Negotiated Project Planning: Action and Reflection

Negotiated Project Planning

Negotiated planning of the project is the most reflective investigation. Researchers are devoted to fieldwork, and participants begin a process of reflection and joint negotiations on the analysis results obtained. The activity for discussion and exchange among participants is the basis on which to perform the recognition of the problems and their dimensions, leading to the negotiation of activities to solve the problems.

The researcher synthesizes, losing their role, and becomes a whistleblower regarding the real ceilings (financial and temporal) of the project to specify the activities that will provide the transformation. It is a unique moment for the participants. The documents produced are:

• a) Comprehensive Action Program (PAI): This document captures how the agreed action will be performed. It is a guide that includes the method by which to regulate the transformation. It explains how action plans and self-formation and decision-making will be disseminated, proposals to make to other institutions, and evaluations.
• b) The Final Report: This is the systematic return of work highlighted by the researchers to the participants. It includes a detailed explanation of each of the practices and analyses extracted from them during the research process.

3. Practices and Tools for the Design and Implementation of IA and PAR Projects

3.1. Techniques, Practices, and Tools for Self-Diagnosis

Self-diagnosis begins with a collection of information from all kinds of secondary data to start recognizing the characteristics of the field and the possible dimensions of the problems addressed by the project. The first identifications of the participants are also made: participant observation, the first open interviews aimed at persons with special knowledge of the research field (potential partners or potential gatekeepers), or smaller directive group meetings.

The organization of participation appears to be an issue that crosses any practice used in IA: how relationships are established and the position taken by the researcher to the group will determine any mechanism for participation and the stable results produced. We see three levels of participation according to the position taken by the researcher:

1. The investigator poses a topic or task and lets the participants perform without their intervention and physical presence.
2. The researcher proposes the tasks and stays in the workshop to help create.
3. The researcher proposes the task and provides the grounds on which it must be performed.