Host a Product Design studio
Goal
After a successful first pilot of a Product Design studio for the EMEA time zones, we are now looking to extend the pilot to more time zones and asking for volunteers to host them.
Today, we are 29 product designers and soon we will be more. Even though not everyone will join them, we should always keep the door open. If we aim for the “sweet spot” of groups of 4–5 people per call, we will need ~6 studios in different time zones.
- More opportunities to connect with others, at the time of the day that works best for each person.
- Improve the format, with multiple feedback loops that allow us to learn faster.
We don't want to document these calls yet and make it a “standard.” We still have plenty of room to improve the format, and we may as well keep it as a pilot “forever.”
For background context, see
Volunteer to host
- Add your name ordered by time zone — what's my time zone?
- Assign yourself to this issue.
- Thanks for volunteering!
🙇
Name |
E.g. UTC -6 (CT) |
Time of day preference (Morning/Afternoon/Any) |
Weekday preference |
---|---|---|---|
Michael Le | UTC +11 (AET) | Morning | Thursday |
Sunjung Park | UTC +1 (CET) | Morning | Any |
Pedro Moreira da Silva | UTC +0 (WET) | Morning | Any |
Chad Lavimoniere | UTC -5 (ET) | Any | Any |
Gina Doyle | UTC -5 (ET) | Afternoon | Wednesday |
Veethika Mishra | UTC -5 (ET) | Any | Any |
Becka Lippert | UTC -6 (CT) | Any | Any |
Sessions
No. | Weekday and time (UTC) | Hosts |
---|---|---|
1 | Tue 19:00 UTC | Veethika and Becka |
2 | Wed 9:00 UTC | Pedro and Sunjung |
3 | Wed 19:30 UTC | Gina |
4 | Wed 23:30 UTC | Michael |
5 | Thu 14:30 UTC | Chad |
What's next?
- Set up agenda: Use agenda template or create your own. If using your own agenda, add a link to the feedback survey.
- Schedule Zoom meeting:
- Open the Zoom app and in the top bar select Meetings.
- On the left sidebar, select the ⊕ icon to schedule a meeting.
- Topic:
✨ Product Design studio - Session <Your session number>
Replace “<Your session number>” based on how the different Product Design studios are ordered on the calendar. See the previous table. This follows the multi-session meeting naming. - Date & Time: On the weekday and at the time that best suits you. Edit the time to set the duration to 50 minutes.
- Recurring Meeting: Yes, weekly.
- End date: Set a date very far in the future, like 2 years from now.
- Attendees: Leave empty, guests are added in the calendar invite.
- Meeting ID: Generate automatically.
- Security:
- Passcode: Enabled
- Waiting room: Disabled
- Only authenticated users can join: Select Gitlab Internal Only.
- Calendar: Select Other Calendars, the meeting URL is manually added to the calendar invite.
- Advanced Options:
- Allow participants to join anytime: Enabled
- Alternative hosts: Add any co-hosts of your session.
- Select Save.
- In the success screen, copy your Zoom meeting URL (screenshot) to add to the calendar invite in the next step.
- Create event in the UX calendar:
- Title:
✨ Product Design studio - Session <Your session number>
. - Duration: 50-min
- Time/day: On the weekday and at the time that best suits you
- Repeats: Weekly
- Location: Your Zoom meeting URL from the meeting you created in the previous step.
- Guests: All product designers as optional
- Copy/paste the emails list, and press
Enter
- Mark all as optional
- Copy/paste the emails list, and press
- Description: Use the following template or create your own
- Attachment: Your agenda document
- Title:
Event description template
This is just one of the sessions we have planned. Look around your calendar to see if there are other sessions that might suit better. Your attendance is optional, but success depends on your participation, so please try to join if you can!
The goal is to fill the gap between our async collaboration and the department-wide UX calls. Our hypothesis is that, with just a few product designers in a sync setting, we can foster stronger personal and work relationships. Ultimately, the benefits should cross over to our async collaboration.After a successful first pilot, we are extending it to more time zones and giving more options for product designers like you to connect with peers at the time of the day that works best for you (like this session).
See you in the studio!
Notes:
- To help with anything you need and exchange feedback after the session, Pedro will try to join your first session !
🤝 - You should have access to the feedback survey responses. If not, request it!
- Contribute to the retro with what is going well, not so well, could be better.