Introduction
This LIPD was created from January 2017 to May 2017 (five months). It took such a long time, because many things happened in life and it felt like a time of uncertainty where I had no real idea what will come next. My life still feels in all areas like a big transition, this is encouraging but at times very challenging. Nevertheless with the help of a design process called "Dragon Dreaming" I never lost my structure. I was able to design and re-design my project ideas again and again and work strategic towards the OP submission . I am now very happy to present my Learning Intentions and Pathway Design for my second year. Below I present "Dragon Dreaming", the process which helped me to work strategic. I share some reflections, documents and photos on how I applied this Design process.
Design Process Dragon Dreaming
Dragon Dreaming is a holistic, playful, encouraging and inspiring process helping groups and individuals their dreams come true. It offers different tools, techniques, tips for visionary initiation processes, planning, implementation, evaluation and celebration. Dragon Dreaming is based on the following three ethics:
1. SERVICE TO EARTH = enhancing the well being and flourishing of all life
2. COMMUNITY BUILDING = strengthening the communities of which you are a part
3. PERSONAL GROWTHS = commitment to your own healing and empowerment
Based on these three ethics a project wheel (seethe picture on the right) was developed which I used to design my LIPD. By providing four strategic design stages Dragon Dreaming can be applied in a very creative way. The stages are:
- Dreaming (usually the initial stage): Be aware of your dream and vision. Share it in a creative way. Gather all necessary information. To read more detail about my LIPD and project dreams, please open this document.
- Planning: Strategies are created to make the dreams come true. The Karabirdt, a complex planning web, helps to organize the next steps.
- Doing: Make your dreams and plans come true and use the Karabirdt as a guideline.
- Celebrating: Reflect about your implementation phase and learn from it. Appreciate and celebrate the progress and people's work.
To read more about Dragon Dreaming in general, just open the document "Dragon Dreaming" here. This document includes condensed information about methods, tools and tips from Dragon Dreaming.
Managing and tracking my progress -Karrabirdt-
The Karrabirdt is a very effective planning tool often used in Dragon Dreaming. I would say it was the most helpful tool for me during my LIPD production. The Karrabirdt is based on the project wheel. Each stage is divided in three sub-points which help to give more structure. For example for "Dreaming" the sub-points are: "Awareness", "Motivation" and "Gather Information". With the help of these sub-points I firstly created a To-Do-list with all steps I need to take in order to have a successful project (click here to see the to-do-list ). Then I clustered the steps and gave them names which I wrote on the Karrabirdt (see my Karrabirdt in the Slideshow on the right). Taking a look on the Karrabirdt when I did not know what to do and additionally use the to-do-list enabled me to work with structure. Always when I fulfilled all required small steps in the to-do-list I coloured the corresponding point on the Karrabirdt. This way I tracked my progress easily and effectively.
To read the official description (Dragon Dreaming international) of the "Karrabirdt", please see the document "Karrabirdt".
Karrabirdt
Reflection of the Design process
Honestly I can say, that the experience using and applying a strategic design process from the beginning to the end was a very empowering experience. Starting with a lot of research about Dragon Dreaming and spending a lot of time with the dreaming and planning phase I felt well prepared to do the actual project work. In the beginning I worked every-day without excuse focused and strategic on the project. I tried to be more creative and used the Dragon dreaming tools for my purposes. Some of them proved themselves as very helpful, e.g. the Karrabirdt which I extended with a separate "to-do-list". After this productive phase weeks of uncertainty showed up and I felt paralysed to work further with my project work. After some weeks I felt, with new clarity, motivated to continue working. In the beginning I struggled a little, because I was not sure how to start again. As soon as I read my prepared material and took a look on the Karrabirdt everything seemed clear again.
In conclusion I can say that it was a great experience applying such a holistic model like Dragon Dreaming in my project work. It helped me like a read thread to not loose track and encouraged me to work on my project step by step. Re-designing my projects again and again was with the help of Dragon Dreaming relatively easy.
To evaluate my LIPD process in the end I wrote down in the dreaming stage all my dreams. In the end I evaluated these dreams with an easy colour-system. Just see how many dreams I reached in the document "Evaluation of Dragon Dreaming- What did come true"