rays of light experiment reflections(draft)

21 Mar 2018

One of my favorite things about experimentation is totally unexpected learning.

It’s been a few weeks since we ran our two Rays of Light experiments and they went better than expected.

Over the course of the first week, we had seven different people participate. People dropped in and out fluidly and it felt great. Each call had 3-5 people and, thankfully, the structure of Rays is lightweight and simple enough that it could be quickly explained at the beginning of each call if a call included a newcomer.

We used Zoom’s incredible breakout feature when there were four or more people [IS THIS TRUE?!] and it was a lovely experience overall. The calls during week 1 were scheduled at a time to get the day started, 830-9.

One takeaway from that week’s experiment was that when the call crew is fluid and changing, one value gained is connecting to new people. In breakout groups, people got a little taste of a new person and their work. In that way, the calls the first week supported breadth of network growth [<–this sentence needs a rework, but I feel like there’s a connection to IISC Networks within reach here].

The second week was different and excellent in its own ways.

The call crew consisted of the same four people almost every day. On some days, one person might not make it; on another day, maybe someone else wouldn’t. But generally speaking, it was the same four folks the whole week. We didn’t use the breakout rooms at all and all four of us knew each other from former engagements in Boston.

Those calls were end of the day calls. They ended up feeling like a ritual to close out each day and beginning planning for the next day (a commonly suggested practice in productivity literature). And because we were the same people each time, we got to watch each other’s weeks evolve. We saw tasks and blocks turn into accomplishments.

In contrast to the first week, the calls this second week had a lovely, deepening effect. We got to know each other better and understand more and more about each of our colleagues and collaborators.

Lessons Learned

• In both weeks of experiments, we learned a lot. Here are a few emerging lessons which we’ll need to explore more deeply to see if they hold true.
• Rays creates different value for different types of attendees. Consistent cohorts of attendees have network connections deepen; fluid cohorts gain breadth.
• Morning calls are good to help prepare for the upcoming day. End of the day calls are good to help close out each day and plan for tomorrow.
• The practice of reaching for a Ray, our version of a gratitude practice, is a powerful practice in that it builds the muscles of hopefulness.

Hypotheses and Upcoming experiments

What would happen if we held a consistent stretch of drop-in calls? In order to do that, growing our list to 30 people seems like a good idea. How might we do that…

words / writing / post-processing
501w / 24min /