Most of us inhabit the world of routines, daily activities filling pockets of time in surprisingly similar ways. In our professional lives we have a multitude of tasks to complete and regular scheduled events that form part of these daily, weekly and monthly commitments. These events are woven into the fabric of our work so firmly we rarely question them. Similarly, systems and processes within the workplace provide the architecture for occupation; they create activities to complete, deadlines to meet and sometimes a set of attitudes and values to adopt. In addition to these things we form our own routines in professional practice, per- haps following a particular order for managing a meeting or teaching a class; so much so, these routines become embedded as a set of rules. We do things this way or that and very often forget the reasons why.
We could argue that routines have been created for good reason. When we undertake a new activity for the first time, we tend to think through our approach to it and if we are lucky, that approach works. So what happens then? Chances are, if it works it becomes part of our habitus and we do the same as yesterday, tomorrow and next month. This will probably serve us well, for a while at least, but what happens when things move on, when contexts change or when a world-changing event impacts on our day-to-day lives in ways we never imagined?
Although most people undertaking professional roles are very familiar with the process of evaluating practice, this usually takes place as part of the formal systems’ machinery and as a result has a very definite purpose. This is reflection driven by a distinct end goal, perhaps the need to create evaluation documentation or to evidence competence. It looks at practice but must do so following a generic format and focussing on specific aspects, the importance of which is usually determined by other people. It is an evaluation of course, but an evalua- tion limited by protocol and process.