Academic Quietism

Posted on by Brian Hughes

I see and hear a lot both in and outside of academia about how much people contribute to the world of written materials. For example, witness this example of personal productivity:

[name withheld] is the author or co-author of more than 450 published articles, book chapters, papers, and op-eds about education policy and politics and is the author or editor of four books on educational policy. – A real academic website

Wow. That’s a lot of professional writing about educational policy. Maybe it is all top-shelf stuff, and if so, congratulations! But I personally find it hard to come anywhere near those numbers. Like, nowhere near them. Might it be better if we published less?

Post-Rock Star Teams

Posted on by Brian Hughes

Valerie Aurora, Mary Gardiner, and Leigh Honeywell have co-authored a great blog post “No more rock stars: how to stop abuse in tech communities”. The article is primarily about supporting women, but it’s also a great read on making more supportive, collaborative, creative teams.

It’s probably worth taking another look at Godin’s Linchpin with ideas from this article, and see how it holds up against the “rock star” metaphor.

The Perfect Team?

Posted on by Brian Hughes

Cross-posted from my EdLab blog:

There’s a don’t-miss read in the Times about teams at work: What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team

I think we aspire to build strong teams across our whole organization, but this is a great reminder about habits and indicators that will help us continue to do so… and perhaps even improve over time.

Particularly salient:

What Project Aristotle has taught people within Google is that no one wants to put on a ‘‘work face’’ when they get to the office. No one wants to leave part of their personality and inner life at home. But to be fully present at work, to feel ‘‘psychologically safe,’’ we must know that we can be free enough, sometimes, to share the things that scare us without fear of recriminations…

The article also made me think about how hard it is to create the conditions for psychological safety across a 40+ person team. It’s probably impossible… but it makes me think about how activities like “The Learning Theater Games” can be an important organizational “mixer”—allowing for repeat interactions with a different (but consistent) team across time.

What are other ways we could do this? Or, what could we do to improve the LT Games? I suspect we should make the teams a little smaller, but I’m unsure…

The Three R’s of Team-building

Posted on by Brian Hughes

I just want to throw out an admittedly gimmicky way of thinking about a big part of the work we do as EdLab managers: we spend a considerable amount of energy on recrutiing, retooling, and retaining. I’d like to call this “the three R’s of team-building.”

As part of the academic library at Teachers College, EdLab has a unique set of people, projects, and goals. Because our work is “in between” worlds – academia, libraries, technology, and media – our priorities are often in a state of flux.

By design, many of our staff appointments are short term (one semester or one year, for example). This allows us to work with different cohorts of students and professionals. It also means we are continually putting energy into building, shaping, and sustaining our teams.

Reflecting on this work causes me to consider a few questions:

  • What strategies are effective and efficient in each of the three areas? There is of course a lot of literature on this, so: What works well for us specifically? What are some new approaches we should consider? Can better communication make our work more effective or efficient?
  • What is the “cost” of investing in the 3 R’s? What specific outcomes do we seek? What are the indicators we look for to see if we need to change our approaches?

Three ways to… inspire a team

Posted on by Brian Hughes

A nice, if not idealistic, take on how organizations can use social media and new digital pathways to amplify their messages and improve the reception of their brands:

3 Ways to Usefully Lose Control of Your Brand | design mind.

Leberecht goes a bit astray halfway through, but the thesis of the opening two minutes is an uncomplicated and refreshing take on why orgs have to worry about their employees more than ever.

The Rise of the New Groupthink

Posted on by Brian Hughes

The Rise of the New Groupthink – NYTimes.com

I like this discussion, but it misses a key perspective. Cain make a bit of a straw man out of the pro-groupwork crowd. Fair enough, there are plenty of reasons to push back. But here’s my spin: cut the part about “creativity” and there are many reasons to get better at working together.

I find it unhelpful that in trying to set her view apart from the so-called New Groupthink crowd, Cain goes even further to reify the importance of creativity. I like creativity, I do. But I think it’s helpful to read this article and replace variations of “creation” with a simpler notion of “production.” It strikes a different tone – and it falls a bit flat. For example:

If you look at how Mr. Wozniak got the work done — the sheer hard work of creating something from nothing — he did it alone. Late at night, all by himself.

Becomes:

If you look at how Mr. Wozniak got the work done — the sheer hard work of producing something — he did it alone. Late at night, all by himself.

Wow, he produced something alone. Even if it’s a very special thing, we know his work was likely supported in many other ways. Paying attention to the importance of “creativity” emphasizes how much Cain relies on a special meaning that should be cast in doubt.

By default, people are pretty bad at working together. Especially on difficult problems, I think. I like the idea that schools and workplaces are trying to emphasize the importance of collaboration and asking people to practice. Such efforts might not result in outcomes we’d consider creative. That’s OK.

No one wants better collaboration to come at the cost of drowning out individual gains in learning, but perhaps it’s worth some displacement of individual achievement?

A Service Design Opportunity

Posted on by Brian Hughes

I just participated in a two day workshop run by Engine, a UK design group that focuses on applying diverse design processes to designing customer-oriented services. The workshop focused on designing services that are complex by nature, usually involving “four P’s”: People, Places, Processes, and Products (not to be confused with the four P’s of marketing). My goal was to better understand the work we can do to deliver amazing services at the Gottesman Libraries and EdLab.

Joining me were leaders and designers from large and small companies, across many industries. Engine staff presented several very interesting cases (examples from their portfolio) that involved many design methods – methods that are often located within the double diamond design process framework. Learning about their process allowed me to reflect extensively on EdLab’s home-grown CSG process, and how we could modify them for service design (or adopt entirely new practices).

A Library Example

Involving a whole organization in designing (and redesigning) services is becoming increasingly popular in large organizations with ambitious agendas — and service design is quickly being recognized as a distinct design specialty. To share the kind of processes I was exposed to over the past two days, here is a very broad sketch of a possible design scenario library staff could host at Teachers College.

Exploration Phase (Phase 1):

The Opportunity Statement:

To kick off a service design process, an organization must agree on a problem to work on. Short of this, here’s a general opportunity to consider here: What signature service can we add to the library?

Goal Planning:

Let’s try to go from brainstorming to piloting a prototype in three phases over three months.

Elements of Stakeholder Event (Event 1):

  • Get everyone who will be working on the project (including TCstudents, library staff and the Provost or a representative from his office) together to better understand the opportunity and goals.
  • Share an existing case study that relates to a similar institution.
  • Review background materials.
  • Share a “blueprint” of the whole service design process that guides the three-month-long project.

Post event:

  • Invite participants to review background research and share perspectives.
  • Share a short video that captures the activities of the first event (this can be public).
  • Share a written “design brief” that captures the activities of the first event (this can be public).

Insight Phase (Phase 2):

Elements of Stakeholder Event (Event 2):

  • Use “Personas” and service scenarios to develop a shared understanding of opportunities. Be ambitious.
  • Generate ideas for new services and related design solutions (how services will be implemented, delivered, maintained, and refined) to prototype.
  • Use a “service principles” framework to focus on a particular opportunity to focus on.

Post event:

  • Create PX (patron experience) teams to carry out several kinds of design research.
  • Report back to the larger group with outcomes from the research.
  • Share a short video that captures the activities of the first event (this can be public). Capture interviews with participants.
  • Share a written “design brief” that captures the activities of the first event (this can be public).

Prototyping Phase (Phase 3):

Elements of a Stakeholder Event (Event 3):

  • Generate a final set of possible services around the service opportunity (from Stakeholder Event 2), and narrow to a single service.
  • Develop a set of elements of the service from both the patron perspective and the organizational perceptive.
  • Develop a recommended “service blueprint” that responds to the findings from the design research (a condensed list). The blueprint explains the service from both the patron and staff perspectives.

Post event:

  • Make final adjustments to scale and scope of the service.
  • Refine and adapt the service blueprint to serve as a training resource for staff.
  • Share a short video that captures the activities of the first event (this can be public). Capture interviews with participants.
  • Share a written “design brief” that captures the activities of the first event (this can be public).

Implementation:

  • Iterate a version of the service and try it.
  • Collect feedback on the service.
  • Share feedback with the Stakeholders, and explore next steps.

Final Thoughts

Yes, the Services Design process is a humble one. But if it’s done well, it has the potential to improve an organization’s services at multiple points over time. As a process, it’s infused with the ethos of transparency and co-creation – inviting patrons to be part of the library’s process of developing and refining services. Due to the total cost of the process, however, it should not be used to tackle small issues. That is, it’s not meant to overcome the usual challenges of bureaucracy and resource limitations. It’s meant to open up new opportunities that have the potential to expand an organization (as well as positively impact its current culture).

Apologies for cross-posting this example on the EdLab blog.

First Day with Engine

Posted on by Brian Hughes

I just finished my first day of a 2-day “Service Design Workshop” run by Engine – a design group that focuses on service design. What is service design? It’s pretty much as simple as it sounds, design processes applied to designing services. Of course, there’s the challenge: services are complex by nature, involving “four P’s”: People, Places, Processes, and Products (not to be confused with the four P’s of marketing). And watch out for wicked problems.

I’m participating in this workshop to better understand the work EdLab can do to deliver amazing services throughout our organization. I’m joined by designers from large and small companies, across many industries. Today we learned about some very interesting methods and cases. For example: the double diamond design process. I’ve been reflecting on our own home-grown CSG processes, and how we modify them especially for service design.

There have been some interesting discussions of how to involve both key stakeholders and customers throughout various stages of a design process – and the challenges and opportunities at stake.