Respecting participants
I had the pleasure of running a UX away day last week. A day for all the UXers at Nationwide to get together, share experiences and techniques. A safe place to explore stuff. Fun and useful.We had a UX quiz, a speed-dating exercise and (my favourite bit) a bunch of short workshops / talks from the team.I ran a workshop on project goal prioritisation. It was a simple [forced ranking](https://gamestorming.com/350/) exercise that I wanted folks to try for themselves. I was shooting for kinaesthetic learning: getting them to work with some pre-prepared cards.As a joke, I made up some silly sounding project goals for the teams to prioritise. Printing these out on cards for the sorting activity:enable error-free storytellingoptimize bleeding-edge systemsexpedite competitive catalysts for changeproductivate effective collaboration and idea-sharingevisculate revolutionary alignmentsincubate interactive scrumsfacilitate synergistic productsmonetize goal-oriented opportunitiesholistic brand distinctive paradigmssyndicate multidisciplinary relationshipsI'd generated these goals from a site I found after googling 'business goal generator' - https://www.atrixnet.com/bs-generator.html## Here's what I got wrongI made the mistake of not telling the room straight away that these were joke goals - and that they shouldn't pay them too much attention. The point was just to get a feel for moving the cards around, giving them relative scores for importance and feasibility (and to imagine what the exercise might feel like with real goals). I got them to write scores on the cards, and then to create a chart (showing importance by feasibility).I'd say more than half of the room (all experienced UX folks), took the project goals seriously - and tried to understand their importance and feasibility as REAL GOALS.I was surprised. (I thought they were all going to laugh at the silly sounding words.)Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised though. Because:1. A workshop is a compliant space. Participants try to do what the facilitator asks. The facilitator leads - and the rest of the room is following as best as they can.2. We come across nonsense corporate speak ALL THE TIME. Some may have been being generous towards me - assuming that I was someone who talks in this way too. Some may have thought that these were terms that they should know and be able to compare.Either way, I was wrong to abuse their trust in me... and it was a powerful reminder of how participants can get blind-sided when you don’t guide their attention to self-reflection.