E-mail message from Dave Pollard to the Virtual Meetings group (led by Tim Bonnemann and Christopher Allen) in response to the question What were the key lessons learned in the process of producing the Group Works product and pattern language, September 2013.
On the last call I volunteered to talk briefly on the next call about key "lessons learned" as a member of the Core Team of the GPLP as we stewarded development of the Group Works deck. Here, for what they're worth (and just my own opinion) are my top lessons learned from the process:
- Identifying the key patterns in such a complex application is an emergent, not an analytical, process. We could never have just sat down and come up with what we did. The content, format, 'syntax', everything changed completely many times over the three years of this process. An enormous amount was learned (and changed) as a result of trying out early versions of the deck in real situations. Implication: Rather than trying to 'design' the virtual pattern language, it might make more sense to mock something up and just play with it during real online facilitated group events. E.g. you could create a tool that 'put' a deck of cards in the virtual 'room' and allowed participants to share (with each other or with the whole group) their thoughts on when a pattern needed to be invoked (say, by 'raising your hand' and showing that pattern card with a yellow warning border) or when a pattern had been invoked in an exemplary manner as a recognition and thank you (showing that pattern card with a green 'well done' border). Kinda like raising coloured cards in real group meetings. By noticing and tracking which patterns were used in this manner across a variety of virtual events, we could collect a lot of data on which patterns applied, didn't apply, or applied differently in virtual environments (and even which patterns were 'missing'), which would be tremendously useful in this project's task. It would also be hugely helpful to GPLP, since there is no way to collect this kind of rich data in non-virtual events. Such a tool might even be marketable to the companies that sell virtual meeting software.
- You need a core team to drive it. This was a lesson from Chris Corrigan, who saw a revolving door of people working on the project with insufficient continuity and dedicated work time. Working on the core team is thankless, tedious, time consuming and stressful (kinda like writing a book). But it's a great experience, if you have the capacity and bandwidth for it, and without it the 'end product' will likely be either poor quality or never realized.
- Out of the box thinking is essential and transformative. The occasional sparks that changed the direction of Group Works came out of nowhere (just imaginative/creative thinking, by individual and/or "yes and..." group effort). We started out this project planning to write a book. The idea of cards came when we needed a way to list and sort all the patterns to decide which to include and how to group them, so we wrote them on slips of paper and started shuffling them around in tableaus. Next thing you know we were creating a card deck.
- Diversity in the group helps create a better product. We had people from co-housing, non-profit, government, business and education sectors and this variety of contexts for group meetings was helpful in broadening our grasp of applicable patterns and appreciating how the deck would be used in different environments. It also created considerable tension (e.g. 'business' people were wary of some new-agey patterns others were adamant to keep). But it's all grist for the mill [flash pattern card].
- There is no one right or 'best' answer. We grappled a lot with how to group the patterns, how they related to each other, whether some were more important than others, whether there were too many or not enough etc. Several of us started customizing our 'own' versions of the deck even when we were in the early stages, because of disagreements on what was 'best'. But finally we realized that if we're going to 'speak' a new 'language' we have to compromise and agree upon a 'vocabulary' that, while not optimal for anyone, is something we can all accept and come to use proficiently.
- Understanding how to use the patterns is not intuitive or easy. This is a powerful tool, but it takes practice to become familiar with the 'language' and how to use it effectively. In workshops we put on there's a lot of tension between experienced facilitators who have used the cards (who want the workshop to go faster and be more advanced) and novice facilitators new to the cards (who are intimidated and want the workshop to go slower). It's essential to help people at all levels of familiarity and proficiency use the language in ways that meet their needs. Christopher Allen recently wrote this great 'Orientation' for novice users: http://groupworksdeck.org/orientation-cards
- Patterns need to be 'translated' to methods: Facilitators are familiar with 'methods' (e.g. Open Space, World Cafe, Roberts Rules etc.) and for the pattern language to be useful we had to 'map' the patterns to the methods. We now have a rudimentary list of key patterns applicable to a variety of methods, though there's much work still to be done on this. Of all the sessions we include in workshops, the 'method mapping' is among the highest rated by experienced facilitators. Implication: My sense is that the 'methods' used in virtual group events are very different from those used in face-to-face events. E.g. I've tried and failed to make Open Space work in online environments, and though I've seen methods 'tweaked' to suit virtual environments by 'evoking physical space' (e.g. having pictures of chairs in a circle on the screen that you can write your name under or post your photo beside), the metaphors often seem forced. I think it would be very worthwhile for this group to look at how the 'methods' of facilitation used in face-to-face meetings apply in and differ from those used in virtual meetings, how they're altered, how effective they are in comparison, what additional 'methods' are used online, what brand new 'methods' might be more appropriate for virtual meetings etc. The end result might not be a pattern language for virtual environments, but it might be something even more valuable, both for this project and for use by online facilitators everywhere.
