PNI Project Journal

This HTML file was generated by NarraFirma, a software package that supports facilitators of Participatory Narrative Inquiry (PNI). This file includes every journal-type question in NarraFirma, as well as places to write down things you would normally enter into NarraFirma (like questions you plan to ask and stories you collect).

Feel free to remove, add to, or change any of the instructions or questions in this file to suit your unique project. For example, you might want to replace these starting instructions with the name of your project and your project synopsis (once you've written it).

For more information on Participatory Narrative Inquiry, visit workingwithstories.org. For more information on NarraFirma, visit narrafirma.com.

Generated by NarraFirma version 1.6.14 on 6/22/2026.

Planning
In the first phase of PNI, you decide what you are going to do. You consider your goals, topic, and participants; you ponder opportunities and dangers; you firm up your plans.
Describe your project
Use this page to enter some information about your project that you might want to look back on later.
Facts
What are the project's starting and ending dates?
How many people will be involved?
How many stories do you plan (or hope) to collect?
Are there any particular events or time periods that are important to the project?
What about locations? Are there any places that matter to the project?
People
Who is facilitating this project? Are you working alone or in a team? How is everyone involved?
Is there anyone who is helping you to do this project?
Who is funding the project or allowing it to happen? Is there anyone you need to satisfy or impress?
Community or Organization
Describe the community or organization in which this project is taking place. What is like? (Or is it more than one?)
Is there anything about the history of this community or organization that is particularly important to this project?
What about the current state of the community or organization? What about that matters to the project?
Does the project hope to address any conflicts within the community or organization?
What about upcoming decisions? Do you hope to help the community or organization make any of those?
How about the future? If your project is concerned with the future, can you describe that concern?
Goals
What is the origin story of this project? What led you to do it? How did it get started? Is it part of something larger?
What is the source of energy in this project? What is its driving force?
What is the ultimate goal of this project? What do you hope to achieve?
Expectations
What is your prediction for this project? What do you think is most likely to happen in it?
Do you have any worries or concerns about the project?
What assumptions are you making about the project?
Is there anything you are experimenting with in this project?
What do you hope will happen in this project?
Learning
What previous learnings (about anything) do you intend to rely on as you do this project?
What do you want to learn in this project? What do you want to know when it's done that you don't know now?
Are there any particular learning resources you intend to rely on as you carry out this project?
Do you have any mentors or teachers who are helping you learn in this project? What do you hope they will do for you?
Is there anyone you are teaching in this project? What do you hope they will learn from you?
Miscellaneous
If you were to sum up this whole project into one short phrase, what would it be?
If you were to sum up the project's topic into one short phrase, what would that phrase be?
Enter any additional notes you want to remember about this project.
Answer the PNI planning questions
You can use this page to answer some planning questions about your project: its goals, topic, people, perspectives, scale, and process. If you don't have good answers for these questions right now, don't worry; these are only draft answers. You will have a chance to revise them later.
What is the goal of the project? Why are you doing it? What will be achieved if it succeeds?
What is the topic of the project? What is it about? What is its subject matter?
Who are the people that matter to the project? Who will connect with whom, how, and why? Who will tell stories, listen to stories, make sense of stories, facilitate, and so on?
What perspectives matter to the project? What range of experiences will be included in the project?
What is the project's scale? How many people will be involved? How many stories? How many questions? How many sessions?
What will the project's process be like? What will happen in the project?
If you copied any reminders from your reflections on a previous project (on the "Reflect on the project" page), you can paste them here.
Describe your participant groups
On this page you can think about groups of participants you want to involve in your project. (Examples might be: doctors and patients; staff and customers; residents and tourists.)
Copy and paste the following questions for each participant group involved in your project.
Please name this group of participants (for example, "doctors", "students", "staff").
Please describe this group of participants.
Status
What is the status of these participants in the community or organization?
How much self-confidence do these participants have?
Enter any notes you want to remember about the status of this group.
Ability
How much free time do these participants have?
What is the education level of these participants?
Do these participants have physical limitations that will impact their participation?
Do these participants have emotional impairments that will impact their participation (such as mental illness or traumatic stress)?
Enter any notes you want to remember about the abilities of this group.
Expectations
For these participants, how important is performing well (with "high marks")?
For these participants, how important is conforming (to what is "normal" or expected)?
For these participants, how important is self-promotion (competing with others)?
For these participants, how important is speaking out (having a say, venting, sounding off)?
Enter any notes you want to remember about the expectations of this group.
Feelings about the project
How motivated are these people to participate in the project?
How are these participants likely to feel about the project? Will they see it as a good or bad thing?
How do these participants feel about you?
How do these participants feel about the idea of collecting stories?
Enter any notes you want to remember about the feelings of this group towards your project.
Feelings about the topic
What experiences have these participants had with the project's topic?
How private do these participants consider the topic to be?
How hard will it be for these participants to articulate their feelings about the topic? Do they know how they feel?
How long of a time period do you need these participants to look back on?
Do you think these participants will find this topic dangerous to talk about?
Do you think these participants will feel defensive when asked to talk about this topic?
Do you think these participants will find this topic complicated and hard to understand?
Enter any notes you want to remember about the feelings of this group towards your topic.
Win-win proposal
Describe the ideal project from the perspective of this participant group. If the project worked very well for them, what would it be like?
What can this group of people bring to the project that no other group can?
What might draw out the participatory energy of this group? What might they be enthused about doing?
What might cause these people to turn away from the project? What might concern or demotivate them?
What is your win-win proposal to this group of participants? What do you plan to say to them?
General notes
Enter any general notes you want to remember about this group of participants.
Describe your resources
On this page are a few questions about the resources available to you in carrying out your PNI project.
How much experience do you have facilitating PNI projects?
How much help will you have carrying out this project?
How many technological resources will you be able to use in carrying out this project?
Observe story sharing
You can use this page to think about how people share stories in conversation, either in general or with respect to your community or organization. Here's how to use it. Sit down in a group of people and watch how stories are flowing in the conversation (or not). Try to encourage the flow of stories. Then answer some questions about what you saw.
Copy and paste the following questions for each conversation you observed.
Please give this observation a name.
What do you want to remember about the context of this conversation?
What surprised you about this conversation?
If you made any attempts to draw out stories, what worked, and what didn't?
Copy and paste the following questions to describe each story you heard.
What was the gist of the story you heard?
How did the story start? How was its abstract offered and accepted? Did you hear any reframing or negotiation?
Describe any evaluation statements you heard as the story was told.
Describe the story's coda. How did it end?
What was the response to the story? What happened after it was over?
Were there any story chains in the conversation? If so, what were they like?
Did you notice any themes that ran throughout the stories and the conversation?
Did you notice any lulls or pauses where people weren't sure of what to say next?
What did you notice about the story-sharing style of the conversation? How did match up with - and depart from - your expectations about what a conversational story is like?
What did you notice about your own story-sharing style? How was it the same as, and different from, the styles of the other people in the conversation?
What did you learn about conversational story sharing by listening to this conversation?
What did you learn about helping people share stories?
Assess story sharing
You can use this page to think about the story sharing culture of your community or organization. Before you answer these questions, you should spend some time listening to people sharing stories together in the places where they normally gather.
Narrative freedom
As you listened to people talk, how often did you hear a person respond to a story with another story that countered it in some way?
When someone who was obviously in authority was telling stories, how much time and attention did they get?
How many times did you hear people tell stories about mistakes?
When somebody started telling a story and another person stopped them, how did they stop them?
When somebody was telling a story and another person disagreed with the storyteller, how did they disagree?
Narrative flow
When you listened to people telling stories, did you ever hear people say "that reminds me of the time" and then tell a story in response?
How often did you hear people pass on stories they heard from other people?
How much evidence did you find for a narrative folklore in your community or organization?
Did you hear these story genres: comic stories, tragic stories, epic stories, and funny stories?
Did you ever see people sharing stories as they prepared to make decisions?
Narrative knowledge
How often did it seem to you that people inhabited the stories they told? That is, how often did their stories recount their own experiences from their own perspectives?
How often did you see negotiations between storytellers and audiences?
Did you ever see two or more people tell a story together?
How often did you see someone start telling the wrong story, to the wrong people, at the wrong time?
Did you see people account for their actions and choices by telling each other stories?
Narrative unity
How easy would it be to create a list of common stories, those any member of your community or organization could be expected to know?
How easy would it be to create a list of sacred stories, those important to understanding the community or organization?
How easy would it be to create a list of condensed stories, in the form of proverbs or references?
How often were the stories you heard intermingled with each other?
How easy would it be to describe the unique story sharing culture of your community or organization?
General notes
Is there anything you would like to remember about this assessment? Does anything stand out to you as especially important?
Tell project stories
You can use this page to tell yourself some project stories about how your project might play out. Project stories help you think through your project's goals and consider its risks and opportunities.
Copy and paste the following questions to describe each project story you tell. When you are done telling stories, discuss what they tell you about what you should do (and maybe avoid) in your project.
Start by choosing a scenario for your project story. If you could ask any question and be guaranteed a truthful answer, what would you like to ask? If you could see or hear any event or interaction, what would you like to see or hear? If one aspect of your project mattered more than anything else, what aspect would it be? Start your story by answering the question you chose. For example, you might say, "We asked our residents about times when they felt proud of or disappointed in our community" or "We were able to listen in as people decided whether to raise their children here."
Now choose an outcome for your story. How will it end? Perfectly, horribly, or well enough?
Now tell your project story. Tell it as a future history, as though it has already happened.
Please name your project story.
What surprised you about this story?
Describe any opportunities or dangers you see in the story.
Now that you've told and thought about this story, are there any changes you want to make to your project plans because of it?
Create project story elements
You can use this page to record the results of a story elements exercise, as described in Working with Stories, using the project stories you told on the previous page.
What type of story element did you create? Did you create characters, situations, values, themes, relationships, motivations, beliefs, conflicts, or something else? What question did you answer?
List or describe your answers to the story element question.
List your answer clusters. What did you notice about them?
List or describe the attributes you wrote to describe each answer cluster.
List and describe the story elements you created. What did you learn from them?
Questions for reflection
What does this exercise tell you that you should remember to do in your project?
What does this exercise tell you that you should remember to avoid in your project?
Is there anything else you would like to remember about this exercise?
Revise your answers to the PNI planning questions
On this page (if you want to) you can review and improve your draft answers to the PNI planning questions, based on your consideration of project aspects and your project stories. You can copy and paste your draft answers here, then revise them, or you can just delete this page from your journal.
What is the goal of the project? Why are you doing it? What will be achieved if it succeeds?
What is the topic of the project? What is it about? What is its subject matter?
Who are the people that matter to the project? Who will connect with whom, how, and why? Who will tell stories, listen to stories, make sense of stories, facilitate, and so on?
What perspectives matter to the project? What range of experiences will be included in the project?
What is the project's scale? How many people will be involved? How many stories? How many questions? How many sessions?
What will the project's process be like? What will happen in the project?
Write your project synopsis
On this page you can write your project synopsis, a one or two sentence summary of what matters most about your project. Your synopsis should briefly summarize the project, so that anyone who hears about it can quickly understand what you are doing and why.
Build your privacy policy
Use this page to craft a privacy policy you can use to show to your participants.
Describe what you are collecting and why. (For example: "We are gathering accounts of experiences of ___ from ___ so we can ___.")
Describe the identifying information you are asking people to provide. Explain how you will ensure that no other information will be collected. (For example: "Your contribution is anonymous. Every question is optional.")
Explain what you do not want participants to reveal. (For example: "Do not include any identifying information about yourself or anyone else, including ___.")
Explain how the collected information will be distributed and used in the project. Explain who will get to see what, when, how, and why. (For example: "Your ___ will be read and discussed, along with other ___ gathered from other ___, in ___.")
If you want to invite the people who tell stories to your sensemaking sessions, make your invitation explicit. (For example: "You are invited to join us as we discuss the stories we have gathered in this project. To learn more, ___.")
If you want to publish any of your collected stories, ask for explicit permission. (For example: "If you do not want to give us permission to use your ___ in our ___, please contact ___.")
Explain how your participants can review or change any information they have provided to the project. When people know they can change their minds later, it helps them to open up. (For example: "To review, change, or remove your ___, please contact ___.)
Reflect on the planning phase
On this page you can answer some reflective questions that will help you think about what happened.
What happened in the planning phase of your project?
What surprised you? What didn't?
Did any obstacles or opportunities play a part in how things went? Where did they come from? What did you do about them? How did that work out?
What did you learn from all of this?
Did any new ideas come up that you want to remember in the future?
Are there any unresolved issues going forward?
Collection
In this phase of PNI, you choose story collection methods, build a library of questions, use them to create story forms, and collect and review your stories.
Choose collection methods
On this page you can plan your story collection methods, or the ways you will collect stories.
Copy and paste the following questions for each story collection method you intend to use.
Please give this method plan a name.
What type of method is this? Is it a one-on-one interview, a group interview, a peer interview, a story-sharing session, a survey, a journal, a narrative incident account/report, or a set of gleaned stories? Or something else?
Which group (or groups) of participants will tell stories using this method?
What is your timeline for collecting stories using this method?
In what locations will stories be collected?
What are your general plans for keeping participant groups together or apart?
What help will you have collecting stories? What are your plans for organizing your help?
What technologies, if any, will you use to collect stories?
Why did you choose this method? Why is it appropriate for this context?
Describe any other details of your story collection plans for this method.
Write story eliciting questions
Write here all of the story-eliciting questions you thought of as you planned your project, whether you ended up using them or not.
Write questions about stories
Write here all of the follow-up questions you thought of to ask about stories, whether you end up using them or not.
Write questions about participants
Write here all of the questions about participants you thought of to ask, whether you end up using them or not.
Build story forms
Write here the questions you actually asked your participants, in the order you asked them: your story-eliciting questions, your follow-up questions about each story, and your questions about each participant. Also record the introduction you used at the start of each interview, survey, or story-sharing session, plus any concluding words.
Plan story collection sessions
On this page you can design group sessions in which you will collect stories. (If you don't plan to collect stories using group sessions, you can skip this page.)
Copy and paste the following questions for each session plan you intend to use.
Please give this session plan a name.
From which participant group (or groups) will people be invited?
How many repetitions of the session will there be?
How long will each session be?
When will these sessions take place?
Where will these sessions take place?
How many people will be invited to each repetition of this session?
What are your plans for keeping participant groups together or apart?
What materials will this session require?
What are some of the opportunities and dangers you foresee for this session plan?
Here you can enter other details about this session.
Copy and paste the following questions for activity within the session plan.
Please give this activity a name.
How long will this activity take?
What type of activity is this? Is it an ice-breaking activity? Is it a time for sharing stories, with or without a simple task? Is it a group exercise with a specific name? Is it a time to talk about or find patterns in stories? Is it a break? Is it a wrapping-up activity?
Describe the plan for this activity.
Describe any optional elaborations you might or might not use in this activity.
How will stories be recorded during this activity?
What materials will be needed for this activity?
What spaces will be used for this activity?
What sort of facilitation will be necessary for this activity?
What will helpers do during this activity?
Record stories
Here you can type or paste in the stories you collected, including answers to questions you asked (about the stories and about the people who told them). If you don't want to put your stories and answers into this file (maybe you want them in a spreadsheet), you can use this space to describe the place(s) you put the stories and answers in, so you can find them again later.
Enter story collection session records
On this page you can enter records for any story collecting interviews or sessions you held. (If you did not hold any story collecting sessions, you can skip this page.)
Copy and paste the following questions for each story-sharing session you want to remember.
Please give this session record a name.
When and where did the session take place?
Which participant groups were involved in this session?
Describe the participants at this session.
Which of your collection session plans did you follow in this session? (And did you stick to the plan?)
What did you notice about the stories people told, retold, chose, and worked with during the session?
Enter additional notes on the session here. Your notes can include links to images or other documents.
People in your story collection sessions might have created constructions such as timelines or landscapes. Copy and paste the following questions for each construction you want to remember.
Please give this construction a name.
What type of construction is this? Is it, for example, a timeline or a landscape?
Please describe the construction (or include a description given by participants). Your description can include links to images or other documents.
You can use the questions below to reflect on the session.
Change
How did the perceptions of the participants change from the start to the end of the session?
How did your perceptions change?
How has the overall project changed as a result of this session?
Interactions
Describe the interactions among participants in this session.
Describe the interactions between participants and facilitators.
Did you have to intervene at any time during this session, perhaps to guide someone back to story sharing? If so, what happened then?
Energy
In what parts of this session would you say the energy flowed well? Were there any parts in which the energy of the session got stuck?
Which parts of the session do you think your participants enjoyed the most? What about you? Which parts did you enjoy?
Learning
What was special about these people, in this place, on this day?
What surprised you about this session?
Which parts of your plans for this session worked out well? Which parts didn't?
What new ideas did you gain from this session? What did you learn from it?
What did this session tell you about your own unique style of facilitating story sharing?
What else do you want to remember about this session?
Reflect on the collection phase
On this page you can answer some reflective questions that will help you think about what happened.
What happened in the colllection phase of your project?
What surprised you? What didn't?
Did any obstacles or opportunities play a part in how things went? Where did they come from? What did you do about them? How did that work out?
What did you learn from all of this?
Did any new ideas come up that you want to remember in the future?
Are there any unresolved issues going forward?
Catalysis
In this phase of PNI, you look for patterns in the stories people told and in their answers to questions. Then you prepare the patterns to catalyze sensemaking.
Write annotation questions
Here you can record any annotation questions you used to add qualitative research codes or tags to your story texts. You will probably want to put your answers wherever you put your stories, but you might want to record just the questions here for later reference.
Record patterns
On this page, as preparation for sensemaking, you can record any patterns you saw in the data you collected. For each pattern, include: If you find a lot of patterns, you may want to cluster your observations or interpretations to provide your sensemaking participants with a birds-eye view of what you found.
Reflect on the catalysis phase
On this page you can answer some reflective questions that will help you think about what happened.
What happened in the catalysis phase of your project?
What surprised you? What didn't?
Did any obstacles or opportunities play a part in how things went? Where did they come from? What did you do about them? How did that work out?
What did you learn from all of this?
Did any new ideas come up that you want to remember in the future?
Are there any unresolved issues going forward?
Sensemaking
In this phase of PNI, you run group sessions in which participants make use of your collected stories and patterns to think together about the topic of your project.
Plan sensemaking sessions
On this page you can create plans for your sensemaking sessions.
Copy and paste the following questions for each session plan you want to create.
Please give this session plan a name.
Which participant group (or groups) will be involved?
How many repetitions of the session will there be?
How long will this session last?
When will the sessions take place?
Where will these sessions take place?
How many people will be invited to each repetition of this session?
What are your plans for keeping participant groups together or apart?
What materials will this session plan require?
What sorts of small groups will be formed in this session?
Enter other details about this session.
Copy and paste the following questions for each activity you want to include in your sensemaking session.
Please give this activity a name.
How long will this activity take?
What type of activity is this? Is it an ice-breaking activity? Is it a time for sharing stories, with or without a simple task? Is it a group exercise with a specific name? Is it a time to talk about or find patterns in stories? Is it a break? Is it a wrapping-up activity?
Describe the plan for this activity.
Describe any optional elaborations you might or might not use in this activity.
Will new stories be recorded during this activity? If so, how?
What materials (including catalytic materials, e.g., graphs and story cards) will this session plan require?
What spaces will be used for this activity?
What sort of facilitation will be necessary for this activity?
What will helpers do during this activity?
Enter sensemaking session records
On this page you can enter records of what happened during your sensemaking sessions.
Copy and paste the following questions for each sensemaking session you want to remember.
Please give this session record a name.
When and where did this session take place?
Which participant group (or groups) attended the session?
Describe the participants at this session.
Which of your sensemaking plans did you follow in this session? (And did you stick to the plan?)
Here you can enter general notes on the session. Your notes can include links to images or other documents.
Copy and paste the following questions for each resonant story (pivot, voice, discovery) your participants noticed in the session.
What is the name of the resonant story?
Which type of resonant story is this? Is it a pivot story (keeps coming up), a voice story (needs to be heard), or a discovery story (provides understanding)?
You can type (or paste) the story text (or summary) here.
Why did this story stand out?
What did people say about this story?
You can enter any other notes about this story here.
Copy and paste the following questions for each resonant pattern (pivot, voice, discovery) your participants noticed in the session.
Please give this resonant pattern a name.
Which type of resonant pattern is this? Is it a pivot pattern (keeps coming up), a voice pattern (needs to be heard), or a discovery pattern (provides understanding)?
Please describe the pattern.
Why did this pattern stand out?
What did people say about this pattern?
You can enter any other notes about this pattern here.
Copy and paste the following questions for each outcome (e.g., discovery, surprise, idea) your participants noticed in the session.
Please give this outcome a name.
What type of session outcome is this? Is it, for example, a discovery, learning, perspective, difference, connection, curiosity, dilemma, concern, idea, opportunity, suggestion, issue, recommendation, discussion, or priority?
Describe the outcome.
Copy and paste the following questions for each construction (e.g., landscape, timeline) your participants built in the session.
Please give this construction a name.
What type of construction is this? Is it, for example, a timeline or a landscape?
Please describe the construction (or include a description given by participants). Your description can include links to images or documents.
You can use the questions below to reflect on the session.
Change
How did the perceptions of the participants change from the start to the end of the session?
How did your perceptions change?
How has the overall project changed as a result of this session?
Interactions
Describe the interactions among participants in this session.
Describe the interactions between participants and facilitators.
What did you notice about the stories people told, retold, chose, and worked with during the session?
Learning
What was special about these people in this place on this day?
What surprised you about this session?
Which parts of your plans for this session worked out well? Which parts didn't?
What new ideas did you gain from this session? What did you learn from it?
What else do you want to remember about this session?
Reflect on the sensemaking phase
On this page you can answer some reflective questions that will help you think about what happened.
What happened in the sensemaking phase of your project?
What surprised you? What didn't?
Did any obstacles or opportunities play a part in how things went? Where did they come from? What did you do about them? How did that work out?
What did you learn from all of this?
Did any new ideas come up that you want to remember in the future?
Are there any unresolved issues going forward?
Intervention
In this phase of PNI, you design, plan, carry out, and reflect on actions you take to change the flow of stories in your community or organization.
Answer questions about project outcomes
In order to choose interventions that will be useful in your project, it will be helpful to think about some of the outcomes of your project (so far). Please answer these questions in reference to the participant groups you set up in the project planning phase. Enter one set of outcomes for each participant group.
Copy and paste the following questions for each participant group in your project.
Which participant group is this outcome for?
Hopes
During your project, did the people in this group say they felt heard for the first time?
Did they say they felt involved for the first time?
Did they say they learned about their community or organization?
Voices
During your story collection, did these people seem to want to tell more stories than you collected?
Did you ever feel that they wanted to share more experiences (with each other) than they did?
Did these people feel that some of the stories you collected needed to be heard by anyone?
Were there any issues that these people thought nobody cares about?
Needs
Do the people in this group have needs that nobody can meet?
Do these people need to start telling themselves new stories?
Were there any issues about which the people in this group seemed to want to keep exploring?
Did you discover any crisis points where people in this group needed help and didn't get it?
Did you find any issues for this group that were beyond words, that no amount of discussion could resolve?
Learning
Did these people say that they learned about the topic by participating in the project?
Did you notice that new members of the community or organization were having a harder time making sense of things?
Were there any issues that these people found difficult to understand, even though abundant information was available?
Did you discover any areas in which these people had more confidence than skill?
Did any of these participants express an interest in learning more about story work?
Design intervention plans
On this page you can design plans for interventions that change the stories people tell in your community or organization.
Copy and paste the following questions for each intervention you plan to use in your project.
Please give this intervention plan a name.
What type of intervention will this be?
Please describe your plan for this intervention.
Which participant group (or groups) will be involved?
How many people will be involved in this intervention?
When will the intervention take place?
Where will the intervention take place?
What sort of help will you need to carry out this intervention?
Describe any permissions you will need to carry out this intervention.
How will you recruit people to participate in this intervention?
What physical materials will you need?
What spaces will you use?
What technological resources will you need?
How will you record the results of this intervention?
Enter intervention records
On this page you can enter records of the interventions you have carried out as part of your project.
Copy and paste the following questions for each intervention you want to record.
Please give this intervention record a name.
Which participant group (or groups) were involved?
When and where did the intervention take place?
Please describe what happened during the intervention, in general.
Which of your intervention plans did you follow in this intervention? (And did you stick to the plan?)
Enter additional notes on the intervention here. Your notes can include links to images or other documents.
You can use the questions below to reflect on the intervention.
Change
How did the perceptions of the participants change from the start to the end of the intervention?
How did your perceptions change?
How has the overall project changed as a result of this intervention?
Interactions
Describe the interactions among participants in this intervention.
Describe the interactions between participants and facilitators.
What did you notice about the stories people told, retold, chose, and worked with during the intervention?
Learning
What was special about this intervention?
What surprised you about this intervention?
Which parts of your plans for this intervention worked out well? Which parts didn't?
What new ideas did you gain from this intervention? What did you learn from it?
What else do you want to remember about this intervention?
Reflect on the intervention phase
On this page you can answer some reflective questions that will help you think about what happened.
What happened in the intervention phase of your project?
What surprised you? What didn't?
Did any obstacles or opportunities play a part in how things went? Where did they come from? What did you do about them? How did that work out?
What did you learn from all of this?
Did any new ideas come up that you want to remember in the future?
Are there any unresolved issues going forward?
Return
In this phase of PNI, you wrap up your project and support the return of stories (stories you collected and stories about the project) to your community or organization.
Gather feedback
On this page you can record any feedback you have gathered about your project.
Copy and paste the following questions for each piece of feedback you have received.
Please give this piece of feedback a name.
What did someone say or do?
What type of feedback was this? Was it a reference to something from the project, a concern or complaint, a thank you, a suggestion, a hope or wish, a statement of fact, an opinion, a story, an action, or something else?
Who said or did this?
When did this happen?
What did you say or do (if anything) that led to this feedback?
What did you say or do (if anything) in response?
Please enter any other notes you would like to remember about this piece of feedback.
If you would like to enter any general notes on the feedback you've received about the project, you can write them here.
Respond to requests for post-project support
On this page you can keep track of requests for help you receive as your project winds down. You could keep a record of your requests elsewhere, but keeping them here helps you find them later when you look at the project again.
Copy and paste the following questions for each request you have received.
Please describe the request.
What type of request is this? Did someone want help with their own project, help with creating or sustaining a story exchange, help looking at this project's stories and results, help learning about story work, or something else?
Do you consider this request to have been satisfied?
What has happened in relation to this request? What discussions took place? Who did what?
Enter any other notes about the request here.
Prepare outline of project presentation
This is a simple page you can use to build a simple outline for a presentation about your project. You could also build this outline in a word processor. Writing it here keeps the outline bundled with the rest of your project, so it's easier to look back on later.
Copy and paste the following questions for each element you want to include in your presentation.
Please give this presentation element a name.
Describe this presentation element. What do you want to tell people about?
What type of element is this? A background explanation about the project? A report on what happened? A project outcome? Something someone said about the project? Something you learned about the project? How the project affected the community? A proposal for the future? Or something else?
Here you can list some stories and/or patterns that illustrate this presentation element.
What questions do you anticipate about this element? How would you like to answer them?
Enter any other notes you want to include about this presentation element.
Reflect on the return phase
On this page you can answer some reflective questions that will help you think about what happened.
What happened in the return phase of your project?
What surprised you? What didn't?
Did any obstacles or opportunities play a part in how things went? Where did they come from? What did you do about them? How did that work out?
What did you learn from all of this?
Did any new ideas come up that you want to remember in the future?
Are there any unresolved issues going forward?
Reflect on the project
On this page you can answer some questions to reflect in general on the entire project.
The stories you heard
What surprised you about the stories you heard in this project?
What do you know about stories that you didn't know before this project?
Has your definition of the word "story" changed during this project? If so, how?
The community or organization
What do you know about the community or organization that you didn't know before the project started?
Did this project uncover any dangers or opportunities about the community or organization? If so, what are they?
How will what you have learned about the community or organization impact any future projects you do with or for it?
Yourself
In any part of this project, did you ever find yourself (personally or as a team) stuck in an area in which you thought you had strength?
During this project, did you ever find skills you didn't know you had? What happened?
If you are working in a team: What did you learn about how your team works together during this project? How can you use that knowledge going forward?
Your project planning
Did your project plan turn out the way you thought it would? What worked as you expected, and what didn't?
Were there any moments during the project where you experienced crises because your plan was not working? What happened during those moments?
Did any unexpected opportunities or new ideas present themselves during the project? Were there times when you said to yourself, "I didn't plan on that, but it's a great idea"?
Your facilitation
If you held any facilitated sessions during this project, what were some of the high and low points in your facilitation?
What surprised you about your facilitation?
What do you know about facilitation that you didn't know before this project?
Your own version of PNI
How did this project challenge the way you do PNI? What limitations did it expose?
Did you try any experiments with your PNI practice during this project? If so, what happened?
What do you know about PNI that you didn't know before this project?
How do you think your PNI practice will change because of this project?
The future
Are there any aspects of PNI, or of story work in general, that this project makes you curious about trying in the future?
List some future projects that you would like to do after this project, if you can. What would you like to do next?
Reminders
Enter any reminders (ideas, resolutions, warnings) you want to keep in mind as you plan your next project. (Then, when you start your next project, copy these reminders and paste them into the "Answer the PNI planning questions" page of the new project.)
Notes
Enter any general notes you'd like to remember about the project.