User experience > Case study

How to make toast

Summary

A group activity conducted as part of the ‘planning’ workshop. The activity introduced breaking down a seemingly simple task ‘how you make toast’ into its components. The outcome is a clearer understanding of the planning process and a better understanding of my teammates.

Goal

The main goals were:

  1. Get to know each other as team members
  2. Scope what is realistic to build for an MVP
  3. Define a 'planning' problem statement and set the business context for the product

Planning process

Introduction and context

We started with this activity Tuesday morning after setting the context for the workshop in Ypres. It involves breaking down the process of ‘how you make toast’ into its individual components and examining how they interact with each other. We completed this activity individually by drawing on paper ‘how you make toast’. Then participants presented their drawings to the group. This exercise serves as a ‘warm-up’ for understanding the complexities of the planning process in the transport industry.

The next step was to consider how to plan an order using the same process. So, what are the individual components needed to plan an order? While also considering the implications of each step, and to approach the ‘planning’ problem from a holistic perspective.

Individually drawings on how to make toast. Participants presented their drawings to the group

Participants interpreted how to make toast and sketched their ideas

How to make toast

Workshop setup

For the first part of the activity participants had about 15 minutes to think about ‘how you make toast’ and draw this on paper. On the surface it seems simple but everyone interperpates the activity differently. ‘How you make toast’ means something different in Belgium, Switzerland and Turkey. Each illustration has a different starting point.

We engaged in a group discussion to analyze the shared illustrations, identifying common steps and discrepancies in the ‘how you make toast’ process. Emphasis was placed on recognizing nodes and the flow between steps.

At the end of the discussion this TED video was played (the video is an overview of the process created by Tom Wujec and helps teams to solve big problems). It summarised what we had just done and why. That systems are complex and each individual ‘sees’ it differently. Took a break for lunch and continued with the second part of the activity how to plan an order.

Plan an order

Following lunch we broke the group into pairs to plan an order (the group was quite large, pairing people up made it a little easier to manage). Using ‘post-its’ to represent nodes in the planning process each pair thought through the process step by step. This took about 30 minutes at the end each team had a pile of ‘post-its’ used to visualise an order moving through the planning process.

Group combining their post-its on the whiteboard

The groups place their notes on the white board and together moved the nodes around to better understand the planning process. Combining all post-it notes on the whiteboard is a collaborative step and it facilitates a collective understanding of the planning process.

Participants combined all of their post-its on the whiteboard. Afterwards, through collaboration and discussion, the step-by-step process of planning emerged

Gather participant feedback

Once the workshop was over I survied the participants the next day to measure their overall satisfaction with the workshop experience; was it a good use of their time? Also, to Identify specific areas where the workshop could be improved in terms of content, delivery, format so I can tailor future workshops to better meet the needs of team members.

Participants feedback on the workshop, the results were used to measure if the workshop acheived it's goals

Outcomes and results

Overall the workshop was successfull; The survey results have provided insights into the usefulness of the workshop in Ypres among team members.

  1. Get to know each other as team members: The qualitative feedback suggests that this workshop goal was accomplished, this was the first face to face meeting of many of the team members and it was valuable for building team spirit.
  2. Outline of the MVP: Not all the assumptions and dependencies were clearly outlined

    Recommendation: A framework or exercise dedicated to outlining the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) during the workshop, may have been helpful.

  3. Common understanding of the business and problem: Feedback from participants expressed the problem was not fully explained and that the business context was missing

    Recommendation: Sharing a summary of the context and problem statement before the workshop may have made this easier to understand. More discussions during the workshop to ensure clarity and address any assumptions about the problem statement.

  4. Workshop was not seen as a valuable use of time: Some potential reasons for this could be the large group size, the duration being too long or the goals not being clearly stated at the beginning.

    Recommendation: Reduce group size or divide participants into smaller groups to facilitate more focused discussions and active participation. Shorter sessions to maintain engagement and stop participants from getting tired/bored. Ensure that the objectives and expected outcomes of the workshop are communicated clearly at the start and refer back to them during the workshop.