Product Tonic Lab Retreat #Day 4
“Open Space : Emerging topics for PTL”
What we learnt : Self-Organisation and Mentorship
During this session, PTL participants self-organise to co-create topics of interest using TWC approach and take ownership as host in the following 8 meetups
The World Café
The World Café (TWC) methodology is a simple, effective, and flexible format for hosting group dialogue. World Café got its name because it imitates a café setting where small groups (4 or 5 people) are all conversing together around tables about an issue that matters to them.
In order to help ideas connect from round to round, usually one person stays at the table while the others move to a new table, taking their previous conversations with them. This person is called “host”. At the beginning of the next round, they summarize the previous discussion for the new people at the table. In this way, the threads of the various conversations are woven together.
3 Round of conversations
- Why is this topic important? How might you rephrase into “How might we…”
- How would you attempt to approach the statement?
- What skills /knowledge are needed by the team?
Harvesting
After the small groups (and/or in between rounds, as needed), individuals are invited to share insights or other results from their conversations with the rest of the large group.
Mentoring
During PTL, participants would be provided access to mentors — hence we learnt the concept and purpose of this mentorship scheme.
Mentee: One who is protected or trained or whose career is furthered by a person of experience, prominence, or influence.
The motivation for a mentee to enter into mentorship is obvious: they hope to gain from the experience of their mentor. But a mentee should not just be a passive receiver of information, their job should be to put the advice and council they are getting into practice and offer feedback to their mentor. Every mentor-mentee relationship is unique, but there are several areas where mentors can be especially helpful in the realm of product management.
Good mentees should have a willingness to learn, be open to new ways to accomplish their goals, and have a strong desire to advance in their career. One of the first steps to becoming a good mentee is to recognize that you could benefit from a mentor, and by recruiting your own mentor. More importantly, you’re open to exploring how to best shape your learning experience with your mentor.
Mentor : a wise and trusted counselor or teacher; an influential senior sponsor or supporter.
The motivations for a mentor to enter into a relationship are less obvious than the mentee. People become mentors for many reasons, such as a personal connection to the mentee, to help someone in need, because they see potential in a mentee they want to foster, to “pay it forward” from their time as a mentee, or simply to stroke their own ego.
Solid mentors have executive and management experience they can apply to help the mentee in various situations. They can help the mentee understand how to interact with leadership teams and stakeholders across the business by illustrating different perspectives the mentee may have not considered. The primary role of the mentor is to arm the mentee with council and contacts to make them successful.
Side Quest
Attributions
This is a personal summary notes for Product Tonic Labs 2021 that took place from April — Nov 2021
Product Tonic Lab is open source
This work is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0). This work is derivative of Prime/OS, Theory U concepts, #ProductBeer, #ProductTonic and The Collab Folks (TCF) “The Learning Circle v1-v3” and “TCF v1-v5.5”.
Materials in Product Tonic Meetups
This work is based on “The Collab Folks” and many sources.
