Organizational Parkour, the Negotiation Game - Seattle Infocamp 2013 - Joan Vermette

1. Organizational Parkour
The Negotiation Game
Joan Vermette
Content Strategy Director
Mad*Pow

2. Welcome to
Infocamp

3. Welcome to
Infocamp

4. Welcome to
Meaningcamp

5. Welcome to
Meaningcamp

6. Welcome to
PEOPLEcamp

7. All of us do
our work in
ORGANIZATIONS

8. ORGANIZATIONS
can throw up
barriers

9. Size
Size of mission
Amount of risk
Accountability

10. ORGANIZATIONS
CULTURE

11. Hierarchy
Autonomy
Collaboration
Work/life balance

12. ORGANIZATIONS
CULTURE
PERSONALITIES

13. Skill bases
work attitudes
optimism/pessimism
competitiveness
preparedness

14. ORGANIZATIONS
CULTURE
PERSONALITIES
KNOWLEDGE

15. Info consumers
Info creators
Non-experts

17. What is
parkour?

18. Georges
Hébert
“Être fort pour
être utile.”

19. What
parkour
looks like

20. “Parkour is the attainment of

21. “Parkour is the attainment of

23. “Parkour is the attainment of
human freedom through the built
environment”

24. “Built environment” = Organizations

25. But it’s all okay…

26. Because the difference between
this…

27. And this…

28. I wouldn’t worry about it none. It was
my own dream and they’re only in your
head…
Attitude

29. Practice
You practice so you can invent.
Discipline? No…
The joy of practicing
leads you to the celebration
of the creation

30. Parkour artists learn three ways
Strength training
Fundamentals
Obstacle courses

31. Parkour artists learn three ways
Strength training
Fundamentals
Obstacle courses
And so can we

32. Strength Training for us
Observation

33. Strength Training for us
Observation = mindfulness

34. Strength Training for us
Empathy

35. Strength Training for us
Empathy = poly-empathic

36. St Sebastian, the patron
saint of design thinking

38. St Sebastian, the patron
saint of design thinking

39. St Sebastian, the patron
saint of cognitive
flexibility

40. Cognitive flexibility:
The mental ability to think about
multiple concepts simultaneously.

41. Cognitive flexibility: the Stroop Test
RED
GREEN
BLUE

42. Fundamentals
Standard vaults, leaps, rolls…

43. Fundamentals for us
NEGOTIATION

45. Principled Negotiation

46. Principled Negotiation
§ Separate the people from the problem

47. Principled Negotiation
§ Separate the people from the problem
§ Focus on interests, not positions

48. Principled Negotiation
§ Separate the people from the problem
§ Focus on interests, not positions
§ Invent multiple options looking for mutual gains before
deciding what to do

49. Principled Negotiation
§ Separate the people from the problem
§ Focus on interests, not positions
§ Invent multiple options looking for mutual gains before
deciding what to do
§ Insist that the result be based on some objective standard

50. Obstacle Courses

51. A parkour park

52. Obstacle Courses for Us

53. Role Playing Game
1A
Client Role
1B
UX Role

54. Story Game
The story of
a project

55. Project brief

56. Project brief
§ Modifying content and adding a new mini-application to an
existing web property for a large company

57. Client Statement

58. Agency Statement

59. Statement of Work
§ Upfront research, including
§ reviewing internal documents
§ stakeholder interviews
§ user interviews.
§ Design Studio workshop
§ Wireframe initial key screens
§ Detailed wireframes of all the flows

60. The Cards
§ The script of the story is on a deck of
cards. Each card is a part of the
story in the process of creating a
deliverable.

61. Anatomy of a game card

62. The object: create
deliverables
§ The object of the game is create
deliverables by playing cards in
order.
§ Some of the cards the team needs
are in the clients’ hands, some are in
the UX team’s hands.

63. Timing and Game Play
§ The game is in three phases:
§ Discovery: Deliverables 1 – 4
§ Research and Design Studio Workshop: Deliverables 5 - 8
§ Design: Deliverables 9 - 10
§ Each phase takes 20 minutes, depending on the size of the
teams.

64. Want to
PLAY?

65. In summary
§ Conflict and communications issues are not the things
*interfering* with our jobs – understanding them IS our
job
§ We can practice getting better at dealing with them,
three ways:
§ Strengthen our core cognitive skills
§ Learn the fundamentals of negotiation
§ Recognize what issues continually arise in your work, and
prepare for them.

66. Questions?