Intertwi­ngle

Following the first week's round-table presentation feedback, we approached the project with a narrower lens by looking at communication collaboration and interaction at their core and what they meant in an office workspace.

Ideation process © Sushil Suresh 2023

This led us to exploration of the different ways outside of verbal communication in which we could collaborate and use communicative tools such as through body language. We tested out various methods and games that enhanced collaboration using directive cues through touch to navigate the class. This was insightful because we managed to measure where the importance of such activities could be measured – Could we enhance interaction further through one-to-one interactions? What if multiple people were involved in the interactions?

Body storming using directive cues © Sushil Suresh 2023

Carrying on from last week's fruitful research in understanding the complex problems that come with the London TFL or the NHS, we found the need to scale down on what we wanted to research on. We decided to focus on two main sectors – governmental and commercial. This led us to wanting to explore more about how interactions and collaboration could be made through storytelling. We then planned to conduct directed storytelling activities with various members from the council and in our own circle who were working in different industries to see what these were like.

To gather the full scope of our findings from these interviews we created a table laying out who we interviewed, what were the key insights that came from those interviews and the opportunity further on to test out our prototypes in their workspace. This helps would help us in identifying in a more straightforward way in which any patterns could be found.

Because the brief was linked to office spaces we set up experiments to further test this out by interviewing one other and other people we knew about our or their work experiences and office culture respectively. Here is some of them from:

A friend of Mengdie's

Who worked for an IT company in China that does virtualization for the most part of the year. She mentioned it was a foreign company that offered better employee benefits. Here are their experience:

• Very accommodating to online working due to the job description. The working hours are flexible, as long as therequired work is done.
• Extra holidays for example Family Return Dayfor employees with children
• A lounge and recreation room are available in the company in addition to a weekly yoga class where many people unwind from.
• There was no competition between colleagues and the relationship was relatively friendly.

There is a hard requirement to work with other departments, and they would usually set up a new Slack channel. The issues he pointed out arising in the collaboration regarding communication include:

Sushil Suresh

who has previous work experience in a formal office setting but navigating the dynamics of online collaboration:

• Was difficult to communicate with people in other countries because of different time zones.
• I didn't have enough knowledge about the technology to communicate effectively.
• Dealing with the older demographic in the company was difficult because they didn't understand new ways of working/ technologies.
• Was working from home so I didn't get to see anyone as well as we could have if we were working in person.

We listed potential puestions that would have to ask during our interviews making use of directed storytelling or keeping the conversation open and leading. These were sub-categorised into:

Members of the council:

• What are the current challenges and issues that the council is facing?
• Can you provide examples of any recent incidents or situations that have caused problems for the council?
• How is the council working to address these challenges and what steps are being taken to prevent similar problems in the future?
• Are there any specific departments or areas within the council that are experiencing particular difficulties, and if so, what are these issues?
• How is the council engaging with its employees to identify and address internal issues, and what mechanisms are in place for staff to report concerns or grievances?
• How does the council prioritize and allocate resources to address problems, and what criteria are used to determine which issues are given the most attention?
• What role do residents and local community groups play in identifying and addressing issues within the council, and how can they contribute to the process?
• What measures are in place to ensure transparency and accountability within the council, particularly in relation to addressing internal problems and challenges?

Potential Questions for a workspace/design agency:

• What are the biggest challenges that your agency is facing at the moment?
• How is your agency addressing these challenges and what steps are being taken to overcome them?
• Have there been any recent projects that have encountered problems or obstacles, and if so, how were these addressed?
• How does your agency manage workflow and deadlines, and are there any areas where this process could be improved?
• How is your agency addressing issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, both within the organization and in the design work that is produced?
• How does your agency ensure that it is keeping up with the latest design trends and technologies, and what resources are available to support this effort?
• How does your agency measure success, and are there any areas where performance could be improved?
• What is the agency's approach to collaboration with clients and other stakeholders, and are there any challenges that arise in this process?

Metaphorical questions

• If you had a superpower at work what would it be?
• If you are the super hero how would you describe your teammates and other departments in your workplace?
• Would the different departments are your allies what superpower would you like them to have/ what power do you think they have?

Activities

• Writing a love and break‐up letter for their workplace.
• Drawing a detailed map of the different departments in their workplace.
• Drawing their ideal workplace.

First interview

Alongside individual interviews with friends and relatives, we had our first group interview with a member from the Bexley Council, K.G (initials), a contact provided with kindness, to us by David from DKCM. The interview with K.G was super insightful, the core insight was that relations were restrained because of monetary incentives and/or fear of judgement. Henceforth, connecting and collaborating between people is limited within that particular council.

Having confirmation and specifics as to how these issues arise would then lead us into consideration of ways in which we could redirect our questions and focus, and to broaden the possibilities of where we could intervene as designers.

K.G's love and breakup letter

Bits from the interview transcript

• In comparison to working in a studio, like a design studio, for instance, I would expect in that scenario to be talking more across people.
• Authorities go through restructures quite regularly.
• I think that's another thing about councils is that there's a sort of things have to be approved before you can kind of share them more widely.
• And so you have to get it right. You can't just say something like, oh, we might do something like this.
• We're kind of in competition with each other for money.
• But we're not allowed to have anything that indicates which team is sitting where.
• There's no real indication of like which department you're in.
• Hopefully they'll know and, but generally you won't go and talk to them in person, you'll just email them.
• You might go down with your team to the, to have lunch, but you'll be talking to the same people, I suppose.

Here was the feedback from Week Two's round‐table presentations:

• Our research and analysis had to be pointing dowm to something really specific, with visual insights on why it is highlighted.
• The best kind of research is getting out there and talking to people.
• Get your hands dirty!
• As were still a whole, we could cosider splitting the numerous tasks ahead amongst the different group members.
• Alternatively, we could go explore flipping the experience by asking ourselves how unbearable collaboration or communication could be made and reversing the results to our advantage.

This was our second week and we had no idea it was going to get harder for us to find a real working environment to do workshops, testing or experiment in. So probably, we should have a Plan C by then!

Designing Collaborative Workspaces. Available here.

Why open offices hurt collaboration and What can be done about it. Available here.