A Zoom Tech Team Tries Something Different
Last winter I led a Zoom hosting and technical team for our quad-Regional Jewish RC workshop in the Northeast of the United States.
Being on the tech team is an important workshop job. How well the workshop goes (at least in part) is dependent on how well the team does its job.
After having participated in several teams at previous workshops, I decided to try a different organizational structure, one that I hoped would allow team members to focus more fully on their own participation in the workshop while having the technical aspects of the job go as smoothly as possible.
I had noticed that many of us in these jobs, even if we’ve had prior experience, are learning a tremendous amount in a short amount of time. Also, generally there is not enough time to discharge on the feelings being restimulated by the job (from early hurts about learning, making mistakes, and so on).
No other workshop job is like the tech job. We do other workshop jobs for the entire workshop. This often means that the job gets easier as the workshop goes on. We work more efficiently as a team as we discharge, get closer, and are reminded of reality.
I wondered what it would be like if the Zoom hosting and tech jobs were broken down into smaller units, with each person keeping the same job for the entire workshop. The first class would be the most difficult—we would be working as a team for the first time and learning our roles—but after that we could do our jobs with much less effort and could pay more attention to the workshop.
After discharging about this method and discussing it with the workshop organizer, I decided to try it. (I had a back-up plan for if it didn’t go well: reverting to the more traditional model of small but different teams running each class.)
I polled my team in advance to find out which tasks they’d had experience doing, which ones they might want to learn, and which ones would not be a contradiction to their early distresses. Once I had that information, I assigned each person their role, in a team of two or three. I then offered a couple of one-hour times during the week prior to the workshop during which team members could meet with me, connect and discharge, review their assignment, ask questions, and practice their job.
Everyone had easy access to a spreadsheet with all the needed information. Also, a team member set up a group text on Signal so we could easily communicate as a group during the workshop.
The method worked extremely well. We worked well together as a team. We enjoyed and took pride in our work and that we were helping the workshop run as smoothly as possible. I received positive feedback from my team, the workshop participants, the workshop leader, and the organizer.
With love and appreciation for all the hard work that goes into making workshops accessible to as many people as possible,
Somerville, Massachusetts, USA
Reprinted from the e-mail discussion list for RC Community members
(Present Time 206, January 2022)