PRE-GAME PART TWO: EXPECTATIONS
“Our thoughts about an event can have a dramatic effect on how we go through the event itself.” –Martha Beck, life coach
Any time a group of people are about to embark on a new goal, there are expectations. As much as motivational quotes talk about having no expectations, they still exist in one form or another. A major part of the initial event planning is expectation management. Stakeholders have in mind what they think AF CyberWorx can do and will do. At the same time, the facilitation team has specific things they hope the stakeholders and participants will do. Sometimes the mystery continues on until the event itself. We hope this blog will work towards solving that mystery by setting realistic expectations.
When stakeholders request an event, they know the status quo is not working. They and the users they represent all have ideas of what might “fix” everything. Dr. Dan Padgett, a user experience designer on staff with AF CyberWorx, explains that the facilitation team does not “validate solutions they’ve already thought of.” Instead, they help with a process of thinking differently that gets the team to an answer. The key word being process. A problem solving event does not start with the solution. That being said, some participants and stakeholders come with the expectation that the AF CyberWorx team is going to either provide the answer to their problem or enable the idea they already have.
Vel Preston, Head of Innovation Design, explains it this way: “You scope a problem one way, and a lot of people come to the sprint who haven’t had the same background with new ideas. The group decides, ‘Well, we hadn’t considered that. Maybe we should scope this differently than we thought.’” The process AF CyberWorx guides event participants through leads experts and industry partners to refine the problem and find an impactful solution.
What the team thinks they’re going to fix at first may not be what needs to be focused on. Larry Marine, Lead UX Designer, explains why it’s necessary to lead participants away from their initial expectations as soon as possible: “Folks come in with a strong tendency towards the symptoms without fully understanding the problem.”
That being said, the facilitating team members are also not subject matter experts themselves. As Dr. Padgett says, “sometimes it takes participants a bit to realize that we’re there to facilitate the sprint, and that we’re not SMEs ourselves.” As designers, their specialty is facilitation and guiding teams to consider the user experience in their own designs. They are not experts in every field, nor are they experts on exactly what the stakeholders need to fix their problem. That’s why a group of experts from the field are brought together to solve the problem.
What AF CyberWorx cannot do for stakeholders is solve their problem. They will not immediately verify initial solutions before the process is followed, because they don’t know the current system well enough to say “yea” or “nay.” What we can do is assist a special focus team towards finding a desirable and feasible solution. We can provide facilities with a workspace, tools, and facilitators to make problem solving easier. We also provide networking with industry partners to broaden the knowledge and capabilities of the DoD talent pool. We facilitate improvement and growth, but the subject matter experts in the field are the real heroes that do the work.
Of course, expectations go both ways. Jayleen Guttromson-Johnson, Program Manager, lays out the AF CyberWorx expectations succinctly: “We expect full-time commitment while [participants are] in the design sprint. No email, phone calls, or disappearances. Also, be open to living with the uncomfortable. Our process isn’t like what most people are used to, so just trust the process.”
Stakeholders request AF CyberWorx facilitation and capabilities. We’re here for the team’s success. Let us help turn problems into solutions that go beyond simple expectations.