Project co-creator + facilitation lead

Team Engagement Analysis

Measuring engagement is quite subjective and abstract.
Check out how we managed to turn employees' personal motivations into a collective direction.
What's the challenge?
CONTEXT
Keeping a team engaged is not an easy task. People need to feel fulfilled with what they are doing. Many companies stimulate their people to grow, but how well are they aiming to where their heart is really at ?

As a member of the studio’s engagement team, I wanted to understand the team’s interests: not their needs or their shoulds, but their wants.

We chose a design thinking method called “What’s On Your Radar?” by LUMA. It’s a participatory research activity where people can organize items in a radar-like template. The idea is that the more personally relevant the items are, the closer people place them to the center of the radar.
▸ OUR CHALLENGE
How might we dive into the goals and aspirations of the team, so we can use that information for everyone’s benefit?
▸ WHO'S WE?
I co-led the team for this project, along with another teammate and two more designers that supported the execution. I contributed my workshop facilitation expertise to plan the logistics, asset building and mentoring for my other teammates to facilitate too.
▸ PROJECT DURATION
May 2020 - July 2020 (3 months)
The process

Designing the session


Our design team consisted in 60 people, with a varying set of roles. We split the team into smaller groups to run the activity using remote sessions. I was in charge of the logistics of the series of workshops, including communications, asset preparation and planning the cadence.

We used a single Mural board per group, where each participant had a template to fill. At the end of the session, we left a few minutes for people to share their items with the rest of the group to compare and contrast their interests with one another.
Workshop cadence - We replicated the session 11 times, following a script and cadence for the three of us to take turns. After every session, we integrated feedback from ourselves and the participants into the next session.

Hundreds of stickies

We have all the information we wanted. Now what?

This was an activity that generated both individual and collective value, so we needed to look out for both.
Here’s where the challenge leveled up for us. We had 60 radars, each with around 40 stickies with four variables of information to preserve: role, seniority level and relative importance.
Color/shape treatment -  I took advantage of Mural’s customization features, using different shapes and outlines to keep track of the role, and color-coding to track the radar’s ring placeement.
Extracting the data - Hours and hours were spent in clustering, classifying and recording scores for each of them in excel sheets, that would later inform our report,
Outcomes + results

From qual to quant

Remember that each color of sticky had a point-based value? This took our depth of insight to another level, where we were able to quantify the interest level and the popularity of the topics.

Having numbers to tell apart the amount of people that spoke about it, the average importance per person that they assigned, and the points that different roles and patterns generated, we were able to state insights about the team’s status with confidence.
Insight formulation Each of the four topics had a three-level radar of it’s own, showing the top topics and their score for importance.
Insight formulation I classified the skill-related data by the tools they mentioned, crossed that with their level and role and documented these insights in an easy to process format.
Our area makes an effort to bridge the gap between the different experience design roles. However, while there are skills that are neutral in interest for either role, there are others that are still specific to their UX or UI background.

Let's not forget that this tool is individual, so we gave each participant the radar each of them built, so they can check back on it whenever they need to reassess their career.
1.5 Role-based findings - I made a color scale that shows how much more relevant are some topics for UX designers than for UI designers and vice-versa for the area leaders to consider into their blur-the-line strategy.
1.6 Individual Radar - One of the most important aspects of this activity was that our teammates were able to reflect and follow up on that. We created an asset of the activity for each to discuss with their career counselors.
This project’s outcomes were used to inform decisions in the career development and staffing areas, as we expected.
THE IMPACT
> We presented the results to the leadership team and the whole design team. They recognized the value of the work and proposed ideas on how to use that information to boost their own efforts.

> We developed assets for more people to replicate the format, including a script, agenda, templates, and specifications. Word spread and other areas within the company we interested in executing the exercise themselves.

> This activity is meant to be replicated year by year to be able to track the individual and collective evolution of the design area´s interest
Takeaways
▸ THINGS WE DID RIGHT
> Reassessing our process right after each session proved effective for proper feedback integration

> Switching roles within the team so we all had a shot at facilitation each of the parts

> Collecting and taking feedback in consideration

> Documenting our process for further replication

> Recognizing our strengths and delegating accordingly
▸ THINGS WE CAN IMPROVE
> Coming up with a more effective communication strategy to recruit participants for only a few sessions with high attendance.

> Standardizing our phrasing in a script for some parts where participation interpretation is more critical to the outcomes.

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