-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 0
/
blog_20210604_brunch.html
394 lines (385 loc) · 22.9 KB
/
blog_20210604_brunch.html
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<title>Blog</title>
<head>
<script src="https://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-3.3.1.min.js"></script>
<script src="functions.js"></script>
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="180x180" href="/favicon/apple-touch-icon.png">
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="32x32" href="/favicon/favicon-32x32.png">
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" sizes="16x16" href="/favicon/favicon-16x16.png">
<link rel="manifest" href="/favicon/site.webmanifest">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body>
<!-- Header -->
<div id="header"></div>
<div class="w3-content">
<div class="w3-container w3-padding-32 grey">
<h1 id="why-having-a-brunch-every-2-months-with-the-whole-company-is-our-most-important-meeting">Why having a Brunch every 2 months with the whole company is our most important meeting!</h1>
<figure>
<img src="/blog/20210614_brunch/austin-distel-rxpThOwuVgE-unsplash.jpg" width="600" width="600" alt=Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash" /><figcaption aria-hidden="true">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@austindistel?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Austin Distel</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/coworker-team?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2 id="prelude">Prelude</h2>
<p>In every company you have different perspectives, that you have to fulfill / cater to. For a lot of meetings, the balance between fun and beeing worthwile for the participants versus beeing beneficial for the company is rather skewed. We at SONAH have always ocillated between having too much communication, so nothing actually gets done, and too little, so the results are never perfectly aligned with what we actually had to do. The same goes for the rigidity of communication interactions, so we’ve also oscillated between jour fixes and just relying on people anarchically organizing meetings whenever they see the need for it.</p>
<p>It is hard to hit the sweet spot here, but I think what we call the “Brunch” is at least one workshop / meeting / team event that really succeeds in providing huge value to every smaller company (5-15 people) and is also mostly fun and interesting.</p>
<p>It is in no way a truly novel concept, but we have perfected it for OUR needs and I think there is a lot to learn from a method a startup keeps on doing for 3 years, when almost everything else already changed substantially.</p>
<h2 id="goal-definition">Goal Definition</h2>
<p>Through the different phases of the workshop, the <strong>Brunch</strong> will address several desires for information exchange and group alignment, that I will try to specify before actually getting into the specifics.</p>
<h3 id="showcase-your-work-progress-from-the-last-two-months">Showcase your work / progress from the last two months</h3>
<p>When you discuss your weekly (or even daily) progress in stand-ups and want to keep it short, people tend to focus on problems that have to be solved. From the perspective of the company, that seems to be a suitable (short term) strategy, since you can be reasonably sure that problems will be adressed as soon as they arise. But in the mid-/longterm, this can cause frustration with employees: They feel their sucesses are never recognized and only they failures ever publicly displayed. This outcome is obviously not intended by the company or anyone, but inadvertently happened many times to us. It is important for the company as well, to really know what an employee has been contributing, to judge fairly that persons contribution to the team without having to monitor them constantly.</p>
<h3 id="highlight-organizational-pain-points-that-are-impeding-on-your-work-experience">Highlight organizational pain points that are impeding on your work experience</h3>
<p>In every company, there many small (or sometimes big) things that are holding back either the success of projects or impeding on the employees experience of fulfilling work (which in turn contributes to the former). As a team-leader you want to address and solve those problems to boost your teams productivity, but there will be most likely be too many and also contradictory problems to address.</p>
<h3 id="reclaim-a-shared-sense-of-purpose-and-common-growth">Reclaim a shared sense of purpose and common growth</h3>
<p>When you are just working on your part of a larger software or managing that one specific customer project, it is easy to lose touch with all the other great stuff, that you coworkers are doing. You might think that what you do is either of little meaning or so much more valuable than everybody else’s contributions. Seeing the fruits of your coworkers labor can help you see more purpose in your work <em>(who are you supporting with that script you are writing? which benefit does that one annoying customer bring to the leverage the sales team has to aquire new clients? …)</em> or recognize that your ingenious software is just another among equally important contributions. Either way, this context helps to get another perspective on ones job and shows what all that hard work is good for. As well as how far all of you together have come as the team in the last two months.</p>
<h1 id="the-brunch">The Brunch</h1>
<p>Now, let’s get down to business!</p>
<h4 id="the-most-important-thing-of-any-brunch-is-the-food">The most important thing of any Brunch is? THE FOOD!</h4>
<figure>
<img src="/blog/20210614_brunch/davey-gravy-krsKfCC1lYw-unsplash.jpg" width="600" alt=Photo by Davey Gravy on Unsplash" /><figcaption aria-hidden="true">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@davey_gravy?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Davey Gravy</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/brunch?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>To get the kind of relaxed and familiar atmosphere, that is necessary for this workshop to be successful, food is definitely a must-have!</strong> You can either let every participant contribute something (which is definitely the best option) or if you are doing it remote, send out a care package to every participant beforehand! <em>(The latter will obviously have to be rather packaged snacks than real food, but it substitutes well if you can’t have the workshop in person)</em></p>
<p>The brunch consists of three parts (of very unequal size)</p>
<ul>
<li>
Painpoint Workshop
</li>
<li>
Presentations
</li>
<li>
Feedback
</li>
</ul>
<p>I will get into detail about each of these parts below.</p>
<p>If you are a small company, <strong>everyone should participate</strong>! Most importantly the executives or founders (which have an especially important role model function) but also every student worker! If your company is larger than 15 people, I recommend doing this workshop for just one team/department with a size <= 15.</p>
<p>It worked best for us to have this workshop <strong>every two months</strong>, although we sometimes extend the period in between to up to 4 months.</p>
<h2 id="agenda">Agenda</h2>
<ul>
<li>
The following Agenda is timed for a team of 9-10 people.
<ul>
<li>
You can easily adjust it down to 5 or up 15 people, but you should stick to the prescribed time per person and hourly bio breaks
</li>
<li>
The workshop takes around 5h for 9 - 10 people and should be shorter or longer, only depending on you team size.
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Each presentation should be <15 min and have 5 min for questions
</li>
<li>
Make sure the breaks are determined by time on the clock and not progress in the workshop
</li>
<li>
When scheduling the meeting in your companies calendar, make sure to include an extra event called “Emergency Buffer”.
<ul>
<li>
Especially the first time(s), participants tend to overshoot with their presentations
</li>
<li>
This way, it turns the responsibility for overtime away from you (the workshop host) and to the participants
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<table>
<thead>
<tr class="header">
<th>Time</th>
<th>Content</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr class="odd">
<td><strong>09:00-09:55</strong></td>
<td><strong>Painpoint Workshop</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><em>09:55-10:00</em></td>
<td><em>5 min bio break</em></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><strong>10:00-11:00</strong></td>
<td><strong>3 Presentations</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><em>11:00-11:30</em></td>
<td><em>30 min break</em></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><strong>11:30-12:25</strong></td>
<td><strong>3 Presentations</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><em>12:25-12:30</em></td>
<td><em>5 min bio break</em></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><strong>12:30-13:25</strong></td>
<td><strong>3 Presentations</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><em>13:25-13:30</em></td>
<td><em>5 min bio break</em></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><em>13:30-13:55</em></td>
<td><em>Buffer</em></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><strong>13:55-14:00</strong></td>
<td><strong>Brunch Feedback</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><em>14:00-15:00</em></td>
<td><em>Extra buffer (emergency only)</em></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2 id="pain-point-workshop-1h">Pain Point Workshop (1h)</h2>
<figure>
<img src="/blog/20210614_brunch/aaron-blanco-tejedor-VBe9zj-JHBs-unsplash.jpg" width="600" alt=Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash" /><figcaption aria-hidden="true">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@healing_photographer?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Aarón Blanco Tejedor</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/pain?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Pain Point Workshop is a method to highlight and evaluate <strong>organizational</strong> pain points. It should be the first topic on the agenda, so that you can focus most of the time on more pleasant topics than problems! This way, you get it out right away and are free to focus on successes.</p>
<p>The goal of this workshop is NOT to determine problems and decide who gets the sole responsibility to fix them, <strong>but rather to raise awareness to the existing problems</strong>. In our experience, it has been much more successful to rely on everybodies shared willingness to improve than making somebody responsible for fixing. This way everybody feels that they have a shared responsibility to work on those problems.</p>
<h3 id="step-1-evaluate-the-progress-on-pain-points-from-the-last-workshop-5-10-min">Step 1: Evaluate the progress on pain points from the last workshop (5-10 min)</h3>
<p>This workshop is meant as a regular occurrence in your workplace, so there will most likely be a workshop that happened before <em>(if not, just go straight to <em>step 2</em>)</em>.</p>
<figure>
<img src="/blog/20210614_brunch/Bildschirmfoto%20von%202021-06-11%2015-54-53.png" width="600" alt=Example evaluation made with Google Forms" /><figcaption aria-hidden="true">Example evaluation made with Google Forms</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This evaluation is really simple and should just include the most important painpoints from the last workshop. It is also a good idea to link the full results here, so participants can get look up what was meant by a specific painpoint more easily. In most cases a PDF of the last results will be sufficient.</p>
<figure>
<img src="/blog/20210614_brunch/Bildschirmfoto%20von%202021-06-11%2015-58-42.png" width="600" alt=Results are directly displayed" /><figcaption aria-hidden="true">Results are directly displayed</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Afterwards just show the results of the evaluation and acknowledge out loud, what has improved and what hasn’t. The approach here (as mentioned above) is still to raise awareness and not discuss solutions.</p>
<h3 id="note-new-and-unsolved-organizational-pain-points-15-25min">2. Note (new and unsolved) organizational pain points (15-25min)</h3>
<p>Now every participant is supposed to write down the organizational pain points, that they are currently experiencing. You can do this on a whiteboard, a flipchart or use an online tool like <a href="https://miro.com">miro</a>.</p>
<figure>
<img src="/blog/20210614_brunch/Bildschirmfoto%20von%202021-06-14%2015-52-50.png" width="600" alt=Examplary pain point collection with miro" /><figcaption aria-hidden="true">Examplary pain point collection with miro</figcaption>
</figure>
<h4 id="during-this-phase-the-following-rules-apply">During this phase the following rules apply:</h4>
<ul>
<li>
everybody can write as many pain points as they want
</li>
<li>
everybody can re-arrange post-its to group or distinguish them
</li>
<li>
everybody can contribute at the same time
</li>
<li>
only organizational pain points allowed
</li>
</ul>
<p>Its a big chaos most of the time, but that also enables people to step up and help you make order in the chaos. If it gets too chaotic, ask participants to help you resize and order the post-its after all participants are done writing their pain points down.</p>
<p>Regarding the last rule, I think it is necessary to elborate a little: <strong>It is important NOT to mix organizational with technical problems.</strong> A little help to distinguish between the two:</p>
<table>
<colgroup>
<col style="width: 50%" />
<col style="width: 50%" />
</colgroup>
<thead>
<tr class="header">
<th>Problem</th>
<th>Type</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr class="odd">
<td><em>“The office is too dirty”</em></td>
<td>organizational</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><em>“We need a new training material pipeline because using the old one takes ages”</em></td>
<td>technical = should not be included</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><em>“I feel my time is not well utilized because my task involves too many repetitive steps”</em></td>
<td>organizational equivalent of the former problem</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Make sure to keep this distinction in mind and remind participants to focus on organizational problems. If there is a topic that is related to technical problems, at least frame it from an organizational perspective.</p>
<p><em>(I think you could use this technique to highlight technical problems as well, but that is not the purpose of the “Brunch”)</em></p>
<h3 id="rate-and-rank-painpoints">3. Rate and rank painpoints</h3>
<p>Now it is time to make sense of the mess we have created. Every participant now gets to vote which pain points seem the most pressing to them. For that, we use 3 types of Emojis, that symbolize different types of problems.</p>
<figure>
<img src="/blog/20210614_brunch/Bildschirmfoto%20von%202021-06-14%2016-05-09.png" width="600" alt=We distinguish pain points by three categories" /><figcaption aria-hidden="true">We distinguish pain points by three categories</figcaption>
</figure>
<table>
<colgroup>
<col style="width: 30%" />
<col style="width: 34%" />
<col style="width: 34%" />
</colgroup>
<thead>
<tr class="header">
<th>Type</th>
<th>Meaning</th>
<th>Comment</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr class="odd">
<td>💸 Money</td>
<td>This pain point is something,<br> - thatcosts us money <br> - where we can save money <br> - where we spent unnecessary money</td>
<td><em>Basically the main success metric of any team</em></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>🧪 Team Chemistry</td>
<td>This pain point is harmful to our team chemistry.</td>
<td><em>I guess I don’t need to explain why this is important for success</em></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>🤬 Rage</td>
<td>This is a problem that maybe doesn’t even cause long term damage, but just adds to the frustration and rage of team members.</td>
<td><em>Solving these is often easy but improves the work experience a lot.</em></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h4 id="during-this-phase-the-following-rules-apply-1">During this phase the following rules apply:</h4>
<ul>
<li>
every participant can use <strong>ONE</strong> emoji of each kind and vote with it for <strong>ONCE</strong>
</li>
<li>
they can put all emojis on the same pain point though
</li>
<li>
they don’t have to use their votes
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="results">Results</h3>
<p>The results should look like this in the end:</p>
<figure>
<img src="/blog/20210614_brunch/Bildschirmfoto%20von%202021-06-14%2016-16-48.png" width="600" alt=Exemplary results of voting from three participants" /><figcaption aria-hidden="true">Exemplary results of voting from three participants</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Now you (the workshop coordinator) can determine which problems are the most pressing (= the ones with the most votes). <strong>It is a good practice to write up a summary / ranking of the most pressing pain points and send it to all participants the next day! </strong></p>
<h2 id="interlude">Interlude</h2>
<p>When you’ve reached this point in your brunch, you should make sure that:</p>
<ul>
<li>
Everybody did have a chance to enjoy the food! (It is still a brunch!)
</li>
<li>
You did stick to breaks outlined above
<ul>
<li>
if not: now definitely take a break!
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
You didn’t take more than 1h
<ul>
<li>
maybe schedule more time for this segment, if you are doing it the first time
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>And now onto the (time-wise) biggest part of the brunch:</p>
<h2 id="presentations-35h-for-9-participants">Presentations (3,5h for 9 participants)</h2>
<p>Now we focus on the successes an contributions of all team members. The problems are out of everybody’s system, written down and acknowledge by everyone, so you got your head free for positive news!</p>
<p>This is where all team members can shine, so give them you undivided attention - <strong>and make sure everybody else does, too</strong>: no laptops, no phones, just food and frequent breaks (really, breaks are the key here!!!).</p>
<figure>
<img src="/blog/20210614_brunch/windows-_DFBsvESvQ8-unsplash.jpg" width="600" alt=Photo by Windows on Unsplash ( Note: this image isn’t the best stock image to represent a presentation, but it was just too hilarious not to use it)" /><figcaption aria-hidden="true">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@windows?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Windows</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/collections/yKHSWOHAyNQ/buisness?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a> ( <em>Note: this image isn’t the best stock image to represent a presentation, but it was just too hilarious not to use it)</em></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since most people are familiar with regular presentations, I am not going to explain a lot why this is important, but rather get to the specific requirements and expectations that these presentations should fit:</p>
<h3 id="who-does-a-presentation">Who does a presentation?</h3>
<ul>
<li>
Every person that is attending (that includes executives but also student workers) has to contribute to a presentation
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="how-long">How long?</h3>
<p>Presentations are supposed to be only</p>
<ul>
<li>
15 minutes long for 1 person
</li>
<li>
20 minutes long for a group of 2
</li>
</ul>
<p>Every presentation should be stopped after reaching the time limit (+2min).</p>
<h3 id="how-to-choose-the-topics">How to choose the topics?</h3>
<p>Choosing the topics to talk about, can be one of the most difficult decisions for this workshop to be beneficial. Too technical topics will be boring for team members form another background. General topics will contain little informational value. Since it is a chance for participants to shine, you should give everyone the option to choose the topic themselves but also have a contingency plan if people don’t come up with something. For us the following rules have been successful:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<strong>Participants can choose a topic themselves and do the presentation together with maximum 1 other team member</strong>
<ul>
<li>
You have to suggest a topic until 7 days before the brunch to the brunch coordinator
</li>
<li>
Include detail questions that outline what topics / perspectives you plan to cover
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<strong>Every participant who does not choose a topic themselves will be assigned questions by the brunch coordinator, according to topics they worked on in the past 2 months.</strong>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="content-guidelines-for-the-presentations">Content guidelines for the presentations</h3>
<p>Every Presentations should focus on the following objectives, in descending order (so that even if you have to cut someone short, everybody still get the most valuable info)</p>
<ol type="1">
<li>communicate learnings from your work in the last 2 months</li>
<li>showcase what you have built, from a users perspective</li>
<li>show how you worked on the project</li>
<li>show detailed architectural schematics</li>
</ol>
<p>You can use (almost) any tool you want, to do your presentation, as long as the result can be exported as PDF.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-special-about-these-presentations">What is special about these presentations?</h3>
<p>In the end, these presentations are not much different from every other presentation that you do. The important thing really is <strong>the setting</strong>, that <strong>everybody does it</strong> and that <strong>it really happens regularly</strong>. This is not a emergency workshop when you feel your team is losing track - this is something you do regularly and stick with it.</p>
<p>Having a <strong>fixed</strong> schedule helps (especially in a start-up context) to give everybody at least some recognition and not lose sight of important problems.</p>
<h2 id="feedback-5-10min">Feedback (5-10min)</h2>
<p>In the end of the brunch (as with any workshop), it is important to collect feedback from the participants! How else could you improve?</p>
<p>I keep the feedback very simple and focus on the following questions:</p>
<figure>
<img src="/blog/20210614_brunch/Bildschirmfoto%20von%202021-06-14%2016-52-18.png" width="600" alt=Final evulation of the Brunch" /><figcaption aria-hidden="true">Final evulation of the Brunch</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2 id="summary">Summary</h2>
<p>In the end, I want to sum-up the benefits of this workshop again. Feel free to get back to me, if you have any comments or just with your personal experience, when you have tried this!</p>
<h4 id="for-employees">For employees:</h4>
<ul>
<li>
show your progress, which gets lost in dailies and stand-ups
</li>
<li>
get a sense of what other employees are working on and where there could be synergies
</li>
<li>
share expertise with employees from other teams
</li>
<li>
get the problems you are facing off your chest
</li>
<li>
know if other employees share the same problem as you
</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="for-the-company">For the company</h4>
<ul>
<li>
know where employees see pain points
</li>
<li>
get a rating on pain points, so you know where to start, when you want to improve the work experience of your employees
</li>
<li>
get a summary of employees progress without the need for micro management
</li>
<li>
understand why certain projects took longer (or shorter)
</li>
<li>
see what kind of tools / processes were developed internally and how this could improve your teams pace
</li>
</ul>
<div id="footer"></div>
</body>
</html>