record and reflect
for organizations
This Domain-Level Guide is designed to be used based on the Core Model. Please refer to the Record and Reflect Core Practice before exploring this guide.
overview
To make the most out of individual and shared Experiences of the team members, you need to establish a way to share them and save them for future usage. When applied at the organization level, Record and Reflect is essential to allow communicating Experiences, Observations, and insights. It is a mandatory step to enable a discussion about them.
Creating a Collective Mind-Pantry based on the individual and shared Experiences and Reflecting Collectively on the insights the team is recording are both critical aspects of utilizing Experiences and using them as inspiration for creative insights.
When Record and Reflect is applied collectively, it creates the first step toward building a shared Creativity Operating System that enables co-creating.
guide
Maintain a Collective Mind-Pantry
The things you Experience become part of your mind-pantry. They could be great ingredients for future, unexpected Fusions and creations. When you are part of a team, forming a Collective Mind-Pantry can turn the Experience of one into a shared resource. This, in turn, increases the chances for surprising connections and promotes richer, more profound outcomes.
A Collective Mind-Pantry should not be confused with social sharing platforms. Think of it as a long-term archive of random insights, observations, and ideas.
- Define a method and a platform for members of the team to share insights, ideas, and anything they Observe, Imagine, and Wonder.
- Make sure the act of sharing is as casual and light-weight as possible. Avoid turning it into a potential distraction.
- Don’t over-design the platform and avoid creating complex structures. Less structure might seem like a pitfall when you need to retrieve an insight. However, the benefit of growing a Collective Mind-Pantry organically is in promoting random, unplanned encounters that will lead to more surprising Fusions.
- The Collective Mind-Pantry can be shared beyond a single team. The broader and more extensive it is, the more impactful it will become.
- Where possible, create more than one option for sharing. Some of these options should be based on non-volatile platforms to enable future exploration of the Collective Mind-Pantry.
Explore and Use Collective Insights
Once you have an active, living Collective Mind-Pantry, the next essential step is to revisit the insights the team has recorded, explore them and allow them to float back to the surface and connect to other ingredients.
Any ingredient available in the Collective Mind-Pantry can be used as inspiration regardless of its origin. Exploring the Collective Mind-Pantry, whether in the context of a concrete challenge or just as a means for aimless wandering, can spark ideas and create surprising Fusions.
- Make it a habit to explore the Collective Mind-Pantry with or without a concrete goal in mind.
- Use the insights as if they are your own. Their original context and interpretation are not necessarily relevant. These insights are merely raw materials for you to use.
Practice Collective Reflection on Insights
While any team member can explore the Collective Mind-Pantry at any time, doing so collectively — revisiting the team’s insights and discussing them together — is an excellent opportunity for new ideas to surface. A joint exploration can highlight new insights and spark new ways of using the ingredients in the future.
Whether new creative insights are generated during this activity or not, the mere collaborative discussion is a perfect way to see things differently, consider them from different perspectives, and experience the technique of taking things out of one context and applying them to a new one.
- Make space for Collective Reflection on the insights shared in the Collective Mind-Pantry.
- Plan this recurrent activity and turn it into a habit on top of the personal reflection of each team member.
- Explore the Collective Mind-Pantry together even if you are not looking for a creative idea in a concrete context.
examples
Example 1
Create a shared digital notebook or an infinite whiteboard for the team members to share random insights, ideas, and observations. Don’t limit it to specific topics, and don’t over-design it. The less structured it is, the greater the chances for retrieving and using unexpected insights from a surprising domain and context.
Example 2
Post in some public location random insights and observations from the Collective Mind-Pantry to allow unplanned encounters with unexpected insights.
Avoid disruptive notifications. Prefer more casual and non-intrusive consumption of the insights.
Example 3
Whenever you face a challenge in need of a creative solution, leave it aside for a while and explore the Collective Mind-Pantry. Whether it will spark an idea or not, it will allow your mind to take some time-off while playing with other unexpected Experiences and insights.
Example 4
Establish a weekly routine in which the team picks some random insights from the Collective Mind-Pantry and muse about them. In case a new insight is generated during the discussion, add it to the Mind-Pantry.
related practices
- Open Up Interfaces (coming soon)
- Add Randomness to the Mix (coming soon)