Feb 21, 2020

The Dialogic Learning Weekly #160

By Tom Barrett • Issue #160 • View online

One more issue and we will be in March. Try not to panic. 2020 seems to be gathering momentum. I hope you are well and that you are ready for another edition of the newsletter.

New Blog Post: Design Thinking

It is exciting to see more and more people engaging with the design thinking process and learning about the creative problem solving process. After my work with Google this week I decided to explore some of the conditions that make it successful.

I wrote about seven different elements that impact on the success of your design thinking process. These are more inline with the conditions of innovation framework I have shared with you before. Not activities and tasks but broader considerations that silently influence (or are influenced) by your efforts in design thinking.

Here is a snippet of the new post on my blog.

Collaboration

Forming a team to work with is a basic tenet of quality design thinking. Every phase of DT benefits from sharing and critique from others. In fact when we say “How Might We” we are signalling our intent to share and create a solution with others.

Concept

Our willingness to explore ideas that are barely formed is a critical disposition. In fact, we might say this is a prototyping disposition. Ideas and solutions from DT are often first explored in conceptual ways. We need to know when to bridge from this to enacted or built forms.

Set Your Design Thinking Process up for Success

What does it take to get the most from a design thinking process?

edte.ch • Share

Google: Forward

A highlight of the week was to work alongside some local legends in Melbourne to facilitate the Google for Education, Forward event.

This one day event uses design thinking to explore some big challenges for education within the technology rich climate of Google technology.

We used Chromebooks, G Suite tools and Google Classroom to access a range of ready made resources on design thinking. I co-facilitated the whole day with Kimberley Hall (Google) Chris Harte (Unstuck Learning) and Jim Sill (Deploy Learning).

I really enjoyed working with 50 teachers from across Melbourne and helping them better understand the process of design thinking and the application in the school context.

Google for Education, Forward events are an opportunity for Educators, IT leaders, Googlers and Design Thinkers to tackle some of the big educational challenges we face. This is a chance to bring your creativity, collaboration skills and critical thinking to an authentic challenge.

Drop me a note if you are interested in learning more about these events.

tom@dialogiclearning.com

Chris Harte Unstuck

@charte

What @tombarrett does not know about design thinking in education is not worth knowing! Wonderful to facilitate alongside him @kehall16 and @DeployLearning @mistersill at #forwardAU #GoogleEdu https://t.co/A0ushtfCTD

4:51 PM - 18 Feb 2020

(I look a bit too serious in this pic. Maybe I was pleading with the crowd. I like the quote on the sign behind me though.)

Trust ≠ Psychological Safety

We have spoken in previous newsletters about the importance of security in our teams and when we are working with others. The article below from Corporate Rebels revisits the work of Amy Edmondson on the topic.

I appreciated the passage below which teases apart the difference between Trust and Psychological Safety

Psychological safety is experienced at a group level. People working together tend to have similar perceptions of whether or not the climate is psychologically safe. Trust, on the other hand, refers to interactions between two individuals or parties; trust exists in the mind of an individual and pertains to a specific target individual or organization. For instance, you might trust one colleague but not another.

You will also have heard about the wide scale research Google have done around team effectiveness. Psychological Safety was clearly the most important.

We learned that there are five key dynamics that set successful teams apart from other teams at Google:

Psychological safety: Can we take risks on this team without feeling insecure or embarrassed?
Dependability: Can we count on each other to do high quality work on time?
Structure & clarity: Are goals, roles, and execution plans on our team clear?
Meaning of work: Are we working on something that is personally important for each of us?
Impact of work: Do we fundamentally believe that the work we’re doing matters?

(As a bonus link, look at what happens when we share ideas in a psychologically unsafe environment.)

Psychological Safety: How Pioneers Create Engaged Workforces

Imagine working in a team where it’s safe to take risks—in a team where mistakes are not held against you.

corporate-rebels.com • Share

–

The weekend is upon us. I hope you enjoyed the newsletter today. Please drop me a note to share what resonated with you and any feedback you have. I always enjoy hearing from you.

See you next week for another edition!

~ Tom

Dialogic Learning

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By Tom Barrett

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