How to Organize a Design Jam

How to Organize a Design Jam

What is a design jam?
A design jam is a focused brainstorming session with diverse participants who concentrate on a specific design problem or challenge. Participants propose solutions to the challenge, keeping in mind constraints, target audience, incentives, what, who, and how. This often includes developing user scenarios, storyboards, or prototypes. The goal of the session(s) is to come up with tangible next steps. (The term design jam is used mainly in information science. "Brainstorming session" may be a more appropriate term to use with other audiences.

General tips

 * Scheduling is key for turnout. Evenings tend to yield higher student turnout.
 * Participants from diverse backgrounds is key: try to attract students, staff, and faculty from various disciplines.
 * If design challenge is too broad, you won't have tangible next steps or outcomes after the session(s). Make the design problem specific and include any relevant constraints. Tip from SOCHI design jam framework: "The design problem should be focused, constrained, as specific as possible... Bad example: 'future of the browser' is too broad and ambiguous. Better example: 'windowless browser.'"

Preparation

 * Room should be conducive to small groups and discussions. So a room with portable tables and chairs works better than a lecture hall.
 * Have food delivered rather than picking it up
 * Serve food mid-way through the event rather than at the beginning, as that provides motivation for the first halls
 * Assign 1 - 2 people to take pictures with a digital camera
 * Arrange to bring any necessary equipment (projector, extension cords, whiteboards, dry erase markers, name tags, pen and paper)
 * Prepare a presentation to share at the start of the design jam. Tip from SOCHI design jam framework: "Give participants a 'springboard' for ideas. What is the story behind the problem? Why is it a problem?" Few people will read the background information sent along with the event announcement, so this will need to repeated and expanded upon at the event.

At the event

 * Make sure everyone signs in. This is important not only for hosting receipts, but to ensure that everyone gets attribution for contributiing
 * Encourage people to wear name tags.
 * Allow time for questions of the moderator before splitting into groups
 * In order to encourage diverse groups, form groups randomly (e.g. by numbering off).
 * Each group should have a staff member who can answer questions about the context of the design challenge.
 * Assign 1 - 2 people to take pictures
 * Breakout groups should be 3 - 8 people
 * Once you break into groups, do introductions (name, department, motivation for coming)
 * Each group should have a designated notetaker.
 * The person who presents about the group discussion should not be a staffer or the person who took notes
 * Use portable whiteboards to take notes for the event. That way if people are in different rooms or different parts of a large room, they bring the whiteboards to the main room for sharing with other groups
 * Have several handouts (2 - 3 per group) with schedule as well as guiding questions for the design jam.
 * Getting people to stop their discussion in small groups is difficult. If you don't have someone who can whistle or has a loud voice, use a bell or a phone/computer app with a bell or similar loud sound

After the event

 * Post notes, pictures, etc in a public space soon after the event to keep momentum.
 * Send a note to participants with links to the note, information about how to contribute (e.g. Etherpad link), and how to stay involved.

Past Open.Michigan Design Jams

 * January 13 and 20, 2011: What would a medical digital ‘textbook’ of the future look like? What kinds of information would it have? How would you interact with it? When would you use it?


 * November 4, 11 and 17, 2010: How can we engage students around the world as content producers and advocates for health open educational resources?


 * March 25, 2010: How can we build a shared social network platform that addresses global health education needs and increases the sharing of health education resources?

Past SOCHI Design Jams

 * February 2010: sharing content to social websites: sites like smashingmagazine.com offer options at the end of each article to enable users to 'bookmark' (del.icio.us), 'vote up' (wordpress), 'rewet' (twitter), and 'share' (facebook). What is the best page placement for this kind of social sharing, and how might we manage this interaction given the increasing number of social sites?