Using Crazy 8s for a Co-creation Session

Timing is everything and is it 8s because of the hourglass shape? 🤔

In order to improve adoption of new technology and methodologies, there was a rising need for ownership within the team. Not only would this minimize the resistance to change but more importantly, stimulate innovation and increase the net of trust within team.

Following the need and with the help of insightful experiences from UX Designers such as Boby Haryanto I learned about Crazy 8s.

So, a few definitions before tangle ourselves in jargon spaghetti:

1. Co-creating: a cooperative session between multiple stakeholders with the aim of creating possible solutions.
2. Crazy 8s: A card game where the players aim to get rid of all their cards. The first to achieve this is the winner.
3. Crazy 8s (in design sprints): is an activity where you draw/sketch 8 ideas within 8 minutes. The ideas have no limitation to their scope of imagination (A forest of tree-houses is a valid idea for sustainable housing at this stage).
4. Design sprints: an intensive period designated for a team to ideate possible solutions against a design criteria. A user story can initiate a design sprint and a vote often identifies the best possible solution.
5. User story: a desired experience that would satisfy a user's need. It often states the user(persona), action and desired result (reward). A dab of behavioural psychology is a benefit here.

Turning Design Thinking inwards as a tool to serve my team and enhance our work experience led us to explore possible ways to improve our time-audits. The time audits gave us the opportunity to reflect on our own growth every week during retrospective sessions and identify points of growth and coaching.

With minimal experience and the unknown nature of the project parameters, we ran a co-creation session as a team to design the best solution to capture the time taken on each activity. Both the results and the lessons were gems in themselves:

1. Crazy 8s running for less than a minute per turn spurs tension rather than curiosity.

One of the best outcomes of a co-creation session is increased level of safety within the team. Trust provided room for trial and error. This coupled with curious minds and a team of diverse perspectives stimulates innovation and brilliant hacks.

However, we noted that running the activity for less than one minute increases the cognitive load internally because their measurements are towards a seemingly incomplete figure such as 40 in comparison to 1.

Furthermore, with repeated runs, we noted that in 40 seconds there was minimal output and more time was required to surface ideas. As a result, not yielding a satisfactory idea (visually) with each 40 second run, compounds the dissatisfaction with incomplete work and trickles down to a doubt of competency or understanding. Two areas that can disillusion the team negatively and generate a healthy serving of fear.

2. A little music helps, with increasing tempo

Begin slowly (jazz or a piece by Chopin - avoid the Nocturnes) and  increase the tempo as you approach the 8th cycle (Some bright and groovy melodies would do - avoid setting up a club though, other teams may get jealous)

3. Cues unblock mental blocks caused by lack of a safety net

Running a co-creation session where design thinking is not adopted can prove the challenge. There is a notable resistance owing to the lack of exposure and safety within the team. To counter this, begin by assisting the team using cues that are open-ended such as "How do you track your time?" or "How would you want to keep track of your subscriptions across the internet?".

When they begin to hit cognitive snags and run out of ideas, toss in a wild card such as "If you were had a contact lens that was a computer, how would you check your messages?" or "If everyone had tech-robots, how would you want to respond to your missed calls?"

4. Join in and share your idea last

(You are a youser, and you believe your idea is "better" than everyone's)

We all have bias, but as a designer, your have biases and ideas. The two can become a cocktail of preferred perspectives. Unfortunately this short-circuits your capacity to empathise with the user and solve problems that are relevant to you.

In order to avoid this pitfall while still creating a safe space for the team to propose innovative ideas, join in the iterations but offer your playback after everyone has shared. This presents the opportunity to celebrate the team's contributions first and provide them with the appropriate affirmation. Be sure to use the sandwich method (Commendation, Improvement, Commendation) to give constructive feedback.

During your playback, encourage honest feedback from your team to affirm the value of constructive feedback.

5. If your team doesn't feel safe in the office, take it to a restaurant

Some work environments may be stifled or hostile but this presents a good opportunity for team development. Perform co-creative sessions outside the office in a restaurant or a park. Furthermore, the loose environment allows for creative ways to make the activity engaging and entertaining such as "The person offering the most feedback is relieved of their bill" or "Wildcard with the least number of votes joins the team leader for the karaoke". This especially bolsters the value of new methodologies such as "Agile development, Design Thinking, Human-centered design" in an environment that is yet to adopt them.

6. When faced with attitude, turn your gratitude-meter up

"I don't have any ideas" or "This doesn't make sense" often stem from a point of lack of understanding. However, some days you will face the same expressions due to hostility or complacency. At this point, instead of narrowing your scope to the individual, broaden it to the team and appreciate the efforts made by their fellow team mates. In the event the grumbling team mate contributes a thought or idea, celebrate it by inquiring further to relate with their thought process and appreciate their effort to dig deeper. At this point the 5-whys is an effective means to serve the grumbling team mate. Afterwards, coach the team mate at an individual level to identify and resolve the source of their dissatisfaction.

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