Wetskills South Korea 2019 –
by Amber van der Meijs (Waterschap Brabantse Delta)
What started as a dry and sunny morning, turned quickly into a wet-morning. The thunder started and the rain suddenly came pouring out of the sky. Like really pouring pouring. Which wasn’t terrible, because for the first time I felt not bad for being inside. Not that other days are thát bad, but it makes life harder when you need to stay inside when the sun is out and the world looks like a better and happier place. So, finally the wet in wetskills became relevant.
Just around when it started to rain, our case-owners were about to arrive. Such weather conditions wasn’t the warm welcome we were hoping to give them. My group and I were quite excited to meet our case owners, because it felt like a luxury to ask the case owners questions and engage into a conversation face to face. However, soon it became clear that we were completely on the wrong direction. We interpreted this case way too scientifically, and it appeared they wanted a real creative outcome. So, our output needs to be way different than we thought. Which is not a bad I think, because now we can be very creative! Let me explain shortly: basically we have to create a communication plan on water awareness. In this plan, it needs to become clear which culture interventions are the best fit to get the (global) public involved. After discussing our questions with the case owners, the conversation got an interesting turn. It appeared that Simon knows a famous K-POP star: Somi Douma! That is a funny detail, hh?
After this pleasant conversation, we quickly started the brainstorm. We were exciting, however, we did spent the last days on the wrong course so we knew our time was valuable. We needed to continue quite quickly and so we did.
My group and I had to take a little break to make time for the workshop that was planned on 4 pm. A workshop for the whole Wetskills-group about the Belbin test! It was about different roles that can (and need to) be part of a group. By knowing how your group is composed, you are prepared how to divide the task, when to show more sympathy towards your teammates in certain situations and what pitfalls you can come across along the road (to success haha). I already did the Belbin test a couple of times but I still found this useful to do to get an impression of your own group. I will remember this for future projects!
It was after 4 pm when the workshop ended, and we still had to continue our brainstorm. While we were back at it, I noticed that every group was really into discussing their own case. The whole room was buzzing! While talking to some groups, it seemed that this was the day that everything ‘clicked’. Important decisions were made and everything was falling into place. Which was really nice to hear and I can honestly say, that was also the case for our team! The brainstorm was fruitful and we (possibly) found three great solutions at the end of the day.
All in all, as Eveline said: “This was a good day!”. To also end this day on a good note, we went out with a couple of people from the group to get Korean soup and stew, and enjoyed a really nice beer afterwards in a Korean/German restaurant: WIENERWALD (reading this with a german accent). Auf wiedersehen!
