Impromptu Networking

Rapidly share challenges and expectations, build new connections

Five Structural Elements – Min Specs

1. Structuring Invitation

Invitation

“In fast and fun rounds, you will connect with a few people to find out what they think about a big challenge and their role in it.”

2. Space and Materials

An open space for participants to stand in pairs and move around easily [breakouts of two or three].

3. Participation Distribution

• Roles include host [tech host] and participants.
• Minimum group size is four.
• Everyone has an equal opportunity to contribute.

4. Groups Configuration

• Alone, Pairs or Trios
• Invite people to find strangers or colleagues in groups/functions different from their own

5. Steps and Time Allocation

Intro: Share the structuring invitation. Invite participants to silently reflect on two questions: What big challenge do you bring to this gathering? What do you hope to get from and give to this group or community? (3 min.)

Round 1: Participants form pairs [breakouts of two or three] with people in different groups/functions to share their answers. (4–5 min.)

Rounds 2 and 3: Participants find a new partner and repeat the process [return participants to plenary, then remix breakout rooms]. (4–5 min. per round)

All-Together Sharing: Everyone returns to plenary. A few people share ideas everyone should hear. (3 min.)

WHY? Purposes

• Initiate participation immediately for everyone provided the questions are engaging
• Attract deeper engagement around challengesInvite stories to deepen as they are repeated
• Help shy people warm up
• Affirm individual contributions to solutions
• Emphasize the power of loose and new connections
• Suggest that little things can make a big difference

Taking It Online

Technical limitations can make it difficult to get the maximum mix between rounds, especially with small groups. If your group is small enough, manually assign participants to new breakout rooms with new people each round. This adds time to transitions, so give participants something to do while they wait.

Tips and Traps

• Ask questions that invite participants to shape the direction of their work together
• Use Impromptu Networking before you begin meetings and conferences
• Use bells (e.g., tingsha) to help you shift participants from first, to second, to third rounds
• Ask questions that are open-ended but not too broad
• Invite serious play
• Have three rounds, not one or two
• If you choose to share output, do it carefully and preserve confidentiality

Riffs and Variations

• Play with different questions: What problem are you trying to solve? What challenge lingers from our last meeting? What hunch are you trying to confirm?
• Taking a group outside a meeting room increases the fun factor
• Link to Social Network Webbing
• Invite participants to make a simple plan to follow up via 15% Solutions
• Make it faster depending on your schedule
• Try a lively variation called Liquid Courage (developed by Jamie Owens - Founder of More Than An Option, Inc. and Keith McCandless). Invite each person, in their pair, to finish these open sentences in 1 minute or less: If only…. They make me… I have to… … that’s just the way it is. If they would ____ then I could ______!

Examples

• For sparking deeper connections on the first day of class, college professors have asked their students, “Why did you choose to attend this class? What do you want to learn from and offer to members of this class?”
• For jump-starting a cross-functional, interdisciplinary learning session, Tim Jaasko-Fisher used Impromptu Networking with judges, lawyers, clerks, and social workers. See “Fixing a Broken Child Welfare System” in Part Three: Stories from the Field.For connecting far-flung innovators and disparate prototypes among members of the Innovation Learning Network. See “Inventing Future Health-Care Practice” in Part Three: Stories from the Field.

Attribution: Liberating Structure developed by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless. Inspired by June Holley, network weaver.

Source: Liberating Structures