Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Bidgee/RioParalympics/Report

Questions about your report

Dear Bidgee,

It sounds like your project was fraught with both foreseeable and unforeseeable obstacles. I'm sorry you faced so many problems during your trip--and I'm especially sorry to hear you got sick. I hope you have since made a complete recovery.

Since many of the problems you faced were foreseeable and could have been avoided with better planning, and since you were not able to meet any of your target outcomes (and in fact fell far below them), I'd like to ask you to take another pass at this report and provide much more detail than you have in the Learning section so as to help prevent this situation from occurring again. We understand that things don't always go according to plan. However, when things go this wrong, we do request that you take care to determine exactly what could have been done differently, so that you provide some concrete learning opportunities for the next person who may wish to attempt a similar project.

That said, please provide the following information in the Learning section:

• What went well? I have a hunch that a smooth transfer of funds is not the only positive thing that happened in the course of this project. What else can you tell us went well? Specifically, we are looking for things that went well that contributed to Wikimedia Projects. For example, you mentioned that you were able to secure an interview after an event because you pulled "a few strings." Perhaps you could say more about this, and describe ways you were able to achieve at least some of your outcomes. Your focus should be on transferable learning that you would like to pass on to someone in your shoes in the future.
• What would you do differently next time? I would like you to provide more specific instructions about what someone could do differently in the future with respect to all of the following:
  • "Contact the Paralympic Committees to organise photographs and interviews in the lead-up, not a few weeks before or during the games (or you'll not get a response)." Please provide exact information about how long before the games someone would need to contact the committee, and what specific kind of access and permissions they need to request. The more precise and accurate you can be, the more you may help someone in the future to avoid the situation you found yourself in.
  • "Also take a temporary travel SIM for phone and internet access." Though we appreciate your suggestion of a strategy (SIM) for this problem, since technological solutions are constantly evolving, we'd also like you to say more about what the needs are. What does a person need to plan to be able to do with regard to access?
  • "Ensure the accreditation is what I had asked for and has the access you require." Please be more specific. Provide exact information about the type of access required and the steps required to secure it. This is very important for us to understand going forward so we know when to decline similar requests to this one, and when not to.
  • Please provide any other information you can think of that would be critical for someone attempting a similar project to understand--again, be as specific as you can be.

Once you have filled in this information, we can approve your report and close out your grant.

Kind regards,

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 17:47, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi Marti,

Apologies only saw this post and my reply will only be brief, having technical issues and also had a death in the family last month.

I agree, better planning needed to happen at least a year out. For this (2016) Paralympics only had a few months planning, which just isn't enough time to minimise any issues which where foreseeable. Downside was I relied on wanting to see if I got accreditation, rather than an as if I had it (hope that makes sense). I've recovered, took a few weeks after arriving back.

I'll adjust my report per your suggestions later in the week (will try tomorrow, but will be travelling to a rural area with minimal internet coverage). Currently using a mobile to edit, which isn't the best to use for editing.

Regards,

Robert

Report incomplete

There has been no response to this or requested changes to the report for several months, so we are moving this report to Incomplete. This grantee will be ineligible for future grants until the report can be considered complete. Best, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 21:47, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Report Accepted

Hi Bidgee. Thank you for letting us know you have added additional detail regarding lessons learned. The report is now accepted and you are eligible for future grants. Best, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 17:58, 26 May 2017 (UTC)