Trust means making an exchange with someone when you do not have full knowledge about them, their intent or the things they are offering you.

In our November UX Book Club meeting, we had a full agenda in which the first part was an improvisation workshop, and the second part was the discussion of the book Tagging.

Today, I’m going to talk about the improvisation workshop that was run by Owen Brierley, executive director of Guru Digital Arts College. The concept of the workshop was to help businesses work together, and to come up with great ideas by building trust among them.

In everyday life we trust many people around us. There are the ones we work with, the ones we interact with on a daily basis in a coffee shop or a bus station, and then the ones we spend our lives with (our family and friends).

In the UX world, we engage our clients using many different methodologies to gain their trust and help them make the right decisions. Many of us work in teams: existing teams or new teams. The trust concept says that in a team environment you need to pick up on one person’s work or idea and add to it, make it yours, and deliver it to the next person with the hope that they will make the right decision.

In our November UX Book Club meeting, Owen described this concept in a three-step improvisation workshop. The workshop outlined three steps in developing trust and building teamwork, as you can’t come up with a great idea if you don’t trust your fellow team members.

The first step of the workshop consisted of standing in a circle and just saying one word that would add meaning to a word that had already been said by a person standing next to you. I have seen this type of exercise at the 2008 CanUX, where we used music (by playing drums) instead of words. You can read more about it in a CanUX wrap-up post by Gene Smith. During the drumming exercise, at one stage we were adding a beat to another one created by the person next to us, and thus making music in the group.

The second and third parts of the improvisation workshop facilitated by Owen required more acting skills. Groups of two people were created. One person named an activity (e.g. juggling) and the other person had to perform it.

My favourite part of the workshop was the last section, in which Owen created groups of three individuals. A scene was selected randomly. Then, two people acted out the scene while the third person interpreted their actions and created the story. Our own Gene Smith was the interpreter in one of the groups; you can see that in the video below.

In short, whether you use words, music or just acting, each are different methods of building trust by understanding the other team members in a group. Understanding the individuals is the first step to building trust. Once trust is built, ideas are generated and that’s when teamwork happens!

Posted in Opinions on January 17, 2010

blog comments powered by Disqus