I loved this article and really want to experiment with it on my teams. I've read Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience and I assume to measure this would be to use the Experience Sampling Method, but I still seek guidance as to how to map this evidence from the team to determine if it is within the Flow Channel. Can you possibly share some additional insights on how you gathered and measured the information from the team? Thanks for sharing your experiences!
Hi there! I haven't used the Experience Sampling Method, because I've noticed that people get tired of filling it in making results unreliable. I do want to try it sometime, when I find the right team.
Instead what I do is observe how my team behaves. I'm looking for stress, discomfort, aloofness. All sings someone is not in the flow channel. And I look for enthusiasm, eagerness, joy - signs someone is in the flow channel.
This is the hard bit about this approach - recognising Flow. But once you get the feel for it, it gets easier.
One way to get started is to use a stoplight check-in - have every member of your team check in green (all good), orange (OK, but), or red (not good). But try to guess what colour they are going to say before they check-in. A great way to keep testing your flow intuition and refine it.
Another technique that works nicely is the timeline retrospective. After mapping all the events and milestones onto the timeline, ask the team to describe what they felt. Interesting way to 'measure' how your team reacts to challenges and how resilient their flow is (i.e. how wide their flow channel is).
I loved this article and really want to experiment with it on my teams. I've read Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience and I assume to measure this would be to use the Experience Sampling Method, but I still seek guidance as to how to map this evidence from the team to determine if it is within the Flow Channel. Can you possibly share some additional insights on how you gathered and measured the information from the team? Thanks for sharing your experiences!
Hi there! I haven't used the Experience Sampling Method, because I've noticed that people get tired of filling it in making results unreliable. I do want to try it sometime, when I find the right team.
Instead what I do is observe how my team behaves. I'm looking for stress, discomfort, aloofness. All sings someone is not in the flow channel. And I look for enthusiasm, eagerness, joy - signs someone is in the flow channel.
This is the hard bit about this approach - recognising Flow. But once you get the feel for it, it gets easier.
One way to get started is to use a stoplight check-in - have every member of your team check in green (all good), orange (OK, but), or red (not good). But try to guess what colour they are going to say before they check-in. A great way to keep testing your flow intuition and refine it.
Another technique that works nicely is the timeline retrospective. After mapping all the events and milestones onto the timeline, ask the team to describe what they felt. Interesting way to 'measure' how your team reacts to challenges and how resilient their flow is (i.e. how wide their flow channel is).