City Site Visits: Deep Learning with Our Peers
Our team is test driving a new model for travel in 2024. We’ll tell you why!
Conference travel is a great way to discover interesting ideas and identify peers to lean on in other cities. South Bend’s Innovation & Technology Department has gotten a lot of value out of conference-based learning and networking!
That being said, conferences alone can’t spur the deeper cross-city learning we crave at this point in our maturation. Why?
- There isn’t enough high quality time. You might see a presentation on a solution or a management practice and you want to replicate, but the follow-up call or email either isn’t enough or it simply doesn’t happen!
- There isn’t enough people. Because of cost or conference size, one person from your team is usually at the conference rather than an entire team of cross-disciplinary personnel at a variety of levels. A group like that can truly activate change and take on a complex project.
- There isn’t enough openness. Conferences, while valuable, aren’t typical forums to talk frankly about failures.
In 2024, we’re trying something new. We will be doing strategic city site visits with peers that have some combination of the qualities below:
- We have common problems or projects
- We have a similar tech stack aka similar pieces of software, tools, etc.
- They have done something we envy and we want to learn from them
- We have complementary structures that, like us, blend both core IT, digital transformation, and innovation together under one roof.
A “Give-Get-Collaborate” Agenda
Each of our site visits this year will follow a give-get-collaborate format so that we can achieve reciprocity with our partners.
Each city will contribute a “give” that is relevant to the other team’s needs or 2024 priorities. Think: “We can tell you about Build the Budget — Can you give us a tour of your Data Warehouse?” or “We can share the code + replication notes for Commuters Trust. Walk us through how your team approaches enterprise product management.”
Both teams together will also select a timely co-working or collaboration topic. Think: “Let’s workshop our Low Code Strategies” or “Let’s react to each other’s performance management approach” or “We’re both procuring X technology — let’s swap notes!”
What’s Next
We are so excited to see how this work unfolds! If our hunch is right, this way of travel will mean higher quality lessons, lasting relationships, and a more cost effective way for more people at more levels of our organization to travel and learn.
We’ll be posting stories and lessons from our site visits this year. Stay tuned!
If you have any questions about the above, please email me at driedl@southbendin.gov
