Learnings from our first Affino Think Tank

We recently ran our first Affino lead Think Tank on the hottest day of the year, and not everything went according to plan.

 

We’re not new to participating in Think Tanks having run and participated in a number for the PPA and a host of other organisations, so we felt confident heading into the first one we were running ourselves. Having run the first one and learnt a lot, we felt it would be useful to share both internally with the Affino team, and more broadly some of the essentials we will keep in mind for future Think Tanks.

 

For many of the participants it as the first Think Tank they participated in, and for these in particular - we know some greatly benefited from and enjoyed the experience, for others the format strayed from their expectations - in particular the very long demo which got extended and extended as our presenter’s machine overheated and slowed down.

 

We did learn a great deal though and here are our key takeaways:

 

Think Tank Introduction

In the introduction there needs to be a key focus on the type of think tank it is, what the subject focus will be, and at what point the moderator will step in to move it on. We were definitely too loose on this one.

 

Strong Moderation

This is especially important, and on a personal note was where I recognise I must be more clear in the future. Since I wan’t clear enough up front on how I would be moderating, it felt that if I was to step in during the course of the conversation it might rightfully cause the participant I interrupted unnecessary emotional stress. Having the rules of engagement more clearly stated up front would have reduced that considerably.

 

A particular challenge for a tech provider is to move the conversation quickly away from one focused on feature requests, and worse - bug reports, and anything in general that is much better handled elsewhere, and to take it back to the discussions that are best held within the think tank.

 

Group Size

We were uncertain that everyone would turn up, since in a normal event anything up to 50% of attendees do not turn up on the day. We had a 95% attendance rate for the Think Tank.

This meant that even the introductions took a long time with over 20 attendees. The optimal number is around 12 in our experience, and in the future we will severely limit the number of attendees, and if there’s a couple fewer on the day then that’s fine.

 

Group Makeup

It’s best if the Think Tank attendees are at a similar level of seniority and / or expertise. Our Think Tank had too much of a mix, which inevitably meant that for some attendees the focus was not quite what they had expected.

 

Future Affino Think Tanks will be more focused on a specific, more closely related group in each instance, with much closer levels of seniority and expertise so that the conversation flows more easily.

 

Presentations / Demos

We will pre-record any demo, if there even is one in any future Think Tanks we run.

 

We did a trial run of the demo just an hour before the presentation and it took 8 minutes. Plenty of time to spare for our 10 minute allocated slot. We had hoped there would be some nice elements there to spark lively conversation.

 

What we did not account for was the exceptional heat, which meant our presenter’s laptop overheated, and nearly ground to a halt. I as the moderator should simply have stopped the demo after the allocated 10 mins, if not before.

 

We’ve learnt a valuable lesson here.

 

Event Type

One thing which probably we were not clear enough about is exactly what a Think Tank is, as many participants had not actively participated in one previously. It means that in the future we will be more clear about the specifics of each event.

 

We can see two specific types of events:

 

Think Tanks

Think Tanks, which are more blue sky, typically with more senior team members, and more strategically focused around themes and concepts than on the details.

 

Clinics

Clinics will be more focused on the practical details of execution, in particular on making the most of Affino’s services.

 

We do run these as a service for individual clients, but are thinking of running a series with focused groups of attendees in the future.

 

Wrap Up

We have no regrets on starting the series, and have a number of follow-up requests for ones on Data Services, Subscriptions and Analytics so we’ll keep them flowing over the coming months.