The New Ways of Working Canvas
Back in 2021 I created with the world The New Ways of Working Canvas 🧭
It was designed to help you to get clear about some of the themes that are important for new ways of working. Think purpose, roles and responsibilities, how you meet, how you make decisions, how you feedback to one another, and how information flows. Also to help you to reflect on relationships, how you communicate, and the tech you use.
My newsletter list was a lot smaller at the time, as was my LinkedIn following, and I don’t remember too much fuss or feedback surrounding its launch. As such I kinda forgot about it until recently, when, out of the blue I received the following from Jen Holmes at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art who has been successfully using it with her team 😍
I thought you might appreciate hearing about how I've been using some of your work in mine. I've used your canvas in two ways recently that have been great.
First, I use it at my team's quarterly retrospectives/team check-ins to take temps on how we're doing in each domain. We then vote on which to focus on for the rest of the session and I run a workshop with everyone that results in a three-month action plan that addresses a group need.
Second, I used the canvas as a framework for making agreements/chartering a new project team. We went through each domain and discussed our assumptions/expectations then wrote down some agreements/norms.
Outcomes from this very helpful 1-hour session included agreements about how we'll communicate and share information, the creation and norms around using a shared digital workspace and tech platforms, setting a meeting cadence and booking recurring meetings, and the decision to meet regularly for lunch.
This is the first time I've introduced the idea of making explicitly agreements, and the other team members expressed appreciation and said it was a good use of time.
This reminded me that it really is a useful exercise to try with your team! 🤩
So why not give the canvas a go? To do this, make a copy of the board (click on the title in the top left and then ‘Duplicate’), have a good think about each of the themes, gather your team, agree on which theme/s feel most important right now, start a conversation, and work towards getting clear. There’s more guidance on how to run a session over on the canvas.
I hope you find it as helpful as Jen's team did, and I would love to hear about your experience!
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