Professional communities are on the rise right now. And for good reason, they can have a considerable impact within an organization. However, it is not always easy to know how to launch it to make it attractive and sustainable.
There are multitudes of ways to do it and as always, they are contextual. I offer you one in this article, to be taken with the associated reflections of course! 😉
Context
The implementation of a community is not trivial. This is all the more true when the production culture, that is to say to deliver as much as possible, is particularly anchored. Indeed, the primary vocation of a community is to create a peer learning space which often appears as a waste of time, because it is not “productive”.
In my case, the idea of creating a community emerged when a weekly Agile transformation committee was challenged. The latter, bringing together members of the management committee, the facilitation team and a few volunteers was initially intended to support Agile appropriation in the company. However, it was beginning to falter and turn into a reporting meeting. One of the reasons was probably the lack of focus and clear intention. And as we know, habits quickly return at a gallop! 😉
My proposal was then to transform this committee into 2 very distinct events:
- A Agile decision-making committee : to focus and drive business transformation. It would bring together the steering committee and the facilitation team
- A cross-functional Agile community : to create a space of openness, sharing and mutual aid. It would bring together a set of varied profiles.
It is this second event that will be described below.
Design
For the design of the Community Kick-off, I relied on my colleagues Eugenie and Florian who were going to animate with me. Indeed, the animation was going to be done remotely and given the number of people expected, I would need help. Moreover, it seemed important to me to co-construct with them so that this event is also theirs! 🙂
We then decide to go on a 7P scrim to better visualize our workshop:
Purpose / Why
| Collective response | Comments |
| – Create a space of openness, exchanges and cross-functional mutual aid within the company – Create the community |
Product / Product
| Collective response | Comments |
| – A good memory, the desire to come back, a new experience – The rules of operation of the community | – So there is an aspect experiential important to take into account together with an aspect structural. – The question that arises is the following: do we put the rules of the community first (less fun but structuring) or rather the experiential part (more playful)? -> The choice fell on the experience to create the atmosphere in order to define THE common rules thereafter. |
Attendees
| Collective response | Comments |
| – Managers, PO, Dev, BA, Trades, Production – 45 attendees | – We have the soil of diversity, it is up to us to ensure that people who know each other do not get together automatically. – A subgroup of more than 6-8 people seems to me complicated to manage to allow the interaction of each member. So at most we would have 6 teams -> ok with a facilitator for 2 teams. |
Preparation
| Collective response | Comments |
| – Miro support where to deposit the results |
Practical Concerns / Logistics
| Collective response | Comments |
| – Miro logistics: access, basic handling – Teams rooms: separation into sub-groups | – Normally, everyone invited has been made aware of the Miro tool, but you never know. – Rather than having to manage the distribution in the breakout rooms, it's better to create rooms and let people join them directly. – You just have to take into account the latency starting and returning to the main room. |
Pitfalls / Risks
| Collective response | Comments |
| – More or less participants – Delay in start / late arrival - Technical issues – People who pre-empt the event – Create disinterest by a non-unifying theme | – The number of participants will influence the number of teams, with 6 teams we should be good. – We place a buffer of 5 minutes while people connect but we will start the introduction afterwards. – I will be the main animator. Florian and Eugénie will be able to help me manage the logistics while I frame the content. – It is up to us to ensure that the conversations are the right ones and that everyone has the opportunity to express themselves. We have the warrant on the frame! – We need to find a simple theme that would allow everyone to contribute, the collective reflection seems to be appropriate. -> I propose to leave on a Nasa Games, which would meet our needs well and which would be easy to animate remotely (subject to preparation of the visual support). |
Process
| Collective response | Comments |
| 1:30 p.m. Potential delay 1:35 p.m. Kick-off – Introduction – Intent (Community + Kick-off) – Diary structure 1:40 p.m. Experience – Ice-breaker: Getting to know each other – Diversity Index – NASA Game 2:20 p.m. Rules of operation – Duration / Frequency - Content - Audience – Values 2:45 p.m. Debriefing 3:00 p.m. End | – In the introduction, we want to give the impetus by recontextualizing the idea behind this event for him give body and meaning. We also want to explain the specificity of this first session which will allow us to lay the foundations for the sequel. – Choice of the ice-breaker: we wanted something that would not take too much time, that would involve everyone at the same time and allow rapid visualization of information. We therefore chose to start in a mode Constellation. -> We will start with 9 questions to have enough variety for about fifteen minutes. – I suggested using the Diversity Index Card to get an idea of the diversity of the teams. It was more of a conversation pretext to get out of the work context and get to know each other from another angle. – Regarding the operating rules, we will proceed in the same way as for the constellations in preparing the choices and asking participants to position themselves. This will allow you to quickly see trends. – Finally a debriefing of the session together to see if we were able to achieve our objectives and that the moment was goodexpected effect ! 🙂 |
Let's see together what happened, at the heart of the action! 😉
Animation
About ten minutes before the hour, we make sure that everything is operational. We can calmly welcome the participants who arrive.
Introduction
I announce that we will start well at 1:35 p.m. and that latecomers will join us afterwards. I then recall the context and present the intentions of the session, the facilitation team and then the agenda.
ice breaker
We can then start with the ice-breaker. Before launching hostilities, I quickly recall the rules of operation. For each subject, only one possible answer. Thus, each person will be asked to position themselves with a nominative post-it in the corresponding place.
The exercise proceeds in a rather fluid way. With each theme, we hear reflections on the tone of the joke, the atmosphere is good! 😉
The topics covered were as follows:
| QUESTION | OPTIONS |
| What is your birth place ? | France (North, South, East, West) / Elsewhere (to be specified) |
| A favorite sport? | Yes (indicate which) / No |
| Number of years in the company? | Under 2 years old / Between 2 and 5 years old / 6 years old and over |
| Music instrument ? | Yes (indicate which) / No |
| Tea, coffee or neither? | Tea / Coffee / Neither |
| A restaurant preference? | Burger King (Fast food) / L'eau vive (Vegan) / L'adress (Gourmet) |
| Mountain or Beach? | Mountain / Beach |
| Video games or board games? | Video games / Board games |
| Non-alcoholic or alcoholic drink? | Without alcohol / Alcohol |
Here is the result obtained:
Diversity Index Card
Then, participants are asked to divide themselves into the following 6 teams: Falcon Heavy, Saturn V, Energy, Long March 9, Space Launch Systems, Starship. As you will have understood, we are preparing the context for the activity that will follow! In addition, we invite them to get together with people they don't know, a good opportunity to create new links! 😉
When all the teams are formed, its members join on their dedicated Teams channel.
Now, each team will have to complete the following diversity map:
With hindsight, I think we could have added a theme around each person's department. A way to reinforce the diverse aspect of the team composition.
It was obviously designed from the themes of the ice-breaker to remain consistent. An additional pretext to create informal exchanges.
In this sequence, our role is mainly to facilitate exchanges within teams.
Here is an example of a completed Diversity Index Card:
Now that the teams are built, it's time to let them take off for the moon! 😉
Nasa Games
Pitch
You are part of the crew of a spacecraft originally programmed to join a mother rocket from the lighted side of the moon. Following mechanical problems, you had to land about 320 km from the fixed rendezvous. During the landing, most of the onboard equipment was damaged, excluding the 15 items below. It is vital for your crew to join the mother rocket and you must choose the essential equipment for this long journey.
Pitch – NASA Game
The objective of each team is therefore to rank the 15 objects from the most important to the least important for their quest.
Given the time available and our intentions, we will not do all the steps of the activity. Indeed, we will directly request a collective result from each team that we will compare to NASA's result. Usually, with a little more time, this activity can begin with a round of individual reflection.
For this, they have at their disposal the following table:
Animation
We start a 15-minute timer to give a time frame to the different teams.
As a facilitator, our role is mainly to observe and D'listen to group dynamics. Indeed, the idea is to let the group build itself so that the experience of its members is authentic. However, they can be invited to discuss their decision-making methods if necessary.
The exercise takes place in a rather fluid way and it is interesting to see personalities reveal themselves during the exchanges. This is probably nothing new, but the serious games have the strength to do emerge automatisms. The difficulty is to take a step back necessary for observe yourself and others and from learn from.
Here is what the debrief support looked like with all the teams:
You can see that each team filled in the table in their own way! 😛
When the time is up, we invite each team to come back to the main room to share the NASA results with them. At the same time, they will be asked to fill in the corresponding column and calculate their difference in results. The smallest gap will determine the winning team! 😉
Debriefing
Finally, we open the conversation around the themes:
- of the group dynamics,
- of the decision-making methods,
- of leadership punctuality that could have emerged within the teams.
The exchange is convivial but it seems difficult for the participants toexpress difficulties in public, the distance probably not helping to create a sufficiently secure environment.
But that's ok, the idea was not to go too deep. Rather, we seek to create curiosity, of the'opening and an common experience that can be reused in the future.
Rules of operation
In this last sequence, participants are offered to structure this community according to certain criteria. We use the same principle as for the ice-breaker, it creates coherence and accelerates the movement of the participants.
Duration and Frequency
We had proposed a duration of1h30 by default :
- 1 hour seemed too short taking into account the delays at the start, the 2 sequences (experiential and structural) and the debriefing.
- 2 hours seemed too long 😛
The question that arose then:
Now that you have an idea of what can happen during this moment, which duration / frequency pair would seem to you the most suitable?
– Question Duration / Frequency
The result therefore sends us to a frequency monthly, the duration will oscillate between 1h30 and 2h. This is a good sign, we can say that people have not wasted their time! 🙂
Themes
The participants are then asked about the content they would like to have during this meeting. Indeed, I remind you that this is a moment that is not not mandatory and who therefore deserveshave value for them. Otherwise, it risks turning into an additional meeting, constraining and frustrating for everyone.
All the answers are good to take and the post-its multiply quickly on the board. My co-animators are busy reorganizing ideas live, allowing us to more easily distinguish trends.
This brings out different elements:
- Feedback from projects
- Openings to new practices (tools / methods)
- Presentations of trades because not all are known to... all! 😛
It is interesting to see here the live my life. Indeed, it is a dimension that pushes you to get out of your shackles to see what is happening with others and discover their constraints.
We are well within our intention to sharing and caring which surely begins with a Better comprehension the other. I hope this will allow in the long term to better cross-functional interactions.
Audience
For this kick-off, we had decided to invite all the people involved directly or indirectly in the Agile transformation of the company. However, this did not represent the whole structure.
After this first session lived together, the question was to know what the participants thought of the number of people invited and the dynamics created.
With a hint of surprise, the result that emerges is to extend this event to whoever would like to participate.
I said with a hint of surprise because the events that bring together a large number of people (here about forty), for 1h30, from a distance, and that interest everyone are rare. So naturally I would have thought the answer would be to restrict to be more focused.
But the proof that not, for the moment! 🙂
Values
We didn't have much time here to define more detailed operating rules. However, it seemed important to me to give a color to the community, a certain identity.
This is why I proposed to discuss the values that this community should embody. This would give a direction not only on the background but also on Form !
The words that emerge are not so surprising.
Beyond the buzzwords of kindness and some transparency, we can clearly see that this moment responds well to a need: that of connect with others to create a more cohesive collective, in the respect everyone's ideas. Indeed, the current health crisis and telework has not helped to maintain the links between people.
Thus, this community could then become this connector space. A place where the good people would have the good conversations At good time.
Last word
To end and gauge the relevance of this session, we ask all participants to share a last word. The opportunity to get an idea of what people leave with.
The other facilitators and myself are already surprised to see that out of the 45 initially connected, 40 people are still present. This is already an extremely positive point for a “non-compulsory meeting”.
Now, what are the real reasons? We don't know, but the fact is there! 🙂
Words that warm the heart and give energy to continue! The participants seem to have had a good time and seem inclined to come back next time! Good news 🙂
On top of that, we finish everything right on time. An important detail for me for lead by example. Indeed, the workshop was dense but the facilitating made it possible to keep brisk but comfortable pace to finish in the defined timebox!
Finally, I would particularly remember the words " sparkling " And " surprising » which validate the style of animation that we wanted to propose and which I hope was learning.
Conclusion
In closing, I think we've managed to deliver one moment at a time friendly and learning. Together, they were able to pose the first structural bricks of their community. This last will learn by walking and will refine over time its mode of operation.
The next step will be to co-construct the next session with members of this community. Indeed, to last, it is a moment that must have value for them both in substance and in form. And it is our role to help them! 😉
I will always be amazed by the power of co-construction on theenergy and thecommitment people. By transforming the injunctions in invitations, we give space to each person to express themselves, Responsibility, and to create healthier relationships and more serene.
And you what do you think ? 🙂
