Quicklinks
DEUTSCH

Step-by-Step

Depending on the purpose of the workshop, the flow can represent the development of a project, a team, or an individual.

1. Tape some large flipchart papers to the wall or lay them out on a table. The team stands or sits in a semicircle around the flipchart papers. Alternatively, the tool can be used online via a collaboration platform.


2. As a team, consider how the project or team emerged. Who has participated in it so far? What major events took place? What milestones were reached? What setbacks have there been?

3. Once you have thought about these aspects, begin to visualize them on the paper. Draw a large river in the center of the paper. This reflects the journey/evolution of your team. The boat in the middle of the river represents the status quo. The river can include boats, boulders, fishes, logs, etc. to illustrate the passage of time and events. Use colored pencils, various symbols, and/or clippings from magazines to do this.

4. Plan a time frame at the end for group reflection. Allow for discussion and different points of view as well. Reflecting on successes and failures will increase cooperative engagement. On one hand, you will be reminded of your successes, and on the other, reflection can help you to develop strategies for avoiding future failures and promoting successes. The river can serve as a guide or compass for the future.

More about the tool

Advantages:

  • The River of Life method promotes a creative and interactive way of working together.
  • The tool helps to demonstrate to participants the diversity of perspectives and experiences within a community.
  • The tool can be conducted on an ongoing basis to track development/process over time.
  • By using the boat as a reference point (status quo), the tool can be used for reflection for retrospective experiences as well as prospective visions/goals.

Disadvantages:

  • Sufficient time should be allowed for reminiscence, discussion, and reaching group consensus about what happened in the past.
  • When using the tool in groups, facilitators should be prepared to deal with potential problems of group dynamics, such as the dominance of certain participants or conflicts during the discussion.
How can digital collaboration be promoted in an engaging way, especially during the Covid 19 pandemic? Together with project leader Chiowai Maggie Chak from the münster.land.leben subproject "Science Marketing", nine students formed a joint initiative as part of a semester project. The goal of this initiative was to develop and validate a virtual workshop methodology to improve collaboration in participatory research projects, which will later be applied in münster.land.leben. Using a storytelling approach, the project team used metaphors to describe the collaborative journey of a science/society project as a sailing voyage. The river-of-life method was used for this purpose. To test the use of the method on Science/Society projects, students recruited individuals. These participants are actively engaged in health-related projects in society. In an interactive virtual workshop, participants represented their own "sailing journey" (i.e., project work), with the boat symbolizing the status quo of the project team. Here they used different symbols, e.g., an anchor as a temporary project stop, downwind waves as a temporary project drive, or storms as uncontrollable events. Participants then marked the "lighthouses" that represent the key lessons that could help their team collaborate more meaningfully and effectively in the future. This preliminary test application of the workshop tool showed promising results. The tool proved to be useful for participants in a collaborative research project to reflect on the team's history and track key events/successes in the project. This is intended to promote cooperation within the team. After successful validation, the tool will now be introduced to the subprojects of münster.land.leben.
  • You can use the method as an ice-breaker, as a participatory exercise for collaboration or as an evaluation tool.
  • It is important to explain the metaphor well to the participants according to the topic of interest.
  • If some participants are not comfortable drawing, they can also write about the trip or use clippings from the newspaper.
  • If the workshop is conducted in groups, be sure to give participants enough time and space to discuss and resolve disagreements on their own.
  • Although the metaphor is "River of Life," you can adapt this method to other contexts (e.g., the metaphor "hiking route" or "bicycle tour") with which participants are familiar.

Testimonial



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