Contents 1 Last version: 19.02.2011 2 Introduction 3 Before the event 3.1 First steps 3.2 Form your organising team 3.3 Find a date & venue 3.4 Start the PR machine 3.5 Define your challenge topic 3.6 Find sponsors 3.7 Mentors 3.8 Put together an initial agenda for the day 3.9 Release tickets to attendees and remind them about the event 3.10 Get the things you need for the day 4 On the day before the event 5 On the day 5.1 Set up 5.2 Check in 5.3 Intro 5.4 Team creation 5.5 Time keeping 5.6 Research & Explore phase 5.7 Interim presentations 5.8 Design phase 5.9 Final presentations 5.10 End 5.11 Wiki 6 After the event 7 Tips for Smaller Groups 8 Guidance & Support

Last version: 19.02.2011

Introduction

This handbook aims to offer advice for Design Jam organisers. It's based on the first Design Jam London, consolidating input from the organisers' team, the attendees, the mentors and the host. It's a living document, and experience gained in future design jams will be added. If you have any comments or questions, contact us at designjam[at]gmail[dot]com.

Before the event

First steps

The main things to consider when you're starting out are:

• team
• topic or focus of the design jam
• venue
• desired date

Give yourself enough time to organise the event. 6-8 weeks are ideal. 4 weeks might suffice, but it will be tight. Be aware of the time and effort you'll have to dedicate.

Form your organising team

We recommend to keep it small and passionate. 4 people was ideal.
Assign responsibility for certain areas and tasks to the team members (e.g. sponsor contact, ticketing, etc). When doing this, team members should consider “What am I expert in”? and “What do I want to learn?”
It helps if a team member has organised an event or un-conference before. If you don't have someone with experience, reach out to the design jam organisers team if you need support.
Agree objectives as well as time and effort everybody will be expected to put in up-front.
Invest in an online collaboration and project management space. We found the task list in Basecamp particularly useful.

Find a date & venue

Firstly, prioritise a good venue over a good date. Give a venue you're approaching potential dates.

• Make sure there's no conflicts with other events.
• You'll need at least a full day, we recommend a Saturday. Finding a venue for a Saturday can be tricky - it has to be open, you might need security staff at the door, power has to stay on, etc.

Venue requirements:

• Plan in double the space you would need for a presentation-based event.
• WiFi. Stable and fast connection for 50 people. Make sure you get setup instructions (for both Mac and PC) and passwords (if necessary).
• Each team will need a desk, chairs, flipcharts or whiteboards, and ideally wall space. Can you move tables, chairs, etc. around? How many whiteboards are there? Can you put things up on the wall and windows? How many power sockets are there?
• Projector. If there's also a visualiser (eg [1]), make sure you have permission to use it, it's a great tool for presenting hand-drawn sketches.
• Printer & Scanner (make sure you have permission to use them... set up drivers before the day of the event)
• Permission to serve hot food and drinks. Clarify if there are any safety restrictions. If there are, ensure alternative ways to provide tea and coffee, check if there's cafes nearby. If you won't provide food, make sure there are supermarkets or take-away options nearby.
• Access to the venue on the evening of the day before the event to set up. On the day, make sure you have the venue until at least 7pm.
• Easy to reach via public transport.

It's never too early to start looking for a venue. Approach potential hosts that are interested in the topic or audience of your Design Jam (universities with relevant courses, companies looking for design talent, etc.) A host who understands the benefit of the event and lends a hand on the day is a huge help.
Make it clear what the host will get out of it. Logo and description on the wiki and on the ticketing website, a shout in all your online PR, a bunch of guaranteed tickets for their employees or students or a mentor spot.
Double-check that security staff is aware of your event. Be nice to them!

Start the PR machine

• add your local page to the Design Jam wiki. NOTE: when you create a page title on the wiki please don't use the '#' symbol, as the wiki thinks it's an anchor within the page (e.g., title the page 'designjamlondon1' and not 'designjamlondon#1')
• consider a collaboration tool for the organising team, eg Basecamp
• set up an email and twitter account
• set up Eventbrite, Amiando or other ticketing service
• add your event to Lanyrd
• set up a Flickr and Vimeo account for photos and videos, set up a Flickr group that attendees can add their photos to
• agree a hashtag

Announce the date as early as possible to get in peoples' diaries. Use the appropriate channels to promote the event (eg. UX/design-related mailing lists, Ning groups, blogs, Twitter, announcements at barcamps other related events, universities, Linkedin, etc.). Reference the Wiki and write-ups of previous events. (Franco is working on a teaser video).

Define your challenge topic

Design Jams have one topic for all, chosen by organisers, revealed only on the day.
Agree the broad topic as a group, then have 2 people who refine the challenge and use the rest of team as a sounding board. The brief should have snappy title, statement, and supporting things to consider. This is the hardest part!
As there isn't that much time for research, pick something people can relate to.
Make sure the challenge is broad enough to allow brainstorming and different ideas, but specific enough to be addressable during one day. Constraints are important - help people to focus, eg with good questions supporting the brief.
You will never please everyone, be confident with what you choose and stick to it.
The topic of the jam shouldn't be commercially motivated, and outcomes should be shared via creative commons by attribution license.
Approach sponsors and mentors that 'fit' with the topic.

Find sponsors

Try to find at least 2 sponsors for, in prioritised order:

• stationery
• drinks, coffee, tea
• breakfast & snacks
• lunch

£500 will get you far.

Have a sponsorship pack, to clarify what they'll get out of it (PR, guaranteed tickets, etc.). We don't recommend to give sponsors control over the topic, or allow them to 'pitch' at the beginning of the event. Johanna will add an example sponsorship pack to the wiki.
Ask your sponsors to shout about the event.
Try and get sponsors to attend.
You can run the event with no budget, but be prepared to spend some of your own money.

Mentors

Organisers can't be mentors and can't be on teams, that's why mentors add benefit.
Find two or three mentors that are relevant to your topic. Good mentors can attract attendees and sponsors! Put together a shortlist of people you'd like to approach as soon as you have agreed a topic or focus.
If possible, meet with your mentors before the event, and get them to meet each other. Run the detailed challenge by them, and brief them thoroughly.
Have mentors split their objectives - eg one mentor is about helping teams focus, one mentor is about bouncing ideas off. Talk to them before the event to figure out how they can contribute best.
While mentors don't have to be there for the whole day, each mentor should see every team and attend the final presentations, so make sure they commit enough time.
Announce your mentors early to attract attendees and include their bios in all PR.
Ask your mentors to shout about the event.

Put together an initial agenda for the day

You can use the London agenda as an example, but make sure it fits for your context and location. Consider:

• When do you need to start?
• How long does it take people to get to the venue?
• Make sure you allow enough time for the valuable interim presentations.
• If you don't provide lunch, give people time to get or order some.
• When do you have to leave the venue, clean and empty?
• Shall we go to the pub afterwards?

Release tickets to attendees and remind them about the event

We recommend to have a minimum of 12, and a maximum of 50 attendees, split in teams of 4-5 people.
When announcing the event, be very clear about its objectives and agenda. See material from the first two London events for examples.
Release tickets in two batches, to give more people a chance to sign up.
Someone in your team needs to be responsible for communication with the attendees. This includes not only ticketing issues, but also sending out regular reminders to ensure people turn up.
Have a communication plan:

• Remind people about the event 9-14 days before, ask if they can still make it.
• 1 week before the event, send out details about time, venue, food & drink, agenda, what to bring, etc. Make sure you give the mentors and sponsors some love.
• 3 days before the event, send out another email similar to the previous ones, but add information on how to get there.
• 1 day before the event, send out a final reminder, with a checklist on how to get there, when to be there, and what to bring.
• Always, on all your communication channels, urge people to let you know if they can't make it.

In all PR and emails, ask people to have a look at the Wiki and write-ups of previous events. Johanna will add the emails sent out for the London design jams as a separate page to the wiki.

Get the things you need for the day

Food and drink:

• Have coffee, tea and water.
• Even if you can't afford other catering, make sure some snacks and breakfast are there. We spent about £50 for fruit, croissants, biscuits and other snacks that lasted throughout the day.
• If you provide lunch, make sure your host is ok with it. Do they have caterers they have to use, or are you free to choose?
• Consider dietary requirements and food allergies.
• If you're not providing lunch, make a list of nearby places and delivery options.
• You can ask people to bring in food to share.

Stationery:
Make sure you provide the basics. This includes flipchart paper, whiteboard markers, scissors, scotch, pens and pencils of all kinds, a lot of post-it notes, A4 and A3 sized paper and bluetack.

• If your venue has some things in place, that's a huge help.
• For the first London event, we spent £165, and brought additional stuff in, but wasn't enough.
• If you intend to host a series of Design Jams, invest once and build up stationery kit.
• If you don't have a stationery sponsor, ask attendees to bring their own tools. Provide a check list (pens, post-its, sketching templates, etc).
• Additional to stationery, it's useful to have sketching templates and brainstorming materials.

On the day before the event

You have met up with your host during the organising phase. On the day before your Design Jam, head to your venue to get the space ready. Make sure you can get in for an hour or so to:

• organise the space: set up areas for each team, and a reception area for you to sign people in
• set up a table for stationery, and one for food/drink
• set up an area (wall) for the 'team grid', make sure you have index cards
• set up drivers for printer and scanner
• if necessary, put up signs that let your attendees find the venue (main entrance, elevator, etc.)
• if the building is hard to find, consider putting up signs or other clues at the next public transport stop, on the street, etc.
• chat to security and make sure they are aware of the event. Give them an attendee list.
• get stationery and all food that you can store at the venue there on the day before

Print everything you need:

• Agenda of the day + practical info for attendees
• Design challenge one-pager (2 per team as a minimum)
• Sponsors poster - A3, to be put up at the venue
• directions signs for the venue
• List of participants (copies for security and for registration)

On the day

Set up

Get there early and finish off anything that you didn't set up on the day before.
Make sure the organiser team is clear about each person's responsibilities:

• who signs people in
• who does the introduction
• final check of all tech equipment
• who will tweet and/or blog (if it is possible, it's better to have a livewall to stimulate twitting)
• who will take photos/videos
• who is the go-to person for food

Check in

• Give people an agenda, the wifi password, link to the Wiki, and the hashtag. (Not the challenge sheet, not yet).
• Explain the team grid and hand out index cards. Ask people to hold on to their index cards rather than allow to stick on wall (open the grid later).
• To avoid queues, let them write their name badges in a separate area.
• Have one receptionist, and a second person who explains the room setup to the attendee, tells them what to do next, introduces shy strangers to others, etc.

Intro

• Explain the format and agenda.
• Now is the time to reveal the challenge and brief.
• Explain mentoring, introduce your mentors, and make sure you thank your sponsors and host.
• Mention any health & safety regulations your venue requires you to point out.
• Explain what creative commons with attribution means.
• See Dees' presentation for Design Jam London 1 (Dees to add).
• Don't throw all details at people - eg mention lunch options later.
• Put the challenge topic up on the wiki, and put sheets with the challenge brief in the team areas (minimum 2 per team).
• If necessary, show some examples of output from past Design Jams

Team creation

We recommend a team grid for team creation:

• Upon arrival, each attendee gets an index card, and write down their name, competency (design/research/development/etc), what skills they can contribute, and what they'd like to learn.
• The team grid should have a column for each team.
• Explain team creation during the intro, and open the team grid when the introduction is done.
• 2-3 organisers need to be facilitating the team grid - don't dictate, but oversee. Make sure people work with someone they don't know. Check if skills are distributed appropriately.
• While attendees are busy with team creation, one of the organisers puts the team numbers on the tables (to avoid people thinking table/work area = team when they come in).

It might seem chaotic at first, but with the right guidance people worked out the teams well.

Time keeping

One organiser should be the time keeper: remind and shout.
We recommend to split the timekeeper from the moderator role.

Research & Explore phase

Have one of your mentors around at this phase. Encourage teams to stop broad brainstorming and research after 1 hour, and make them tie their focus for the day down.
Put questions, resources and tools on the wiki.

Interim presentations

Are a key part of the Design Jam experience, a lot of learning and knowledge sharing happens here. It's a skill to be able to explain your approach and design problem under time constraints that people can practice at a Design Jam.
Tell teams what you expect from them. Have one organiser visit each team and explain that teams should explain what they've done so far, how they got to where they are, and what their focused design question for the day is.
Aim for 2-3 min per team, but don't be too strict about it. The timekeeper needs to moderate.
Ring a bell about 10 minute before the interim presentation start.
Everybody gathers around a team's working area, so there's no need for the teams to prepare anything, apart from selecting who should present. Don't make people come up on a stage!

Design phase

Good that people had time to talk about interim presos over lunch, to get ready for design phase.
Make sure teams start designing, make clear what they need to reach at the end of the design phase.
Teams needed help to focus and kick into design action - mentors crucial at this point.
Need to get teams to share design process in final presentation.
How to prevent getting too hung up on actual design? Learning is about how to express the idea (visually and verbally).
Generally happy with outcome, was too much to expect prototypes.

Final presentations

Ring bell to make them prep.
Encourage use of wiki.
Running order would have been good to speed things up.
We were lucky with AV stuff, no projector issues and visualiser was great - organisers need to be aware and manage the handovers well.
Encourage teams to share process, not only outcome. How did people arrive at solution, what tools did they use, eg personas, 6up templates, 6 thinking hats, collaborative sketching games, etc - organisers to ask questions eg about tools or team setup if teams don't talk about it.
Be stricter with time.
No real sense of closure - reflection phase in the end would be good if you have time. ask people to share what they learned, will take away - if you have time for it.
Feedback board: was filled up in the end. needs to have structure (what I liked, what could be improved) to help people fill it, and to get anything positive.

End

Make sure pub isn't booked for private function.
Thank sponsors and mentors and organisers.
Encourage people to clean up together, recycle etc.
Have 1 pub party organiser person, who drags people to the pub while rest of organisers cleans up, finish blogposts or whatever needs to be done.
Make sure that the pub person tweets venue.
Thank security or other people who stuck around (give them cookies).
Encourage teams to share stuff on the wiki, or blog and link to the wiki.
Clarify what's next? Teams could get coverage eg. on sponsors website, explain that wiki will be visited by many people, repository, other design jams around the world.

Define mentoring times better.
Good to have them stay the entire afternoon.
Mentors don't need to be there at the same time.
Mentors to check in with each other during the day.

Wiki

have questions on the wiki for each phase. Need templates, make it clear to team what they have to use the wiki.
Need better navigation.
Need to make clearer why we do it in a wiki, understand value.
Encourage to have presentation content in the wiki before presentations.
At least a few questions need to be filled in on the day, and encourage following up.

After the event

Follow up email
Link to open feedback form.
Prompt about blogposts, wiki, exposure (add names).
Links to coverage so far.
Thanks to sponsors.
Add your name if you want to organise and tell others about it.
Share address of flick, vimeo pages.
Open retrospective (on same night as mentors, maybe 1.5h later).

Tips for Smaller Groups

Smaller Events - Lessons Learned from Chapel Hill Design Jam #1

Design Jams do not need to be large events. Smaller groups can work just as well. Here are a few helpful tips for running a smaller scale Design Jam (12-20 people).

Make sure you open registration up to 30 people.

There will be last minute cancellations and no shows so always open the event to more than you need.

Do not close registration prior to the event if it is not full.

Chances are there are a few people who just aren’t sure if they will be able to make it until the day before and a few people who will also cancel the day before.

Provide lunch/snacks if possible.

Feeding a small group is a lot cheaper than a larger group. One of the great things about lunch and group snack time in a smaller group setting is that it provides a time for everyone to talk and get to know each other across groups and to network. Groups need to have at least 4 People.

This is why there needs to be at least 12. The largest size suggested is 6, but 4-5 works best. This allows each group member to contribute during the group presentations with their input, suggestions and thoughts on group process. It also aids in creating a conversation.

Create conversations during presentation time

Make sure everyone is able to and feel comfortable asking questions and feedback while other groups present. Smaller groups allow for more dialogue and time for presentations than larger groups.

Encourage wiki production as people move through the topic.

Small groups can have as much impact as the larger groups as long as they document what they are doing. Make sure they know that despite the size, they are being watched by people interested in Design Jam around the globe. It is also a great place to showcase what has been worked on during the different sessions of the day.

Guidance & Support

A few peeps are old hat at this stuff. Feel free to contact them:

• Desigan Chinniah - <cyberdees[at]mozilla[dot]com> - @cyberdees
• Pascal Finette - <pfinette[at]mozilla[dot]com> - @pfinette
• Johanna Kollmann - <kollmann[dot]johanna[at]gmail[dot]com> - @johannakoll
• Joe Lanman - <joelanman[at]gmail[dot]com> - @joelanman
• Franco Papeschi - <franco[dot]papeschi[at]gmail[dot]com> - @bobbywatson