The 5 things that happened when we set our open working commitments

I really enjoyed connecting with everyone who joined the Deloitte Digital Connect Open Working and Reuse workshop today, it’s great to get see familiar faces and get to know everyone a little better! As part of the session we ran two interactive activities.

During the first one, we thought about a time when we had worked in the open. Everyone worked in groups to reflect on their experience and name some of the opportunities (islands), anchors (challenges) and the wind (what propels us forward to work openly)?

We used Jamboard to collaborate in small break outs groups

During the second activity, everyone reflected on one goal they want to reach and a commitment to open working to help reach this goal.

Here are 5 things that happened when we set the open working commitments:

1. Both exercises were a flurry of colourful sticky notes, great ideas, thoughtful questions — it feels like there’s lots of energy around this which is exciting, there was even talk of ‘shaking up our ways of thinking’ in the chat. Yes!
2. Each group had a chance to playback a reflection on how they got on with the task, this peer sharing felt really valuable. There were some great insight shared on how important it is to be specific. Rachael made a great observation that including timelines in the open working commitments helps them feel more do-able e.g. I will spend 30 minutes writing one weeknote on Friday mornings.
3. We felt rushed on time. I’m wondering how we might be more realistic about how much content we can cover in 90 minutes. Did we spend too long on certain sections?
4. Speaking of time, lack of time to get involved in open working came up as a familiar challenge. How can we provide more support on that? I’ve set myself 30 minutes to write this weeknote and I don’t have much time left… so that’s one to ponder later! One particpant shared that it can be helpful to remember that open working will save you time in the long run. I might put that on a post-it note by my desk to remind myself of that (thanks Claire!)
5. We heard some nice feedback that Jamboard was useful to collaborate on. I was worried I could have been clearer with the instructions when I introduced Jamboard at the beginning so I’m pleased to hear that didn’t get in the way of people finding it useful.

Screenshot of the open working goals and commitments the group set, we’re using Jamboard to collaborate

Missed the session? Don’t worry you can catch up on the recording in the Support Guide and follow along the activities like this one.

P.S. I’m trying out a new format for writing week notes called ‘The X things that happened’. It’s a flexible, repeatable and concise (I hope!) format. It helps you pick out the most important things. For example ‘5 things that happened this week’. Read more about how to start writing weeknotes, set aside 30 minutes — and go for it! Can’t wait to see these open working commitments manifest into reality..!

Photo by Justin Clark on Unsplash