A constructive question

Yesterday I attended a session put on the People and Organizational Change group here at Spotify, and I liked the question we used to start off the workshop.

This task/workshop/activity/tool/doc would have a positive impact on the experience of joining Spotify.

I like the question because instead of just griping and complaining, it forces the attendees to switch from problem mode to solution mode.

Great question. Going to use this sometime in the future.

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I like, I wish, I wonder

This morning while listening to the Stanford ECorner Podcast, I heard of an alternative form of retrospective taught at Stanford’s Institute of Design.

Instead of getting together at the end of a sprint and asking:

• what are we doing well
• what could we be doing better

The gets together at the end of the day, sits in a circle, and everyone gets a chance to say anything on their mind. The only requirement is the sentence must start with:

• I like …
• I wish …
• I wonder …

This seems like a nice, open, gently way to let people vent, congratulate, speculate, and release whatever is on their mind.

Stanford School of Design (dschool) positions this as more of a feedback tool for getting feedback on designs, but I think it’s super useful and could be applied in just about any context.

Check out this one pager to learn more about how it’s used in design.