The session was split into two parts. First, in the Church of Fail, participants were invited to the front of the room to introduce themselves and share their story of failure by answering the three questions:

What did you fail at?

How did you cope with it?

What would you do differently?

In the spirit of support and vulnerability, when a participant stepped forward and introduced themselves, saying, “hello my name is____.” In a heartwarming response, the audience united in a chorus of welcoming, “Hi____.” Then, when the speaker finished sharing their story, the whole audience stood up and gave them an applause of support. This was something we added to the Church of Fail method, because the simple act of acknowledging one another created an immediate sense of belonging.

During this activity, participants shared failures related to: 

• Recruitment
• The time needed to conduct the process.
• Challenge of taking several roles as a researcher, e.g., facilitator, researcher, administrative support, etc
• Having underestimated the challenges related to facilitation.
• Not involving stakeholders from the beginning of the process
• Challenge of interpreting and making sense out of a lot of data
• Not allowing for flexibility during the process
• Not planning for evaluation beforehand
• Difficulty in bringing together different stances.