Each course has its own FAQ (at the bottom of its own page). These questions are about all of the courses.
Questions about taking a paid PNI practicum course
I have a project I want to do, but I can't decide whether to take a course or just get some coaching from you.
These questions might be useful:
- Which is more important to you: to succeed in carrying out a specific project as well as you can,
or to learn as much as you can from doing a (possibly less specific) project?
If success matters more, get some coaching. If learning matters more, take a course.
- Do you already have a project plan? If so, how different is it from the project plans in the PNI Practicum courses?
If you have a plan and it's similar to one in a course, take a course. If your plan doesn't fit into any of the courses, get some coaching.
- If you don't already have a project plan, do the project plans in any of the courses seem
like they will meet your needs? If so, take a course. If not, get some coaching.
- Do you feel ready to facilitate group interactions without first experiencing them as a participant?
If so, get some coaching. If not, take a course.
- How much do you think you would get out of talking about your project with other people who
are also doing projects? If you think you'd get a lot out of that, take a course. If not, get some coaching.
I can't afford to pay for a course. Do you offer discounts?
Yes. If your personal income is low or your local currency has a low exchange rate with US dollars, I offer discounts up to 40%.
If you need a discount, mention it in your email to me.
Do you accept donations? I'd like to help other people take a course.
Yes. I gratefully accept donations and will use donated funds to continue to offer
discounts to anyone who needs them.
(And the more people donate, the better coupons I can offer.)
The button below goes to my "Working with Stories" PayPal donation link, which I created to support my free books.
It will also work to support these course discounts.
How do you accept payment?
Primarily through a PayPal link, which I will give you a few days before the course begins.
But I also accept Zelle (from a U.S. bank account)
and international wire transfers (using the SWIFT transfer system).
Send me an email to set either of these things up.
You can also send me a purchase order or ask me to send you an invoice.
When will each course start?
Whenever the waiting list for that course has at least four people in it.
That could take weeks or months, depending on ... lots of things.
Once you are on a waiting list, I will send you an email every time a new person joins.
What is your policy on cancellations?
If you have signed up for a PNI Practicum course and need to cancel your payment, if the course you signed up for has not yet begun,
I will send you a 90% refund. If the course has begun,
I will send you a 75% prorated refund (based on the number of weeks it has been since the course began).
To request a refund (or if you have any questions about this refund policy),
send me an email at cfkurtz@cfkurtz.com.
Please allow me 24 hours to respond to your request.
I will send your refund to the PayPal account you used to make the order (or if you paid in another way, we will work that out).
Wait, if people drop out of a course, can it still run?
The paid course has a minimum of four people so it can still work if one person drops out.
If two people drop out, I will ask the two remaining people if they want to take the course anyway or receive a full refund.
Is there anything else I need to take a paid course?
You'll need a reliable internet connection, and you will need some kind of larger screen to work on,
either a laptop screen or a desktop monitor. We will be using Miro for our group exercises.
If you've never used Miro before, you might want to look up a few tips (but we will go over some Miro basics in our first meeting).
You will also need a copy of the book Working with Stories Simplified (and/or Working with Stories).
You can buy a print or Kindle copy, but you don't have to.
You can read the assigned sections and chapters in a PDF copy at the workingwithstories.org web site.
Do you offer video courses?
No. I only offer practicum courses, ones in which everyone actually carries out real PNI projects. There are two reasons for this:
- Participatory Narrative Inquiry isn't something you can learn just by reading or listening. You have to do PNI to learn how to do PNI. Of course I have written four books about PNI, but in those books I ask (beg) people to alternate between reading and doing. It's harder to ask people to do that with videos, which people tend to watch (and binge watch) in a more passive way. I don't want to make a video course that gives people a false sense of understanding or achievement. I want to get people up and moving around.
- I'm pretty good at listening to people and coming up with helpful questions and suggestions. I'm not very good at making "canned" videos. I do make videos sometimes, but they are usually full of ums and ahs and ramblings and losing track of where I was going. Besides, it's boring to talk when nobody is listening, and I can only stand so much of it. I like talking with real people who are doing real projects. That's the fun part of this work.
Could you run a PNI Practicum course for our group?
Maybe. It depends on what else I am doing at the time. The fee to run a full course is typically between US$5K and US$20K,
depending on (many) particulars.
If you are interested in this option,
send me a note at cfkurtz@cfkurtz.com.
We have a budget, but we don't think we will be able to pay for a whole course. What do you suggest?
You have two options.
- You can distribute your budget across the course, asking me to spend some time with you for (say) an hour each week or month,
helping you in whatever way suits your needs at the time. (If you choose this option, it might be a good idea
to end each of your meetings with a compilation of questions to ask during your next meeting with me.)
You can concentrate your budget at specific times you think you will need extra help.
I've coached a lot of people who were doing their first PNI projects,
and I've found that the times people most often want help are:
- When they have their project plans ready (including the questions they plan to ask)
and want some advice and feedback to help them avoid common pitfalls.
- When they have their stories and are ready to take their first steps toward preparing catalytic material for use in sensemaking.
- When they have their sensemaking session agendas ready and want feedback on them.
I've also noticed certain times when people often need troubleshooting help. For example:
- When they are pitching their project to leaders or funders.
- When they are having trouble getting people to participate in the project.
- When their story collection isn't going well—people are upset or apathetic,
people are telling surface-level or performative stories, and so on.
- When they are struggling with some of the technical aspects of gathering data and generating graphs and statistical results.
- When they need to prove the value of the project to its funders and/or participants.
When you think about the projects you would like to do as you take a PNI Practicum course,
in which of the above areas do you think you
will need help, and in which areas do you think you will be fine on your own?
If you can answer that question now, we can plan some support sessions into your course at those important times.
If you can't answer that question now, we can set up a budget you can dip into as the need arises.
Depending on what else I am doing at the time, I may or may not be able to help you in an as-needed way;
but it's not out of the question, and I should be able to assess my availability before you start your course.
We like what you have here, but we want a slightly different course. Could you build us a bespoke version?
Possibly. Send me a note at cfkurtz@cfkurtz.com and we'll talk about it.
Questions about taking and giving an open-source (free) PNI Practicum course
Our group has only three people in it. Can we still take one of these courses?
The PNI Practicum courses require a cohort of four people for two reasons:
it's enough to have one good story-sharing group plus one facilitator,
and four is enough to provide useful peer support in a group discussion.
I do not suggest taking any of the courses with fewer than four people.
I don't have a group; I'm just one person. How can I take a PNI Practicum course?
Ask around among your friends and colleagues. Mention the course on social media. Join the
Participatory Narrative Practitioner Network
and see if anyone there wants to join you in forming a cohort.
I'm a consultant. Can I offer a PNI Practicum course to my paying clients?
No.
Commercial (for pay) use of the PNI Practicum materials in whole or in part is prohibited by the current license
(CC BY-NC-ND).
You can only give the course for free.
My intent in choosing this license was to help small groups of people work through the course materials together.
If you are interested in using the PNI Practicum course materials as part of a business venture or consulting package,
please contact me at cfkurtz@cfkurtz.com.
We can negotiate a fee for a one-time limited-duration license that allows commercial use of the course materials.
Can you help us take a PNI Practicum course pro-bono?
I might be able to meet with you for an hour or two, depending on how busy I am.
Send me a note at cfkurtz@cfkurtz.com.
We've chosen a course and downloaded the materials. What do we do next?
- Look at the course description and syllabus. Make sure everyone has time to do the readings and activities required.
- Choose a time to meet.
- Decide who is going to moderate the seminar meetings and facilitate the sandbox meetings.
- Start your first session, following the instructions in the course description and syllabus.
Use the sandbox and activity instructions to help you plan and carry out each part of the course.
We're confused about who is supposed to lead the seminar calls and facilitate the sandbox sessions.
Anyone can take the lead in going through any of the PNI Practicum courses together.
That person (or those people) will need to spend more up-front time reading
and preparing for each meeting so they are ready to help everyone else follow the course schedule and activities.
You might want to give lead roles to those among you who:
- have the greatest enthusiasm to learn how to do PNI
- come into the course knowing the most about PNI or story work or facilitation
- have the most free time to put into preparation
Can we all take the lead on facilitation?
Sure. In that case, it might be a good idea to rotate the facilitation of each meeting, with everyone taking a turn
reading and preparing.
Can our whole group collaborate on one project?
Only if it's a big enough project to give everyone a chance to practice doing all of the course activities.
If not, I suggest doing a few related projects,
each with 2-3 collaborators, so everyone has a chance to practice the work.
Our group has done some story work before, but not PNI. Which course do you suggest we take?
To begin with, the Prelude course is so short and light as to be not really a practicum course at all.
If you have very little time, or you have never done any story work before,
or you are not sure that you want to use PNI, the Prelude is the best course to take.
If you have done story work before, you might want to use PNI in one of two ways.
-
The ancient, artisanal style of PNI is simple and clear. You gather some stories, then help a group of people make sense of them together.
It's the sort of thing that could have happened (and probably did happen) thousands of years ago.
-
The modern, scalable style of PNI is complicated and ambitious. You gather some stories, and you also gather a lot of answers to questions about
the stories and their tellers. Then you look for patterns in the answers to find "food for thought" people can use to explore the
topic more fully than they can with the stories alone. To do this style of PNI, you need to collect more stories,
generate and review graphs and statistical test results, prepare patterns for use in sensemaking, and
facilitate a more intense and demanding form of sensemaking in which people make sense of both stories and patterns.
I know some people who do only the ancient style of PNI, some who do only the modern style, and some who do both.
The ideal is to be able to do either style as the situation calls for it. But there is also an element of personal preference involved.
Some people gravitate more naturally to one style or the other.
One thing that might help you decide is to look at the example catalysis report
(of patterns prepared for sensemaking)
that I have on my web site (it is actually some excerpts from a longer report I built for a project).
This is the sort of thing you would be creating to support sensemaking in a modern-style PNI project
(the kind you would be doing in the PNI Practicum II course).
If you can see yourself enjoying the work of creating a report like that — if that is the sort of thing you want to learn how to do —
then the PNI Practicum II course would suit you best. If that sort of thing seems boring or stupid or overwhelming to you,
then you would probably like the PNI Practicum I course better.
