Lessons Learned from our Instats Pilot Initiative
In March 2026, we announced a pilot with Instats to explore a possible partnership focused on offering recorded Carpentries workshop sessions. The initiative was designed to reach broader audiences and create more ways for people to engage with our lessons. As part of the pilot, we planned a series of trial workshops featuring some of our most popular lessons, then used the feedback and data gathered to help determine the next steps for a potential partnership with Instats.
Pilot Experience
Our first workshop was originally scheduled for April 2026. However, because registration numbers were low, we postponed those dates and made a second attempt in June, which we also cancelled for the same reason. After investing significant time and effort into the pilot, we decided to pause any further workshops and take time to reflect on what we learned.
Lessons Learned
The pilot team conducted a formal retrospective and decided to conclude the partnership, recognising that our audiences were ultimately not well aligned and that the effort required to deliver the workshops was greater than the engagement we were seeing. We also identified several lessons learned from the experience:
- We will need to make a strong case for partnering with organisations on similar initiatives in the future.
- Because we did not have an existing relationship with Instats, we did not have a clear understanding of each other’s audiences.
- We can achieve the goal of creating more ways for learners to engage in our lessons independently of another organisation, without needing an intermediary.
- We recognise that we may need to make some changes to our curriculum to help ensure our workshops remain appealing to learners.
Gratitudes
We’re grateful to everyone who contributed to the pilot and helped bring this work to life. Thank you to the pilot team, the partners involved, and our Instructors, Jose Niño Muriel and Bernard Ricca, who shared their time, effort, and feedback along the way. While the pilot did not move forward as initially planned, we appreciate the opportunity to learn from the experience and carry those lessons into future work.