Craft Your Project Purpose Statement: In this assignment, we’ll guide you through the steps to understand and define your project’s underlying need, intended audience, and desired impact, and synthesize them into a simple and concise statement of purpose.

The Importance of Purpose: Think back to a personal or professional project where you assumed you knew the purpose but later learned that your assumption may have been off the mark. What impact did this have on you and the outcomes of the work?

The Name Game: What surprises you about Shuya’s opinion on naming projects, and what feels most helpful about the tips she’s shared?

Guiding Principles: If you already use some form of guiding principles in your work, what impact did they have on a past or present project? If you don't currently use them, what opportunities do you have for crafting guiding principles, either individually or collectively?

Emotional Triggers: What was the last strong emotion that surfaced for you at work? Describe the circumstances and the behaviors you adopted in response. How might you react to this same situation or emotion in the future?

A Personal Connection: When was a time someone identified a personal passion or interest in you and created an opportunity for you to connect that with your work? What impact did it have on you and the outcomes of the work?

Map the Project System: In this assignment, you will create a systems map of your project that visualizes each stakeholder and the exchanges of information between them. You will use this map to spot opportunities to improve or repair alignment.

Aligning Stakeholders: Think about a project you worked on that involved a lot of stakeholders with different perspectives. How did you try to create alignment and bring people along?

Mental Models That Differ from Our Own When we encounter a mental model that differs from ours, often our natural reaction is to assume the other person is wrong or misinformed. How do you commonly respond to a different mental model, and how would you like to respond differently going forward?

Collective Knowing: We’ve shared a few ways to create collective knowing through group communication. Choose one technique you’ve used before. How did it go?

Separate the Person from the Behavior: We have a tendency to label behaviors, but when we label someone as a naysayer, we communicate and assume that they are always that way. We see it as a situation of them versus us. Reflect on a time when you were the dissenting voice or you wanted to be, but couldn’t share your thoughts. How did that feel? How were others helpful to you or harmful in that moment?

Investigate Your Intuition: In this meditation, you will explore your reactions and responses around an intuition to determine if what you are experiencing is a genuine intuition or a bias, assumption, or strong emotion.

Analyze Your Intuition: Our intuitions can be a valuable source of information when we need to make decisions, solve problems, or foresee conditions. In this assignment, you will practice surfacing and analyzing your intuitions to identify patterns and insights.

Intuition In Your Own Words: What is intuition to you? Have you ever had an intuition that turned out to be right? Describe what happened and what you learned from the experience.

Welcome Intuition: Look across the seven strategies for surfacing intuition. Have you tried one of them before? What was the challenge you were facing and the result of using this strategy?

When Intuition Misleads: Think about a time when you acted on an intuition without thinking—and your intuition led you astray. Was there an underlying assumption, emotion, or bias that clouded your judgment? What happened and what did you learn from the experience?

Make a Plan: Reflect on what you have learned about yourself as a project leader along this journey, and make a plan for how you will continue to apply the mindsets and tools for leading complex projects.

Relationships and Resilience: Nothing builds our resilience more than relationships. How do you personally foster meaningful relationships with people in your projects?

Life Lessons: Recall a time when you faced uncertainty in your own life outside of work. How did you navigate the situation and what was the outcome?