Week 2
The CLOU
For Week 2, we were introduced to the idea of the CLOU, or Colleague Letter of Understanding, in which team members collectively create ‘agreements’ with each other and by which to conduct themselves and define their commitments. Our guest speaker was Doug Kirkpatrick, who explained that commitments were ways to engage others in what they care about and prompt them for action.
The team was different this week from last with a new combination of members. We each added our ideas of agreements, determining if any could be combined or if some were considered too individual for a group expectation. We then voted on our favorites, which became our CLOU, and added pictures and quotes to help represent each idea. We achieved our goal beautifully! Check out our final version here.
Two of my favorites of the CLOU are:
- Be curious & confident: “Curiosity turned the cat into a lion.” — powerfulnonsense.com
- Share your learning: “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” — Benjamin Franklin.
It was interesting to work with a new set of people and see how everything developed so uniquely from the previous week. Creative approaches and honest feedback lead us to be successful.
For my personal CLOU (perhaps PLOU?), click here.

