Being open about Open Spaces — Feedback

Last Friday, Redgate ran it’s first Open Space and throughout the afternoon we were collecting feedback from people about how things were going. In the spirit of Open Spaces we thought we’d be open about the feedback we received.

Feedback!

TL;DR

What are we changing?

• Use larger post-its and ask for a bit more detail on a session.
• Use a quieter meeting room for the marketplace then move the whiteboard of sessions to a communal area.
• Facilitate the marketplace better, make sure everyone is listening when people are proposing sessions.
• Give people time after forming the marketplace to clarify what the sessions are about.
• Reach out to other areas of the business and invite them to join.
• Change the structure of the marketplace to have 30 minute slots and encourage people to take up multiple slots if they think their session will take longer.
• When drawing the marketplace, do not have a hard-line between the slots, this may encourage people to take several slots.

What suggestions do we have for attendees?

• Use the lightning talks to find out if people would like a longer session at the next Open Space.
• Help people coming late by having a scribe to record the session on a whiteboard (take photos and share).
• Be willing to submit a more contentious topic.
• If you miss a fantastic session, ask someone to run it again, or propose it yourself next time.
• Be respectful of other people in communal areas, ask if you are disturbing them.
• Understand the different ways of having discussions with larger groups, e.g. park bench, fishbowl etc.

What people liked?

“A diverse range of people”

People noticed that people came from a variety of roles within the Redgate, especially to the sessions that were not code-specific:

• Developers
• User Experience Designers
• Development leads

This is wonderful that different “roles” within the company felt they could come along and were actively engaging with the process. However, we can do better, we can grow the attendance, bringing in product/portfolio managers, sales, support, and marketing.

ACTION: Reach out to other areas of the business and invite them to join.

“Love that Redgate is trying the Open Space”

This was really good to hear but even better I like the feedback on the sessions on git and on exploratory testing as being extremely awesome. This really validates that the Open Space was a good idea.

“This is making a difference”

A session about auto-merging pull requests came out with concrete actions that people are implementing. There were only four people, but the right people, who all came in with some fears about the topic but worked together to understand then mitigate those fears.

“More interactive than lighting talks”

Every few weeks at Redgate we have lightning talks which gives a forum for people to share something that they have learned. The Open Space format is giving people more detail, more interaction, with that learning.

SUGGESTION: You could use the lightning talks to find out if people would like a longer session at the next Open Space.

What could be improved?

“It is hard to catch up if you arrive late”

The nature of the Open Space does mean that people will sometimes arrive late to the event, or to an individual session.

The marketplace lists what sessions are running at what times and at what locations but if you don’t attend the marketplace you don’t get to hear the 30s introduction that people made.

ACTION: We will get larger post-it notes so people can add a title and a small description of the session onto the post-it and encourage people to state the type of the session (workshop/discussion/kata/game).

During a session, it can break the flow if everyone who turns up needs to be given a synopsis of what has happened.

SUGGESTION: Where appropriate, have a scribe in the session to record some of the discussions to help people coming late to the session (take photos and share them).

“Would prefer time set aside for breaks”

We assumed people would use the Law of Two Feet and tend to do what the most important thing is for them (including taking a break). This does mean that if someone needs a drink they may turn up a little late to the session, or leave a session early, or even leave and rejoin a session. “It starts when it starts and “it ends when it ends”. This has made us think a little about the scheduling.

ACTION: We will schedule in one break in the middle of the afternoon and shorten the retrospective.

“Would expect to see more people at the testing topics”

There were two topics centred around testing in the session, this is something that Redgate emphasises as the responsibility of everyone in the division. The principle of “whoever comes are the right people” means that we cannot enforce any attendance and I hope the people who were there learned something that they can spread to the rest of the teams.

We should have noticed that the two testing sessions were in run at the same time, meaning that the pool of people who were interested in learning more about testing was split. This is something we should have picked up on and more emphasis will go onto reviewing/reordering the market place next time.

“There was not enough dissent”

I’m afraid I cannot do much about this, but the Open Space format is there for people to learn. If everyone in a session agrees and no one is learning then the session can end abruptly: “It ends when it ends.”

SUGGESTION/CHALLENGE: for people is to be willing to suggest more contentious topics.

“The acoustics in the Atrium were bad for the marketplace”

We picked the Atrium of our building for holding the marketplace as an easily accessible location for the whiteboard and a place we could all congregate without rearranging furniture in rooms that would be used for sessions.

ACTION: We will use a meeting room for the marketplace then before the sessions start we will move the whiteboard to a communal area and put the room back together.

Session Length

Some people were put off from proposing a session because they only had a short talk to give, others would have liked the sessions to go on longer.

ACTION: Move to 30 minute slots but encourage people to use multiple slots for longer sessions.

ACTION: When drawing the marketplace, do not have a hard-line between the slots, this may encourage people to take several slots.

What did people dislike?

“I can’t attend two talks at the same time, could you record them?”

For me, the sign of a great conference/event, is that I have difficult choices to make so I love the fact people wanted to be in two sessions at the same time. To me this is a sign of success.

We make a decision to not record any of the sessions because:

• The presence of recording equipment may impair people’s ability to speak more freely
• We want to generate a buzz around topics, to generate discussion outside of the Open Space to share this information.

SUGGESTION: If you really wanted to attend a specific session but could not talk to the person who ran it and ask if they could run it next time, write-up the learning or propose the session yourself at the next Open Space.

“Discussions in the Atrium could disrupt others”

We used the Atrium as a “break-out” area where people could hold sessions that were more informal discussions. The Atrium at Redgate is used for many informal meetings without providing too must disruption to other people, especially our receptionists. I was not in attendance for the session that generated this but I would hope that the disruption was not too bad.

We would like to keep the Open Space to the ground floor of the building, keeping people concentrated in one area helps to generate a “buzz”, so at the moment we would prefer not to use some of the other breakout spaces.

SUGGESTION: Be aware of other people around you, be respectful and even ask them if you are disturbing them and change behaviour appropriately.

SUGGESTION: If there are a lot of people in the discussion then consider running it as a park bench, fishbowl, or even moving the session to a room.

“The session name is not enough…”

This is linked to something above where people who come late to the Open Space may not know what a given session is all about. We noticed that some people were still writing down potential sessions while people were proposing their own so we have a few changes that we are going to make.

ACTION: Make sure everyone is ready before announcing the sessions, form an orderly queue.

ACTION: Once the marketplace is formed we should give some time for people to talk giving time for people to clarify what a session is all about.