A year of Facilitation
Approaching the sixth Spaghetti Jam on the first weekend on November it’s a good time to capture the journey. To date I have facilitated:
- Sustainability Jam 2015
- Service Jam 2016
- Gov Jam 2016
And the final one of the year, taking me full circle is Brum Sustainability Jam. Firstly, I want to thank the Impact Hub Birmingham for giving us the space to host the jams and spend a few hours a week planning for it.
Why do I give up my evenings and weekends to facilitate?
This tweet pretty much sums up one of my many reasons why. Another is accessibility. Over the jams we have had parents bringing their children along. Postgraduate students, people getting back into work after illness and members of the local council join us.
The Service Jam 2016 featured the most diverse bunch of individuals in one space over a weekend. There were fireworks, there were timeouts and also touching moments of making food and drinks for each other. Everyone treated each one as their equal and nobody was left out. This culture is something we the facilitators didn’t create — it’s something the participants designed. We occasionally referred to it when required.
My Personal Goals
- Strengthen skills in planning and delivering workshops
- Wanting to make Design Thinking principles as accessible as possible to all. Regardless of circumstance, background or barriers
- Create an alternative to ‘hackathons’ to Birmingham
- Develop a toolkit to help other people host their own design challenges in locations convenient to them (we have noticed not everyone can afford to travel to City Centre locations)
How am I doing this?
Not on my own. Working with Spaghetti Jams and the Global Jam Community who set the themes and provide the frameworks and support for me to develop a really good Jam experience for others.
Over a series of Jams this year we have adapted and created our own frameworks and guides. Each individual Jam for ourselves we treat it as an experiment to test things we have been working on. The Sustainability Jam 2015 I was fully immersed in the organising and planning (the behind the scenes). The Service Jam 2016 I facilitated the challenges and energisers. Gov Jam 2016 I presented the rapid prototype and facilitated the insights sessions. This Sustainability Jam 2016 I’m taking a more major front facing role. Delivering sessions throughout the 3 days.
With each Jam I’ve been involved with developing content for social media, hosting Q&As with Daniel and Chris and spreading the word about the Jams. Currently we’re developing a communications/social media plan to use for the next set of jams and working with @Florence I to conduct user research before and after the jams. We’re also working on how we can track events better and identify any touchpoints that need to be designed for.
It’s a work in progress right now. Alongside this I am also studying Acumen and IDEO’s Facilitator’s Guide to Human-Centred Design course to develop facilitation and presentation skills. I plan to write up a post Jam reflection piece in the middle of November detailing my learnings as an individual and within the team.
You can follow along this year’s Birmingham Sustainability Jam 2016 at Spaghetti Jams and follow #BrumSusJam16. Fancy joining us? Send me a tweet and I’ll send you more information.