Community

SDCoP ELEVATE Workshops

Alberta CoLab was disbanded in March 2020. This page exists as a historical record.

The Systemic Design Community of Practice was disbanded in March 2020.

ELEVATE Workshops are opportunities for CoP members to practice, test, and trial - a process, a concept, an idea - related to systemic design.

ELEVATE Workshops aspire to be member-driven, safe-to-fail spaces for public servants to practice and build their systemic design skills and confidence in a safe space, where they can gain feedback and support from thier colleagues and team mates.

Why ELEVATE?

The SDCoP is rooted in the belief that, as public servants, it's up to us to make our own opportunities and take the first step into uncertainty - to try something new that we haven't done before.

We often hear from public servants that they don't feel comfortable trying out something new for the first time live, that they don't feel they have a supportive space to test new ideas, and that they feel like they need more experience before taking a solo leap.

ELEVATE Workshops aim to address these needs in a supportive way and to catalyze the creative confidence of SDCoP members to take future leaps.

Format

To be successful, ELEVATE Workshops require both Activity Leads - volunteers who run part of the workshop - and Workshop Participants - those who participate in the activities and provide constructive feedback.

Each workshop can accommodate one to three Activity Leads, depending on the time it takes for what they'd like to do. After some opening remarks from CoLab, the Activity Lead takes the floor and runs their session. When complete, CoLab runs a reflective process whereby both the Activity Lead(s) and the Workshop Participants reflect upon their experience and share their insights. The process is repeated for each Activity Lead.

Activity Leads Gain:

A safe and supportive environment to try something new, with support from CoLab team members.
Experience with new tools and approaches to tackling complex challenges and conversations.
Insights about what works.
Immediate constructive feedback on their efforts.
Practice giving and accepting constructive feedback.
Inspiration for tools and ideas to try out in thier own work.
New connections with innovation-oriented public servants from across the Government of Alberta.

Workshop Participants Gain:

Experience with new tools and approaches to tackling complex challenges and conversations.
Insights about what works.
Practice giving constructive feedback.
Inspiration for tools and ideas to try out in thier own work.
New connections with innovation-oriented public servants from across the Government of Alberta.

Get Involved

Like all SDCoP sessions, ELEVATE Workshops are free, high quality learning opportunities - incoporate them into your learning and performance planning processes and start thinking about how you might take advantage of this space as both a lead and a participant.