How to use the canvas
Every section of the canvas should be filled with thoughts from your team. Give team members 3 minutes to silently write down individual thoughts for each section. Always let them reflect on what they and others wrote before proceeding to the next section of the canvas. Give at least 7 minutes for such discussions in every round. Depending on your team size, the exercise will take 120 to 240 minutes.
Steps
Every section of the canvas should be filled with thoughts from your team. Give team members 3 minutes to silently write down individual thoughts for each section. Always let them reflect on what they and others wrote before proceeding to the next section of the canvas. Give at least 7 minutes for such discussions in every round. Depending on your team size, the exercise will take 120 to 240 minutes.
Steps
- Make sure to have a large enough print or drawing of the canvas ready.
- Start with "Crew". Identify your team members with colored sticky notes. Add some special titles, make it fun!
- Soft and Hard skills are next. Let everyone write down known and less known skills. Soft skills won't change much over time but it's interesting to see if someone writes something different next time you do the exercise.
- After gaining confidence with sharing skills, it's time to talk about Weaknesses. Some weaknesses will be left behind by members over time, it's a great opportunity to celebrate these small wins here
- Remain on the individual level and proceed to Personal Drivers. These things make your ship fly and keep your crew members happy. Drivers are very different for each person and are generally the things that boosts their creativity, work ethic and morale.
- Personal Needs is next. At this point you need to slowly shift the focus from members to the team by addressing needs of individual that helps them to become better team players. Small things matter as well: who needs a certain kind of feedback, who needs more space or silence
- Next up is Unique Values. It summarizes all the individual strengths listed before on the teams level. It also helps your team to articulate why they like to work together in this particular team and how it differs from others. One of the more important sections, feel free to spend more time with it.
- Common Goals is all about kinship. Identify things that the whole team would love to chase over the next period.
- Filling up Seek Out and To Avoid, will help you to better understand individual expectations regards your decision-making. It also helps to synchronize the crew's understanding about what the future will look like in terms of their work. You can add any subcategories like markets, industries, technologies or ethical considerations.
- The Bridge should be the last section as it's the moment where the whole crew should commit to tasks individually, based on the whole exercise and the conversations they had so far. After plans are set, conclude the workshop by quickly running through main points again.
Starship Canvas was created by @thomasfogarasy at fogarasy.com
with the purpose to periodically map out the skills and shifting goals at the design consultancy firm Exalt Interactive.
with the purpose to periodically map out the skills and shifting goals at the design consultancy firm Exalt Interactive.