The Mindfulness Jedi

Background 

The Community Meditation Space is an independent, non profit organization dedicated to uplifting humanity through the use of mindfulness. 

The organization is both a physical and virtual community led by a leadership team, Board, executive council, staff, managers, and volunteers. The organization teaches Buddhist principles to a community of about 10,000. A sampling of the organization’s community offerings include forums, community discussions, lectures, retreats, community gatherings, as well as meditation classes.  

 

Challenge 

The organization is undergoing change management to meet its strategic goals in 2025, for the next ten years and beyond. 

The performance gap is caused by human factors. The evidence to support this, the data, was gathered through one-to-one and group interviews with the community and each of its members, qualitative surveys, observations, review of job descriptions, review of projects and programming the organization is engaged with, and research. 

I partnered with the organization to study the organization, analyze the data, and identify key issues indicating a performance problem. Analysis tools that were applied included the Front End Analysis Harless Model and the Mager and Pipe Performance Analysis Model, and the Ishikawa Diagram for root cause analysis. I worked with the client, the subject matter expert, the community, stakeholders, and external organizations to help develop and design evidence-based solutions. 

 

Performance Goal 

The design will be for a simple job aid, a workflow chart, the learner uses to understand the conditions that should be met in order to select a pre-approved project. With the use of a simple job aid, the learner could demonstrate the ability to select a pre-approved project from a list, follow instructions, and problem solve. The job aid helps the organization to meet its goals for 2025 and the coming years by building the institutional support for leadership to lead, guide, and complete organization initiatives. 

 

Instructional Materials 

Using an iterative, systemic, and systematic approach with the client, subject matter experts, and stakeholders, we designed and developed a lesson plan and job aids: a workflow chart and a project list. The iterative nature of the approach gave us ample opportunities to share ideas, receive feedback, incorporate feedback, practice, observe demonstrations, and incorporate test results. The lesson plan was built incorporating Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction and Merrill’s First Principles for Instruction. The lesson plan, including the job aids, have met the client’s approval and needs. 

 

Reflections 

Results from the interventions will not be available until sometime in the coming weeks. The client is happy with the tools and interventions that were developed, and is looking forward to next steps. 

Organizational management and organizational change is about people and helping people to have and adopt the mindset for challenges and changes, while incorporating and utilizing performance tools to correctly analyze and diagnose problems. 

​

The OPWL program and the tools within the courses prepared me to apply theory to organizational change management, to analyze and develop systemic and systematic solutions, and to determine if training was required, and to develop instructional design products in a real-world scenario. 

The client is pleased with the deliverables and the client looks forward to continuing this work together with me. The client and I are both satisfied with the results of the project and the work that was accomplished. 

​

References 

OPWL Faculty (2021). Instructional design course handbook (4th ed.). Boise State University.   

Rothwell, W., Benscoter, B., King, M., & King, S. B. (2016).

​

Mastering the instructional design process: A systematic approach (5th ed.). John Wiley and Sons.