Starting Questions

The start of every project brings more questions than answers. Projects are actually conversations seeking to answer questions more than they ever are scripted performances.

In this spirit, the following questions (from the True North Project Development Workbook) seem germane:

1. What is this project's success criteria? How will the community measure the success of this project as it unfolds and after it's completed?
   
2. What is the nature of this project and how does this nature fit with the preferences of the project's community? Do we need to go slower than we'd prefer? Faster? Can we be sloppy and still succeed or do we need to be careful and precise? Can we make public mistakes without being vilified? How perfect is good enough?
3. What mindsets surround this effort? Is the community skeptical? Optimistic? Generous? What mindset will best serve this project?
4. How clear is the purpose? How stable the goals? How adequate the resources (time, money, material, people)? How flexible is the schedule? How familiar is the technology? How many points of focus? How stable are the internal and external environments? How many customers must be satisfied? How dispersed is the community, physically and emotionally? This project seems more information-intensive than stuff-intensive, which means that it can't be managed as if it were a construction project coordinating stuff in space and time.
   
5. What are the technical, administrative, and people leadership requirements and who will satisfy these. (It takes a community to lead a project.)
6. What are the characteristics of the key organizations involved in this project? What's the informal organization chart? Who gets to say who gets to say? What local customs must the project learn to comfortably mirror?
   
7. How does this project relate to the Port's values? EWU's values? Constituent values? What business priorities does this project directly/indirectly support?
8. What happened the last time the Port sponsored a project like this? History can inform us about likely future patterns.
9. Where did the idea for this project come from? Who's idea was it?
10. What will this project be as an end result? Why is that important? How will we know the project is completed, in objective and measurable terms?
11. What product or service will the project deliver expressed in terms of major functions and features?
12. When MUST the project be completed?
13. What quantity of the product or service will be delivered?
14. What macro-level resources are needed to complete this project? (Money, raw materials, people, equipment?)
15. What end result must the project satisfy?
16. What are the critical success factors? (Fewer than ten, stated positively!)
17. What are the certain uncertainties with potential for disrupting the project (risks)? How will these be ameliorated?
18. Who's in this project's community? (Include everyone who can effect or be effected by this effort!)
19. What support does this project need from each community member? What's their project within this project? What's the strategy for getting the support you need?
    
20. How will the project be designed? Major philosophy and stages.
21. What high-level milestones must be met?
    
22. What are the discrete task assignments?
23. Who's responsible for what?
24. How much will this project cost to complete, including administration, materials, travel, and time?
    

Straw Dogs

Much of the material presented here will be in the form of what we call "Straw Dog." A straw dog is a sample, intended to try something out, not to clearly define. The straw dog sorta-kinda looks like a dog, but no one expects it to fetch anything.

Why do we post straw dogs? Usually because we don't definitively know yet, but need to get something down to get your feedback or just to see the idea in print. Sometimes, though we never intend this, some people might feel offended by our straw dogs. Please don't take offense. If you can't help but feel offended, please understand that offense is not our intention. If you feel your blood pressure rising, please comment. We need your feedback.

Maybe the real purpose of every straw dog is to fetch your feedback. If you feel compelled to comment, the dog has done his/her work. The second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth draft might approach a solid statement. Until then, we'll proceed with a straw dog guiding our path.

Envisioning

What IS the Walla Walla Community Indicator Project?

As of today, it's a bright idea, not yet a project.

Before it can become a project, it needs some definition, a little envisioning. I like to start with the end in mind. What will the Walla Walla Community Indicators Project leave behind when it's done? What will it specifically NOT create.

The WW See Eye (CI for Community Indicators. Get it?) Project, when completed, will leave a web site, fashioned after Spokane's Community Indicators site, which displays data chosen by interested citizens of Walla Walla to represent certain aspects of Walla Walla. The data will be, like the data on Spokane's site:

Comprehensive, or important to large numbers of the community

Ideally predictive, or at least outcome-oriented and not focused on inputs

Valid measurements of real phenomena, as defined by good science and social science

Understandable to a lay audience

Benchmarkable to other communities

Available repeatedly over time to allow trend analysis

Sourced from credible sites

Asset-based; that is, describing trends around a positive definition whenever possible.

WW See Eye will also leave a community capable of managing the site. Managing will include:

• Hosting the site
• Monitoring site use, including data download volumes and site traffic
  
• Updating the data displayed on the site
• Adding, deleting, and changing the data displayed

The project will leave a community interested in and capable of using the site's data. Also a process for getting additional indicators displayed on the site, including a means for managing the request queue and funding update requests.

The project will also leave behind an enhanced public image for the Port of Walla Walla.

What will this project NOT produce?

It won't produce a community dashboard. Dashboards are interpreted summaries of data. This project will NOT INTERPRET DATA—it will not decide the meaning of any data series.

This project will not fracture or further fragment the community. Many groups in Walla Walla have been working on creating the means to measure what's going on here. This project will seek to aid these groups to achieve their goals, not insist that others merely serve our goals. We want this project to bring us together into deeper consideration.

Background

In May 2007, Eastern Washington University’s Institute for Public Policy and Economic Analysis (IPPEA) submitted a proposal to assist in the creation of a Walla Walla Community Indicators web site—fashioned after IPPEA’s Spokane Community Economic Indicators site—to Port of Walla Walla executive director Jim Kuntz.

Jim reported on this proposal at the Port's May 22 Economic Development Advisory Committee (EDAC) meeting, asking for feedback. At the following Port Commissioner meeting, Amy Schwab and David Schmaltz of True North reported their support and concerns regarding this proposal. Following that meeting, Amy and David met privately with Jim to provide more details of their evaluation. On June 15, Jim and David conducted a conference call with D. Patrick Jones, Ph.D., Executive Director, and Lisa Capoccia, Program Coordinator, of IPPEA. In that conversation, Jim asked IPPEA to amend their proposal to reflect changing preferences and for David to submit a proposal from True North.