Pacing and Waiting
With more than half the office gone it’s been an odd week. The studio is sometimes quieter and sometimes louder than usual with the Eurocup games playing in the background, constant construction tools being used at the moments you want it to be the quietest, and the back and forth of control over what gets played over the speakers.
This week, we focused on getting people to do interviews. This seemed like an task that was manageable, but what we didn’t expect was for it to take so long for people to respond. I sent out 40+ emails to professors and strangers asking them if they would be able to help. I began asking friends and friends of friends to spend 45 minutes to an hour talking to my team on how they deal with stress.
Putting the information together
With the slow development of getting more people to be interviewed, we did an affinity diagram with the information we already had.
This exercise helped us organize what common subjects people talked about. From there, we thought of what we wanted to know more of and began editing our own interview guide to reflect that change.
What I learned from interviewing
- Listen and respond. to what someone is saying. Usually it takes a few more questions for people to open up and tell their story.
- Don’t speak until the other person has fully spoken, so that means waiting a few more minutes and allowing for someone else to fill in the silence. Usually people will add more interesting stories or their thoughts if you let them.
Excited to talk to more people next week, until then
