Design Jam – online jams for generating innovation
The idea of online jams was pioneered by IBM. Their online jam events are global brainstorming sessions that happen over a period of 24 hours. For more about IBM events check out https://www.collaborationjam.com. The first time I heard about online jams I was keen to give it a try. Anyone who works with me knows that I like to work fast!
We once had a project where the design of the learning community wasn't moving forward. Some key decisions needed to be made, and we needed to generate some ideas for community events. An online jam was the perfect way to jump-start the process. It was also a chance for the client to gain exposure to some of the tools they would be using when they delivered the program. We called it a design jam to focus the event on creating ideas.
How we organised it
Each day for a week we had a theme and a series of problems that needed to be explored – it wasn't just random brainstorming.
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The pattern we used for each day was:
| Introductory virtual classroom | This introduced the theme and was based around a series of questions and points to debate. A lot of sessions were based on whiteboard exercises. The group was relatively small (15), which was a good number as everyone was able to take the microphone at some stage during the session. |
| Discussion boards | The virtual classrooms were great for some of the topics but many needed longer responses and more reflective thinking. For these topics we used discussion boards. |
| Virtual classroom session to summaries the theme | These sessions were run each morning. Most mornings we closed the theme with a short virtual classroom to summarise and bring together thoughts and decisions.
The theme for the final day was summarising and reflecting on the whole event. |
| Facilitator virtual classroom session to plan the next day | What the participants didn’t see was the debrief and planning session that the facilitators had at the end of the morning. |
What I would change next time
We used Seeding/Totara because a couple of people in the group of facilitators were confident about using it as a tool. Next time we would use a tool like Podio or Yammer because of features like chat and instant notifications. Seeding/Totara wasn't great for an almost-real-time event – it was hard to feel the presence of the other participants online. The other thing we would change is to just have one discussion topic for each theme. Some people found it confusing to have to go into multiple discussion boards.
What worked well
The participants were all extremely busy. Running the events just for the morning worked well. Sending the participants calendar invitations for the mornings helped to give the event structure and to make sure they had time to focus.
Online jams as part of a 70:20:10 learning model
For me, jams are a perfect example of an event that drives a 70:20:10 learning model. They focus on generating new ideas and new thinking while working with others. I personally think they need a theme or they need to be organised around a series of problems instead of just being an open brainstorming session. In some ways they are a bit like hack events, which are about generating and prototyping ideas. Jams are just about the ideas, and are easier to conduct with remote distributed teams.
