Co-Design Summer 2020 with Your Kids: 1 Hour Session Outline
So … summer is here. Now what? This weekend I took my household through a quick co-design session to figure it out. The reviews (from teenagers!) came in strong so I wanted to share how we did it.
Time: 60 minutes (w ~30 min prep/brainstorming over prior week)
Participants: 3 teenagers; 2 adults (easily modified for younger kids)
Materials: post-its, sharpies, white board, dry erase markers, butcher paper (aka the usual design detritus you probably have around the house)
Design Challenge: How might we … design a summer that is still fun within all the new social distancing and restrictions?
PREP: Pre-work (30-45 min)
Goal: start with what already feels possible; solicit ideas from the customers (aka “your kids”) prior to the session
Facilitator notes: prime the pump and use stealth change management techniques (e.g.“casually” brainstorm with the kids over the prior weeks and collect notes in phones and on post-its); my kids did not know the design session was coming :-)
STEP ONE: Set the stage & ideate (5 min)
Goal: make the ideas visible; create shared understanding; understand constraints; one idea per post-it
Facilitator notes: place all the post-its so they are visible (I used our home office white board but you could just stick them on the wall); create clarity via gallery walk and discussion; add new ideas as inspired; have a fun snack (peanut M&Ms and mandarin oranges worked for us)
STEP TWO: Categorize, synthesize (10-15 min)
Goal: focus ideas into logical categories so people can vote in next step
Facilitator notes: if needed, move from white board to big butcher paper on table to create a workspace where everyone can see and reach; cluster and group ideas if helpful (e.g. we grouped into things like “day trips” or “things I can do socially distanced with friends” and clustered several into “big road trip”); use sharpie to make groups and clusters; make clear that the goal is to create clarity for voting
STEP THREE: Vote! (5-10 min)
Goal: surface the ideas that have the most value to the group (basically the “big rocks” of the summer)
Facilitator notes: give each person a way to vote (e.g. I gave each 7 “check marks” and a different colored pen but you can easily use dots or other methods); votes can be clustered on a few ideas or spread out across multiple
STEP FOUR: Observe & discuss (5-10 min)
Goal: gain group agreement that the most important items have been successfully prioritized; flesh out any assumptions (e.g. cost or logistics)
Facilitator notes: ask “what do you notice?” and “which ideas have the most votes?”; write the number of votes on the post-it of any idea that had 2+ votes; ask for any clarification if needed on ideas that have been prioritized
STEP FIVE: Map on 2x2 grid of desirability and feasibility (10 - 15 min)
Goal: prioritize ideas for next step of getting on the summer calendar
Facilitator notes: we moved back to the white board for this and it was really effective and fun to have the kids place the post-its (they were arguing about the right type of graph and whether they would be able to create a trend line!); we had to adjust our scale half-way through because we realized that all ideas were valuable (white board was really helpful here); kids were making trade offs and surfacing next steps as they placed the post-its; we chose to keep a “slush fund” of the ideas that only had one vote in case they inspired later or we had time
STEP SIX: Get things on the calendar (5 min)
Goal: move straight to action from the hypothetical and choose a date(s) for anything that can happen this week or next (picnic in the park! day trip to Point Reyes!) and potential dates for others (big road trip 3rd week July!)
Facilitator notes: this was a fun process of choosing other people we could include and allowed us to invite people with whom we socially distance (drive-in movies!)
STEP SEVEN: Move forward (15 seconds)
Thank all ideas for their service to the process then recycle the butcher paper and any unselected ideas
Get over the fact that no one else wanted to put on a family variety show (come on! How fun would that be???)
That is how our summer design happened. My biggest sign of success? For the past 13 weeks of shelter-in-place, managing “screen time” has been a battle in my household. But once we had so many fun things identified and on the calendar, no one batted an eye when my husband and I announced that there would be no video games or You Tube 3 days a week. Biggest professional success of my career.
