Hero’s Journey
Kaizen ‘change for the better’ is a philosophy fueling every excellent environment. More specifically, a mission of every team retrospective, reflect on a time that was, identify opportunities for optimisation, and act. Sounds easy enough, and it’s common practice in most agile environments. But have you ever found yourself in a completely new team or wider guild, not yet having an opportunity to build rapport and trust, not knowing how or where to start together? Well, this workshop is for you.
But what is a hero’s journey?
The hero's journey is a familiar narrative archetype, or story template, that involves a hero who goes on an adventure, learns a lesson, wins a victory with that newfound knowledge, and returns home transformed. And it can act as an excellent agenda for team retros.
For example, some of my favourite examples:
Think Batman, with to help of Alfred, defeats the Joker for a safer Gotham.
Or Luke, with the help of Obi-wan, defeats the Emperor to bring balance to the force.
Or Frodo, with the help of Gandalf, defeats Sauran for a safe Shire.
Now consider your circumstances:
How does your team self-identify?
Who does your team need to work with to provide value?
What challenges and obstacles do we need to overcome?
And why do we do it? What are we working for? How can we be rewarded?
Below find an agenda for such a workshop, with a few added extra's to really take it to the next level.
Workshop Agenda
Total Time:
90min (with an optional 45min extension for prioritisation)
Attendees:
This workshop works well in small (5 - 7 attendees) or large groups (40 - 100). For the timings below, assume this is for a group of 40 breaking into teams of 8.
05min
Introduction setting the scene
Provide context to the workshop.
For example:
We’re here to listen and make us all feel heard, Finding actionable opportunities to optimise our ways of working to amplify the value and impact we can provide.
05min
Walk-thru an example
Sometimes it helps to walk thru some examples.
For example:
As an experience design, with to help of engineers and testers, we solve wicked problems to benefit our customers and benefit the business.
(To be honest, that example is painfully generic. Ensure you reiterate that we are looking for a deeper understanding, try using the 5 Why’s at each quadrant)
07min
Dry-run
It always helps break the ice and give people an opportunity to warm up to the time ahead. Consider giving each individual an opportunity for a rapid hero’s journey about themselves as an individual.
Sometimes, I’ve suggested that the attendees rapidly create their own fictional story, which acts as an excellent ice breaker.
03min
Dry-run Playback
60min
Break into Team
Time to really get to work.
Ask your attendees to self-organise into even groups. Ideally, no larger than 7-8 people. You can find some suggestions on how to break workshops into teams here.
Hero
10min - Who do you identify as a team?
Guide
20min - Who are your immediate colleagues and adjacent parties?
Monster
20min - What challenges and obstacles do we need to overcome?
Treasure
20min - And why do we do it? What are we working for?
10min - Refine the lists and affinity map each quadrant
Congratulations! You now have an end-to-end story of your team. A story that provides identity, direction, opportunity, and, more importantly, alignment between all of you across a common narrative.
20min Playback
Ask each breakout team to select a storyteller and present back their hero’s journey to the broader audience. Now I could say this is an excellent use of time, and your team will coordinate around some of the obstacles to be resolved. But I like to take this journey to the next level, applying some prioritisation and ownership to ensure action.
10min Coffee
If you're intending for the optional extra, it's time to have a small coffee break.
Optional Extension Prioritisation
30min
Affinity Mapping & How Might We’s
Amongst you’re breakout teams, you are likely to have common themes amongst the groups. Start affinity mapping, identifying commonly shared domains or bespoke across the suite of hero’s journeys.
Once the team is comfortable with identified groups, consider why the domain you have created exists and summarise into a How Might We.
How Might We <intended action>
For <user>
So that <desired outcome>
15min
Team Voting
You should now have a list of How Might We statements. A suite of summary statements that frame a problem space with an intent to solve it. Now it’s time to prioritise the areas you are going to spend capacity on.
Regardless of your delivery prioritisation model, it will typically boil down to value realisation versus the effort required to do so. So as not to overcomplicate the workshop, I use three measures.
(Important + Unsatisfied) / Low hanging fruit = Relative priority
Important
How important are the related jobs to be done or problem space for getting your job done today?
Unsatisfied
How emotionally unsatisfied are you today with the current situation? Is it an annoyance? Or something that keeps you awake at night?
Low hanging fruit
How quickly can we realise solutions relating to the problem space?
Provide individuals 7-11 votes for each data point. You must have enough measures to build some relative between your HMW’s.
05min
Appoint Owners
Congratulations! Now you have a shared narrative amongst your team. A defined backlog of HMW’s prioritised (you could even turn them into a roadmap!) And now it’s time to appoint a responsible owner to drive action and kaizen!
I hope you enjoy the workshop. I certainly enjoy facilitating it and have found it a great connector or people and activator of better change. If you want to run the workshop yourself, feel free to download these templates. Enjoy!
Hero’s Journey Templates
Download Miro Template: Hero’s Journey Workshop Template
Download Figjam Template: Hero’s Journey Workshop Template
“Home is now behind you. The world is ahead”
