Manuscript
General Description
Working remotely sometimes brings miscommunication and discoordination. Activities that were natural and intuitive are not like that anymore. Team members can expect something that others not necessarily understand and do not give them the same priority.
To ensure that everybody is on the same page and has the same north, team members can agree with some aspects of the Manuscript activity.
The deliverable of this activity will be a document, a guide, that everybody can return to when they have doubts about the work and dynamic, including goals, rules, values, and needs.
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Applicable for:
Trust Spiral
Curiosity to learn
Inclusion Safety
Learner Safety
Contributor Safety
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30 - 90 min
4 - 15 people
Level: intermediate
Steps
Create groups of 4 to 15 members. If you have more people in a team, execute this activity with the leaders and then make sure that they establish their manuscript with their members.Bonus:
- Each member should find a quiet place at home/office.
- The facilitator should prepare reflective music.
Step 1
Each member will have in total 20 minutes to reflect on goals, rules, values, and needs. The ideas can be written in post-its by hand or in Google Docs, with bullets.
For each topic, everybody will have a self-reflection and then a sharing part to take the final decision.
Goals (5 min):
- Why do we do what we do at work?
- What is my role in the team, and why is it crucial for the others?
- What is our goal as a team, professional, and personal?
Rules (5 min):
- What rule can we implement to establish boundaries between professional and personal life?
- What rules are needed in a meeting to ensure the effectiveness of it?
- What rules should we implement about communicating through messages and which channels?
- What rules should we create for a remote environment?
Values (5 min):
- What values define us as a team?
- What value can we practice to make everybody feel included? Give a specific example.
- What behaviour/lack of value we will not accept as a team?
Needs (5 min):
- Where is the best channel to communicate my needs?
- What is the process of asking for help? Is there a personal commitment before that?
Step 2
Ask all the members to have their device camera turned on. You will have 5-15 minutes, depending on the size of the team, to share about each section. Have the document open and start-off adding those answers, or comments, more voted, and that will define your organisation's guidelines.
Step 3
Final reflection:
Ask the whole group the following questions; it is non-mandatory participation :
- How do you feel about this document? Do you think it represents you?
- What is going to be your most significant commitment?
- Final words to your team.