Brief activities#
There are some brief activities to help the group work well together:
Icebreakers. These are designed to get people’s heads into the room on gently onto the topic, and to be something very brief where everyone can contribute, as a subtle reminder that even the quiet or those who don’t feel they are “experts” still have an important role to play here. It’s not important to remember what was said.
Tip
If you go first in the icebreaker, you can model good behaviour by giving a brief response. This will make it easier to keep it moving. You can sound encouraging as you move on to the next person, but avoid commenting and discourage responses from others. An icebreaker isn’t a discussion, but a sharing without comment.
Preparing to learn in pairs or as a whole group. These conversations get the group ready to think about new concepts and have the group talk about something they already know about, often to do with their home or past experience. Early sessions do this in pairs because many people find this less daunting than speaking in front of the whole group. In the later sessions, people have usually “warmed up” a bit. As group leaders, you can’t hear what happens in the pairs, and that’s OK. You don’t need to remember what was said.
Tip
If the group has an odd number of people, the leader or the engineer can take a break! Mix up the pairs and groups in case anyone is having a bad experience. Don’t hover. As long as the group understands what they should talk about, they’ll be fine.
Idea storms. These get as many ideas from the group as possible in a short time. The group leader should manage the group to keep the ideas coming, with the engineer writing them down, either on a flipchart or by typing them into a document while projecting them on a screen so everyone can see. We just have one early in the session as a way for the group to start working together and to get a sense of each other’s concerns. It helps the engineer understand the technical level of the group members and the group leader to see what the group dynamics are like. You don’t need to record anything about what happens, although there’s no harm in photographing the flip-chart or saving the document. We would expect anything important to come up again during the sessions.
Tip
Don’t evaluate or discuss any of the suggestions - they should come thick and fast. If one person speaks at length, you’ll need to interrupt to move them on. It can help to make it clear when there’s just a few minutes left and to ask if someone who hasn’t spoken for a while has any ideas. If the engineer can’t figure out what to write on the flipchart, the group leader can help by suggesting the words or asking the group if they can think of three words that sum up the idea.
Making decisions as a group. Towards the end of each session the groupneeds to decide on actions to be taken before the next session. Some of these are needed as preparation, and some of them might be voluntary agreement of extra things they want to do to understand some aspect of the building and how they use it that they think might be problematic. Running these items is much like chairing regular meetings. Some of the same tips apply as for idea storms. If you are struggling to summarise the sense of the group, a good approach is asking if anyone else can.
Wrap up. There is always something brief to bring the session to a tidy ending.
We don’t have more to say about these activities in this guide, but the session schedules give enough information to run them.