Alexa’s team created a WhatsApp group for our #collision experiment. This, in itself, is a bit of an experiment; we’ll see if it encourages sharing / checkin accountability. Jake and Eric said hello on the group, but so far, no other pair other than Rob and me have shared a checkin takeaway.
How might we...
Hypothesis
More frequent contact will enable us to collaborate more effectively and quickly
Design
Each of us will pair up and check in with each other for one hour/week for eight weeks.
Metrics
How often did each pair actually check in?
Survey at the end of the experiment:
- What was valuable about the experience?
- What would you have done differently?
- What did you learn?
Learnings
Survey results:
- Heard back from 8 people representing 6 pairs (out of 11 pairs)
- Average was about 4 checkins per pair (target was 8). Normal distribution with a high of 6 and a low of 2.
- 8 people posted on WhatsApp over 8 weeks (April 14-June 7), with 11 takeaways posted
What was valuable?
- Connection with partner. External sounding board, cross-pollination, cheerleading
- Referrals and potential partnerships
- Rare treat to have open conversation with a pre-set agenda
- Deep conversations around practice
- In a few cases, timing was challenging
- Zoom (video) was better than just audio. Face-to-face was best.
Do differently?
- Possibly assign partners based on compatibility (e.g. geography, timezones, interests, etc.) Or, let people self-organize.
- One pair really liked the openness, another needed more guardrails. Maybe repeat the framing, emphasize that there are no expected “deliverables” from these conversations, just connection.