Small Developer Boot Camp

Spring/Summer 2020 | Windsor, ON 

Re: Moving the Boot Camp Online: 

  Our original contract with the City of Windsor included a Boot Camp intended as a  two-day session held in Windsor with IncDev faculty. An in-person event of this  nature with cross-border travel is obviously not an option for the foreseeable  future.   

  Several of our training clients have faced the same challenge and we have since  pivoted our two-day Boot Camp into an online alternative that we believe is an  even better educational experience. Without the time pressure to cover the full  curriculum in a weekend, we can stretch the lessons over many weeks, meaning  participants will have the chance to validate their assumptions between classes.  This will have a cumulative effect - increasingly useful inputs and more insightful  questions with every step. In other words, the switch to online gives us the freedom  to go deeper in both understanding and relationships. This model presents more  focused support than could be provided otherwise for the same budget.   

  We have designed a custom Boot Camp here to cultivate the skills and confidence  of a cohort pulled from our fall 2019 Windsor Workshop alumni. This cohort will  represent several core neighbourhoods and help us provide takeaways to city  administration. By walking through actual local development projects, our faculty  can get a much better understanding of how the financial and regulatory  environment shape development in Windsor and share these findings with the City.   

  The following program is described in eight “sprints,” each with a clear objective.  Each sprint can be accomplished in as little as one week. Ideally, this program  would run between 8-12 weeks and can begin as soon as mid-May. 

  The key tradeoff in moving online is the absence of social time to meet other  participants. This will be mitigated by a greater total amount of time spent in both