Short story - discover obstacles in the shared history

From Worklearntogether.org

Shared history may include previous failures that colour the way the potential participants view the proposed activity. In one group of SMEs that we worked with, they had already set up a web site for the group, but it had not been a success,mainly because they had not dedicated resources to maintaining it and promoting participation. Though our proposal was very different their reception of the idea was affected by the previous failure and they could not see a clear difference, since both the earlier website and our idea were online activity. It is important to find out about possible previous experiences and try to anticipate how these may affect their views.