Learning Out Loud, a new learning culture with team-building potential

"I can't manage to focus on one thing", "I don't know where to start", "Too many construction sites at the same time" - voices like these were heard from the UI team in 2021 and it was no coincidence. The pandemic forced us into a rapid transition to 100% remote working and our employees were hit by the uncertainties of the time both at project level and in their private lives. Although the technical processes worked smoothly, the lack of direct dialogue with colleagues should not be underestimated. When working from home, you can't simply turn to the person sitting next to you if you have any questions or talk shop at the coffee machine. Everything required a well-planned meeting or a structured call.

Further training is part of everyday life in the UI team. Until now, we had relied on tried-and-tested learning methods such as exchanging ideas in team meetings, sparring on projects or attending online and offline conferences and workshops. In 2021, however, physical events were cancelled and other measures suddenly no longer worked as usual. What used to inspire suddenly triggered stress. Instead, team members felt like lone warriors at home, with everything coming at them unsorted and unfiltered with all its complexity. For many, this triggered the constant feeling of not having done their homework. The team provided feedback on the problem and we were able to react.

It was clear that we had to change something. It was important to us to create something where team members no longer feel left alone, but where joint development becomes a positive experience. This was inspired by the presentation "Room to breathe" by Jerry Gordinier, UX Design Manager at tech giant Google, which he gave at the Global Experience Summit in 2020. Listening to his team and taking action is also his guiding principle, after which he created a fixed time frame for the group to work together on new topics.

It is precisely this space that we wanted to secure for our team in parallel to ongoing customer projects. According to Gordinier's proposal, the time balance between everyday work and internal tasks can be determined individually by each company. We opted for a ratio of 80 % day-to-day design work and 20 % training. It was also important to us that everyone has the opportunity to help shape this space. For this reason, we defined the training content and objectives together within the UI team.

We decided on a test run of 3 months for the start. The plan was to block a time frame of 4 hours on Fridays every week. During these hours, we had to focus fully on further training without any distractions. We used the framework not only to acquire theoretical knowledge, but also to try out and apply new things directly.

So that we can all pull in the same direction, we as a team defined the goals we want to achieve together in an OKR brainstorming session before the first learning session. We also defined the associated topics, clustered them and prioritised them. Once we had drawn up the training roadmap, we were ready to get started.

The sessions themselves always follow the same pattern. There is a short check-in at the beginning, where everyone announces which topic they are focusing on today. This is followed by a freely definable and independent learning phase and a check-out at the end, in which everyone tells what they have discovered, learnt or tried out. This structure ensures that nobody works twice and that everyone has the same level of knowledge at the end of the session. By reproducing the content in a fresh way, no extra time is needed for preparation and the team can immediately validate whether there are areas of application in current projects.

As a team, we have learnt how to work in Figma and Adobe XD and have been able to switch ongoing projects and workflows from Sketch to the programmes. We have developed the complex service area of design systems as a team, so that we are now able to provide customers with advice and at the same time incorporate parts, such as the optimal structure of pattern libraries, directly into projects. The 3-month test run was a complete success. In a total of 12 learning sessions, we acquired skills that would have taken us about a year using the old learning methods.

We are almost surprised ourselves at the many positive effects of our Learning Out Loud format and are proud of how we have developed the right structure for us as a team. We now know that with group learning, we can spread complex topics across all our team members and progress at a correspondingly fast pace. The learning format also takes away the team members' fear of taking on too many new tasks and encourages each individual to work independently and analytically.

The sense of togetherness in the team is enormously strengthened by the common goals, the shared sense of achievement and the positive group dynamics, which means that training now has team-building potential. The sessions are now an integral part of our week and we can no longer imagine doing without them.

Curious to find out more? Then copy our Miro template here to create your own "Learning Out Loud sessions".

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