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Online work meeting

team building workshops.

Bringing UX designers and researchers together to strengthen skills and relationships.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Objective

Leading workshops to help build trust, encourage communication, and increase collaboration in a virtual work environment

Challenge

One of my favorite activities to lead is team-building workshops. These workshops help to build trust,  encourage communication, and increase collaboration. Effective team building means more engaged employees, which is good for company culture and boosts the bottom line. I also enjoy pushing team members outside their comfort zone by being adventurous and adding little pizzazz.

My Role

As a UX/XUI designer, leader, and coworker, I am always researching topics, listening to podcasts, and looking for opportunities to build trust in collaboration between designers and researchers. I gathered insights, created workshop activities, and built out visuals in Miro.

Tools

  • Teams

  • Miro

  • Paper and Writing Utensils

01 super power discovery

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE WORKSHOP

The first intentional team-building exercise I facilitated was Super Power Discovery. The purpose of this workshop was to allow team members to be vulnerable in identifying their own strengths while practicing humility and gratitude. It is not easy for the majority of us to just accept the strengths others identify in us. I challenged the team to be honest with each other and to sit with the results of the conversation for a week.

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After the week had passed, we returned as a team and created "Super Power Profiles" to document each team member's strengths. This created a culture of recognition within our larger team and also provided a resource for individuals seeking assistance in an area they were struggling. For example, if I need help refining my empathy skills I can find a team member that has empathy as a super power.

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There was a very positive response from the group and a hunger to do more workshops that allowed for vulnerability and conversations about improving skillsets.

02 Becoming a great partner

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE WORKSHOP

Inspired by the Crazy One Podcast episode 38: Creative Direction: Building stronger relationships with your clients (even the difficult ones),  the Becoming a Great Partner workshop focused on the frustration that I was hearing time and time again from my UX partners. There was a constant mindset that our product managers and developers didn't value the user or discovery process. So I asked myself "How might we pinpoint the reason behind this?" Assuming good intention, I suspected there was a knowledge gap.

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I started the workshop with a mapping exercise. We quickly realized that the majority of our partners landed on the side of an advocate, but with a limited understanding of the UX process. From there we dove into each step of the design process and how we wanted our partners to show up. We wrapped up the exercise with an infographic I created based on the Crazy One Podcast depicting the four ways to build rapport.

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There was an almost immediate shift in the conversations that followed the workshop. Instead of complaining about "bad" partners, UX folks were asking questions about how others were approaching the ways of building rapport. The super power profiles also made an appearance as team members looked to perfect their own product team relationships.

03 Creating Your Brand

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE WORKSHOP

This workshop was also inspired by the Crazy One Podcast: Episode 106: How to build a personal brand people will love to hate. In all transparency, this workshop was a lot more to do with my personal questions than those expressed by others. However, I think it's fair to say that anyone who wants to succeed in their career can benefit from building a foundation for their brand.

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We started by thinking about brands that we loved and defining what a personal brand is. I asked everyone to grab a 1" by 1" piece of paper and write down every person who had an opinion that truly mattered to them personally. Then, in true UX fashion, we covered the why and the how. To wrap up the activity, each team member completed the Brand Archetype Card Sort activity from the Crazy One Podcast. These archetypes allowed individuals to create a foundation for their brand that they could build upon.

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At the beginning of the workshop, several team members were aware of the term "personal brand" but weren't sure what that meant or where to begin to define it. While this workshop was viewed as beneficial and very educational, there was a want to return to more of a team-centered approach instead of personal growth.

03 OvERCOMING FAILURE

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE WORKSHOP

Inspired by a few lessons from Noom and Ryan Leak's documentary Chasing Failure, this workshop challenged team members to face their own fear of failure and consider a new perspective. Topics discussed include: why do we fear failure? How might our life and work be different if we didn't fear failure? and what would they do if they could not fail?

Forest Road_edited_edited.jpg

Coming Soon

Stay Tuned

WRAPPING UP

WHAT I LEARNED

By leading these workshops, I learned a lot about creating an environment that allows team members to be vulnerable but also builds self-esteem and trust. Bringing people together to create something powerful is one of my favorite things to do. Team building workshops allow me to learn and grow as a leader.

WHAT'S NEXT?

I have many more ideas for team-building workshops and activities. Some are inspired by conversations I have with my peers or podcasts I listen to. Other ideas come from my personal struggles. I plan to continue to create spaces where team members can come together and learn from one another. In a virtual work environment, it is essential to find time and connect.

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