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Managing the project

How will you collect the information?

You can collect information in a range of different ways.

  • Internet search to find out publicly available references to club or facility
  • Site visits to observe activities, become familiar with site (particularly if you are not familiar with the club or facility)
  • Document analysis to identify themes and get quantitative data (eg membership or user numbers, achievements, trends over time)
  • Individual interview (face to face, over the phone, email interview) to collect descriptions of the club or facility, collect stories, quotes and take photos on the values
  • Group interview/focus group to collect descriptions of the club or facility, collect stories, collect quotes and take photos on the values
  • Review of photo archives and club or facility memorabilia to identify repeated themes, historical features

Who will do which parts of the project?

Using the case study method requires people who can ask questions and listen carefully to the answers. Sometimes people are too ‘close’ to the situation and have their own views. You may want to get someone who is independent to collect the information and help with the analysis. It’s helpful if they’ve got experience working with people — they will need to build relationships with the key stakeholders involved with your club, group or facility.

You will need to have someone prepare the case study — whether it’s a report or photo story. This doesn’t have to be the person who has collected the information.

You might want to have a small group involved. Make sure that you’ve got the following skills covered.

  • Project management: Making sure the project is planned, managed and completed
  • People skills: Getting and keeping people involved, interview and listening skills
  • Photo and video skills: Including taking the images and editing them with captions
  • Analysis: Making sense of the information, identifying the themes that have emerged, selecting the best quotes and photos
  • Reporting: Writing and preparing the case study including a photo story if you want one

THINK about whether you want someone to work alongside you. They can also help you consider consent, ethics and safety as well as supporting you during the interviewing, analysis and reporting.

Who do you need to involve?

Local stakeholders Internal stakeholders

Collecting a full description of the impact of the club or facility will require you to interview a broad range of stakeholders. Think about:

  • internal stakeholders — these might include governance committee, administrators, volunteers, members, users, junior members, their families
  • local stakeholders  — these might include local media, schools, social services, police, other clubs/venues, other youth, other families.

Resources

Consider what you can do yourselves and what might you need to pay for. This might include:

  • purchase of equipment (dictaphone, digital camera, video camera)
  • experts (researchers, interviewers, writers, designers)
  • note takers and transcribers
  • publication (costs of design and reproduction of any final documents).