14 to 27 June 2022: What we learned about running away days for a disperse team.
In this weeknote, the Research and Design team reflect on an in-person away day we ran. We talk about the nature of collaboration and how working in person helped us review work quickly and effectively.
1 — Why meet in person?
The Digital Service Design team was set up originally as a disperse team. A team whose members could work all over the country, using digital tools to coordinate work most of the time and backed up with regular in-person visits to discuss bigger topics.
That was in a pre-covid world. Various lockdowns and changes to our team makeup mean we have only met once as a whole team since 2020.
Over the last few months we’ve been discussing doing another away day at some point. The four of us in the Research and Design disciplines have been coming towards the transition between 2 pieces of work, so thought it would be a good time to come together. As we’re getting towards the end of designing the core service, and looking to the future, this was also a good time to meet and discuss our plans for the rest of 2022.
We thought we could more easily perform a final review of the process we’d been designing and kick-off the new piece of work if we were all together in the same room. We hoped that being in person would make it easier to communicate, so we can resolve differences of opinion and make sure everyone has the same understanding of the work. We also thought that it would be more pleasant than having to stare at a screen with headphones in for a whole day.
We decided to meet in York: roughly equi-distant for the four of us.
2 — How did it go?
We had a lot to get through and we’re delighted to say we managed to get through everything on our agenda… and more!
Reflecting back on the day and a half that we spent together, some of the things that helped us achieve our goals were:
All being in the same room, looking at the same thing, helped us be certain we were all talking about the same thing. There were fewer misunderstandings and less need for us to clarify what we meant when asking questions or responding to them. Our work felt more efficient than if we’d done it online.
Being able to read each others’ full body language helped open up the space for discussion. We could more easily see if someone needed more thinking time, or if we were all in agreement and could quickly rattle through a particular point. It made the whole session feel more interactive and natural.
Being able to relax together in breaks and after the work was important, to help us let off steam and talk about wider team things that we’d normally not have an opportunity to talk about
Making drinks and snacks for each other was also just really nice. I think we enjoyed the act of caring for each other, as well as the communal “putting the kettle on” experience.
Having space and time to see how each other works helps us appreciate workstyles more. With a bit more space (we weren’t all rushing off to the next meeting) we were also able to ask each other deeper questions about how and why we work the way we do, which was helpful on the day and to improve how we work together in the future.
3 — What we’ve learned about running away days
Always make sure there’s a note-taker and an open shared notes doc. As we were making a lot of decisions (some big, some small) and we were all involved in making different conversations at different times, it was useful to have an open table where we could all add decisions and comments. Because we could all see and contribute in real time, we could all feel confident that we understood the same thing from the notes that were written, and that everything important was being captured.
Leave plenty of slacktime — you may go off topic, and that can often be a good thing to help generate ideas! Make sure you don’t pack a day with 7 hours of discussion, there’s no way you’ll get through it all!
Choose a few, small things to focus on. We had to put together a couple of key objectives and outcomes before we got the go ahead. That process ensured we had a really clear focus (just 3 things) which we could build the agenda around. Because we were outcome-oriented, we know that all the things we were doing led to actions. Starting from a list of outcomes, rather than a list of all the things we wanted to talk about, also meant we could easily keep things on track. There were some things we wanted to talk about, but didn’t because it wasn’t going to help us meet the goal of the away day.
Go outside for little and often breaks. Walking around and getting the blood pumping is a great way to clear the air between one activity and the other. Some impromptu yoga/ stretches, or a more creative sketching activity to activate a different part of your brain, throughout the meeting can also help!
Music helps boost the mood. Just having a few little bits of music here and there can lighten the mood a bit, especially in the transition between activities.
Make sure you have plenty of snacks! Having lots of different options (savoury or sweet, more or less healthy) to nibble on throughout the day helped keep our energy levels up!
Plenty of natural light and a nice view! Following the 10–20–30 rule, making sure there was always something to look at outside helped us keep focussed and look after our eyes
Make sure your colleagues know about it with a few weeks notice. We organised this as a very impromptu thing, quite last minute. We kept it small so we could keep things focussed and book things more easily, but that meant colleagues that could have contributed to parts of the discussion found out a bit too late to be able to do that. We also didn’t think through the impact on our colleagues of all four of us being away at the same time. Definitely something to improve for next time!
One last thing before we go: spot the heritage fund logo!
See you in the next one!
