Module 2. Reflection on the workshop
For my workshop I have chosen the topic “How might we make working from home for parents with young kids productive and fulfilling”. That topic does feel very relevant to me and it is not an obvious one to solve. That appeared to me to be a perfect combination for the workshop session.
The main challenge of the workshop
Time….
30 minutes is very little. Workshops at my workplace are 1 hour long, and we don´t always reach a desired outcome. We usually make some progress in brainstorming but would need many follow up meetings (which takes more of peoples time, slows down decision making process). I consider reaching an actionable outcome in a workshop to be a key element to high engagement and future collaboration. That is why I was keen to explore all facets of the Double Dimond and travel the whole way from wide fluffy problem to narrowing it down and forming a solution.
I found this “detailed” version of Double Diamond done by Done Nessler really helpful to not only get to know design principles but also to understand methods that to uncover those.
Goal and structure
The goal of the workshop is to define the problem “How might we make working from home for parents with young kids productive and fulfilling” more clearly and find 1–2 solutions.
I specified “young kids” in the problem statement as pre-school children are very likely to cause more distraction that older ones.
I got inspired by Sprint book (by Jake Knapp) and took the framework from there. However it became a concise and cut off version of it since fitting 5 days into 30 minutes is not something I would dare to try.
Side note: I have been wondering how occupying the whole work week by Sprint might work out in organisations that are not familiar with this process as such a tight schedule would put a stop to all other work streams which might cause overload and distress among Sprint participants. I was pleased to see that A&J Smart agency has refined and amended the Sprint process and managed to shorten it to 4 days by putting both Mapping and Sketching into the 1st day. That leaves Fridays free for BAU!
With Sprint book in my pocket I´ve build the structure of the workshop in a similar (but simplified) manner:
Map out the problem → Pick an important area to focus → Ideate on solutions
Mapping out the problem
I am starting the workshop with a short check-in related to the topic of the workshop. With such a short time there has been a temptation to cut it super short (like 2 min) but I´ve decided to keep it slightly longer to allow participants to share freely and allow some time for building rapport. I believe that will allow more open communication and productive collaboration during session.
If I had more time (at least 45 min) I would add the Empathy map to help participants to re-experience the challenges of working from home, to deep dive into their feelings, thoughts and actions. This exercise might help participants to uncover more problems. However since the participants are in the “target” audience and are well aware of challenges related to the topic, I´ve decided to exclude the Empathy Map and focus on more critical parts of the workshop.
Choosing techniques for discovering the problem was one of the most challenging parts of the workshop preparation. I´ve chosen the 5 Why exercise after listing the problems exercise as I believe that going deeper into the surfacing problem (particularly for this challenge) might uncover a lot of underlying problems that participants might not be aware of. I.e. kids screaming on the background of an important Zoom meeting might a symptom of kids seeking attention of a parent who is working overtime and perhaps is not event really present while being with kids outside work since still “working” in his/her thoughts.
To converge and ensure co-creative process, I am then asking participants to vote for a problem to solve. My initial version of the workshop didn't contain this part and after running the workshop with my learning group I´ve got valuable feedback that participants felt that they were working mostly individually and there was not enough collaboration. Therefore, I´ve changed the structure of the workshop to ensure better collaboration and co-creation.
Being at the edge of the fist Diamond, the next next exercise is one of my favourite parts — reframing a problem into HMW statement, basically turning a problem into an opportunity. While problems are annoying and frustrating, opportunities are hopeful and exciting. Turning problem into HMW also helps to get clarity on ways to solve the problem and therefore as an absolute must in my workshop.
Ideation
Time left for ideation is very little and I wanted to keep it really simple to allow participants to just list as many problems as possible. Having slightly more time I would add an exercise that includes both solo and group collaboration (like 1,2,4,All! exercise from HI toolbox) to ensure better quality of ideas but due to time constraints I´ve chosen to keep it very simple.
Converging by voting on the solution is the final part of the workshop. I would definitely organise a second part of the workshop to sketch solutions and vote for the best ones as it is definitely no time for this in this one . The final steps of the Sprint process (prototyping and testing)I would do in different, not workshop format but in format of close collaboration
Initially check out was not included in my workshop as it seemed very important to “maximise” the time that will be producing outcome but after running the workshop with my learning team I´ve realised that check out is a great way to finish on the positive note which is important for future collaborations.
