Life Lessons from Failed Projects
We only had a few students actively engaged in the program and very little positive feedback from the student leaders who were peer facilitators. We had to completely start over. Our hopes had been high when we launched the student-led, peer-to-peer support program. We expected students to engage because the idea had come from them originally and similar programs in residence had succeeded so why wouldn’t the program work online? We were wrong.
The biggest hiccup was the online platform we used to engage the students. It had been built for instruction, teaching, and training, not connection and community building. We were trying to fit a round peg into a square hole.
When starting a project, resources are one of your most critical components. We had a resource to build the program online, but it wasn’t the right one and things didn’t go well.
My team has since restructured the program using a platform actually designed for the type of connection we want and things have vastly improved. As we prepare to move the project from exploration to implementation, we’re going into it more confident because we finally have the right resources to address the needs of the project. Appropriate resource allocation is the key to successful projects.