It must be the cold weather for the PDA team of Guram, Nune(1), Sophik, Margarita and, last but not least, Nune(2)are about 1/2 day ahead of schedule. This is day three (Wednesday) of my visit to the Save the Children office here in Yerevan Armenia. At this point, I have shrugged off most of the effects of the jet lag (I am awakening at a decent time in the morning now). Also, by experience, I can tell how successful we are as a team based on where we are along in the training outline and how involved I am in the training.
The latter is much more indicative of our progress. I know we are ahead of schedule from several aspects. I spent about 1/2 hour at the beginning of our session today conducting a review of yesterdays efforts, asking for comments or suggestions (in case I need to adjust the agenda). I also felt they were ready to take a look at a pretty sophisticated form built by the Uganda Save the Children team last August. We first looked closely at the paper form and then at the construct of the resulting PDA form. This gave the team an idea of some more advanced methods of form construct, but I could tell that they were anxious to return to the form that they had nearly finished late yesterday.
I am continuing to see a development in my training sessions at our different country offices. The challenge is not in understanding how to use the PDA's, nor how to use the software. The challenge is always in first understanding the structure and logic of the paper form. Again, we are building mobile databases. Peper forms just do not automatically insert into a PDA and begin to work. Weaknesses and failings in a paper form become amplified and evident on a PDA.
I am beginning to develop a severe mistrust of paper survey forms. They are just sitting there deceptively winking at me with those big blue textual eyes saying, I am really so simple..... Emphatically NO. I am finding that even the simplest form has hidden, non-articulated instructions and meanings. As an example, yesterday it took the team a couple of hours until the two-page form of forty-two question was agreed upon. Until I observe all of their heads nodding up and down do I encourage them to lay their fingers on the keyboard and hands on the laptop mouse to begin designing the form. I will attempt to describe this subtle deception on the part of the paper form later.
For the balance of the morning, I stood at the far end of the room and simply observed their form design progress on the projector screen. Actually I am actively engaged in watch their team discussions. I am hesitant to interrupt their decision-making process except where they reach a stalemate (even then I usually do not intrude), or see them proceeding down a wrong path. The team made excellent progress. I can tell, because even when I thought I should reinforce my trainer ego by suggesting a change, I received a polite wave-off, and they promptly solved the problem. I am proud of them.
A pleasant surprise is with Nune(1), who is the technology focal. This means that everyone is happy with her until their computer misbehaves or emails ceases to function. Ah, I remember those days of adrenaline. Nune not only constructs Microsoft Access databases, but she also has recently received training in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology. This office is well-poised for managing data and presenting in an intelligible easily retrievable manner. The Country Office Director, Irina Saghoyan, discussed this priority with me on my first day.
Another distinguished advantage for this office is the incomparable Vera. Vera cooks and hosts the lunch time meal here on the office premises. This not only spares an exit out onto the frozen suburban tundra at noon (even at midday, it is below freezing), but I have the chance to sample something other than see-it-is-just-like-in-America hotel food. Vera cooks and presents delicious meals which make me feel like I am at her home. Everyone sings her praises and I will add myself to that chorus.
Tomorrow, on our fourth day (Thursday), we will have finished the second test form. I will then have them role-play as interviewer-respondent with their PDA-installed creations. This activity is intended to extract them from their technical activities and to prepare for the human interaction during our field visit in Friday.
No comments:
Post a Comment