have regular check-ins and/or calls? 
�	How can you design a good local and online learning support system for yourself to shift out of your isolation pattern and build healthy learning relationships? Why do you create a sense of isolation for yourself, what are the patterns and benefits? Where and how can you intervene and experiment to seek connection and support? Are are next steps?
�	Well done for preparing and hosting a Gaia Radio Call on „Honeybees in Resilient Ecosystems“ together with Mona.
�	Great improvements in documentation and evidence of design process, project outcomes and learning experiences documented and shared in this OP and on your blog.

OP Reviews
�	Self review and peer review of your OP3 from Ava is attached to the first OP page, but your review of a peer's OP is missing. Did you say nobody else took the OP bus and thus this normal exchange was not possible?
�	I see you are more comfortable and skilled to review your OP work through the PoDAPO criteria and see progress and areas for improvement. Happy about the development!
�	Excellent attention to integrating feedback from my last pro review, I see you worked on all the required and recommended steps I shared and made some progress. These are all areas I encourage you to continue working and expanding your capacity in.
�	How did the advising and mentor training change and support your understanding and competence to create great OPs and also review them? What new things did you learn? Do you plan on actually becoming an advisor for GaiaU now the training is complete?