Okayish experience at design workshop
Have you ever been to a design workshop?
Participants grouped into 5–6 teams?.
Tasked to craft a design solution based on a real-world problem statement using UCD or Design Thinking framework?
Have you been to any?
I’ve been to 4 workshops so far. Including design and non-design.
I’ve been one of those participants with a silent tongue and a loud mind. Maximum time, what came out of the mouth was 1/10th of what was going inside my mind. I rarely spoke. But whatever I spoke it often made sense.
Some ideas did become part of the final solution. There were other positives like mentors belonged to coveted institutes or tech companies, learned new UX methodologies, exposure to awesomazing case studies, smart and super curious participants etc.
Despite all these, whenever the question “How’s the workshop going?” popped-up in mind, the reply was “Okayish” or “Decent” or “Not meeting my expectations”
To be honest, my mindset was responsible for an okayish experience. I realized this post-workshop when we all talked about our takeaways over a cup of Chai.
To summarise our conversations I would say
The value each of us extracted differed by a great degree despite the fact that the same folks were involved in the same task at the same time at the same place with the same mentor.
Folks who participated derived the best value. By participation I mean they were the 1st or 2nd one to voice their opinion, ideas, or questions. They were the early birds to keep wireframes on the table or elaborate on their sticky note.
Throughout consecutive workshops, my topmost takeaway was to be more vocal or be an early bird in the next one.
But as an introvert accepting being vocal as the solution was discomforting. To decode my preference for silent presence, I deep-dived inward.
Sharing my findings below. Or you can call it fallacies too. Sharing with the hope to help the silent ones to get their thoughts less tangled than their headphone.
My preference for silence was rooted in these assumptions.
- Being an introvert, it's natural for me to remain quieter or voice an opinion a little late than others.
- I’ll learn a lot anyway because mentors belong to premium institutions or organizations.
- People will laugh if I’m illogical.
Behavioral flaws these assumptions triggered were
- Despite having an input early on, I waited for somebody else to start.
- I often wished for was “I hope someone speaks my mind. I’ll say ‘I agree’ and shut up”.
- I rarely asked questions.
- I felt guilty for my minimal participation. I consoled myself by saying “I’ll contribute my best at the prototyping or UI design phase”. In simple words, I played a carrot and stick game with myself.
The eventual outcome of all these was “I missed the bus :(”. Workshops activities followed strict timeboxing. Hard stop meant hard stop, rarely negotiable. Failing to meet or beat time constraints would result in missing the bus.
A typical pattern I noticed across workshops were
- 1st or 2nd person’s opinions or ideas would set the stage for discussion or design solutions.
- Late entrants in the convo would either endorse the stated opinion/idea OR play a devil’s advocate in the case of disagreement.
- The silence of the silent one implied agreement or no-input.
If you see early entrants are bound to receive maximum feedback.
In my opinion, what hammer and chisel is to sculpting, feedback is to creativity or critical thinking. The way sculpting tools turn an insignificant stone into a valuable statue, feedbacks can do the same to immature ideas or proposals i.e turn into something concrete and valuable.
In simple words, the higher the participation, the higher will be the feedback. and subsequently greater will be the value.
But sometimes greater value isn’t a reason enough to push oneself to give their best. Overcoming inner conflicts is critical to step up. A handshake with the following mindset helped ease conflicts triggered by the ‘people will laugh’ assumption
All participants are blank page to each other i.e. a total stranger. Speaking my mind should be a non-issue with them. I don’t open-up to the known ones because of the fear of being judged, laughed upon or badmouthing. But with strangers, there’s no such fear. Post workshop I’ve a choice to keep in touch or stay out of touch. My insecurities with strangers is pure overthinking. Connections I establish here is the easiest one to enter or exit. Therefore, I shouldn’t be this bothered.
This mindset worked for me. Overthinking indeed took a backseat. I was more vocal and proactive than before.
By the way, I’ve had some funny moments as well. I did ask silly questions, struggled to articulate, shared impractical ideas etc. In response, I got feedback and not the laugh that used to dread me. These responses taught me how to disagree, rectify the input of others with grace, articulate better, and so on.
The simple point I’m trying to make is “Speak up, don’t overthink”.
To be honest, I’m not 100% sure of the abovesaid mindset — Healthy or Junk?. I’m leaning on it because it’s working for me.
If you have any critique or suggestions for the said mindset, please pass on. Also, happy to hop on to an alternate mindset… :)
Bottom line
Workshops are like playing soccer in an open playground. What you do on the ground matters more than the quality of grass(workshop, mentor).
The silent one’s learnings will be similar to a soccer enthusiast trying to learn by observing other players play. They will for sure learn something but lesser than the player on the ground.
That’s because of the feedback arriving in the form of critique, opinion, ideas, questions, etc. This feedback will work upon their hard or soft skills like hammer & chisel and help carve a better version of themselves.
In simple words, one needs to set foot on the ground, be audible and be proactive.
