Lean Coffee perks up online facilitation

Virtual everything is the name of the game now. And the Center for Government Innovation is right there with you.

The Center has been co-hosting Virtual Lean Coffees about once a month to gather Lean facilitators from state and local government so we can learn virtual process improvement facilitation tips and tricks from each other. Another meeting is planned for November, and we would love to have you join us.

Topics, platforms, tools, techniques

Everyone who comes to Lean Coffee has an opportunity to suggest topics for discussion. We prioritize those topics together and share in a rich conversation of those ideas. Since we started gathering in May, we have continued to discover new angles on our core theme:

In these days of social distancing, the remote workplace has rapidly become the norm. How has this changed your work as process improvement specialists? What new insights into process improvement has the experience generated?

When we gather in November, I will be excited to hear from others the big insights and takeaways from the Results Washington Conference. If you missed the sessions live, the recordings are now available online.

In the past few months, the Virtual Lean Coffee group discussed topics like staying connected with the project sponsor, using polling apps, adapting icebreakers and warmups for virtual meetings, and sustaining engagement within project teams. We are also sharing with each other ways that online platforms help us solve common challenges using new methods.

We also try to build in some new tool or trick into how we generate and select conversation topics using virtual facilitation. Right now, we are exploring the Mural platform's tools and options.

Sign up now

We will be meeting on the third Thursday of the month from 10 to 11:30 a.m. The dates are November 19, January 21 and February 18, and there is no meeting in December. If you would like to sign up, contact Steven Thomson at thomsons@sao.wa.gov. We'll continue the conversations about facilitation using online tools and debrief the Results Washington conference along with considering everyone's suggested topics.

We are here to help

We are here to support your great public service — what people want, sooner, more accurately — and our services come at no charge to you. The Center for Government Innovation provides technical assistance and process improvement facilitation to any local government in Washington. Because we specialize in working with local governments, we can adapt our services to meet your needs. Reach out to us at center@sao.wa.gov.