[NPR x phpworld] Improving Company Culture with Donut

Transcript

1. Improving Company Culture
   with Donut
   (the Slack bot, not the food. but maybe also the food.)
   Nara Kasbergen | NPR | Friday, October 25, 2019
   * not affiliated with Donut.com
   

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2. Donut regularly pairs up team
   members who don’t know each
   other well to spread trust and
   collaboration across your
   organization.
   donut.com
   

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3. How does it work?
   

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4. How does it work?
   

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5. How does it work?
   

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6. "Donut tries to pair people who
   don't normally interact with
   each other. It does this by
   looking at who is in which
   channels and pairing people
   who aren't in a lot of channels
   together. Donut also keeps track
   of who it has paired in the past
   so as to avoid repeats."
   

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7. How to set up Donut
   1. Go to Donut.com and install the Slack app
   2. Create a new channel (or use an existing channel)
   3. /invite @donut
   4. You are now the "Donut admin" for this channel (not the whole org)
   a. Choose how frequently people are paired up (default: 2 weeks)
   b. Choose the size of the group (default: 2 people)
   c. Customize the intro message
   

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8. Data-Driven
   The Donut admin for a
   channel gets a stats email
   every other Wednesday
   

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9. A Tale of Two Donuts
   ● #dm-elevenses
   ○ First round started: August 27, 2018
   ○ Digital Media department only, ~100 max possible participants
   ■ Average of 29 participants per round
   ■ 81% all-time confirmed meetings
   ● #project-water-cooler
   ○ First round started: January 7, 2019
   ○ Company-wide, ~1000 max possible participants
   ■ Average of 110 participants per round
   ■ 54% all-time confirmed meetings
   

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10. #dm-elevenses
    

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11. Problem Statement
    By the summer of 2018, the Digital Media department had gone
    through a merger with another department, followed by a spate
    of hiring to backfill a lot of empty positions.
    The department had transformed from a team of veterans to one
    where half the staff have been here less than 2 years.
    How might we build relationships between the old and new staff,
    and maintain the tightknit sense of community we had before?
    

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12. Picking a channel name
    #dm-donut-club ?
    #dm-fika ?
    #dm-coffee-club ?
    #dm-elevenses !
    

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14. How much time do folks spend?
    * survey data from October 2018
    

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15. What do folks talk about?
    

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16. What have they learned about each other?
    ● "My Donut buddies are just like me, but in totally different ways."
    ● "Learning that even though they may be in a position of management - they, too,
    struggle with communication at times with upper management."
    ● "Life philosophies that you'd actually tattoo on your body (if you were so
    inclined)."
    ● "We exchanged time management techniques with each other."
    ● "Interesting/humorous facts about them and their partners - like how silly your
    own work problems may feel when your spouse works in Infant ICU."
    

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17. What do they get out of participating?
    ● "Get to know co-workers in a friendly/casual/non-alcoholic setting."
    ● "We have a big and growing department, and it's easy to have coworkers that
    you've never actually met. Donut helps."
    ● "#dm-elevenses makes it easier for me to feel belonging at work."
    ● "It gives you a context for the kind of personal conversations that wouldn't
    necessarily occur naturally. It helps you to feel more connected to those you've
    met with."
    ● "It helps me feel like I can bring more of my own personality to work knowing that
    there are people who see me as more multi-faceted than what I do in my role here."
    

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18. Has it been a success?
    

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19. #project-water-cooler
    

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20. Problem Statement
    With about 1,000 employees, most of whom work out of the DC
    HQ, NPR is actually a relatively large company (for a nonprofit
    public media organization).
    It is very siloed, mostly along department lines (and sometimes
    even within departments, if those departments are very large).
    How might we make it easier for folks to meet people from other
    departments and break down those siloes?
    

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21. Data from a quick survey on Oct. 23-24, 2019
    

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22. What did folks expect to get out of it?
    

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23. How much time do these folks spend?
    

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24. What do they talk about?
    

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25. What have they learned about each other?
    ● "Common interests and when their work intersects with mine or they have
    information/connections that make my job easier."
    ● "How other companies and organizations work differently, and including
    volunteers, families, companies, relationships."
    ● "One buddy had a job I didn't even know existed."
    ● "We go off on fun tangents and I get tons of great ideas, and then they slack me
    with additional ideas later (perhaps hours, days, weeks, or even months later)."
    ● "I count it a privilege whenever someone shares their story with me. I have heard
    beautiful, hopeful, heartbreaking and heartwarming stories that have only made
    me love NPR and the people that work here even more."
    

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26. What do they get out of participating?
    ● "I've made a couple of good friends and feel like I have a better sense of what
    people do across the organization."
    ● "It's essentially the only way I have to meet people in other depts, and I value that."
    ● "I'm introverted, so it's good for me, as it gets me out of my shell."
    ● "I've told people about projects I am interested in working on or things I want to
    get involved in. They connected me to someone else I would have never known
    about that was exactly what I needed."
    ● "In general it's just interesting to hear about the lives of different people."
    ● "It's an amazing way to see beyond your own little slice of the NPR pie."
    

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27. Where has it fallen short?
    ● "I've been ghosted by a match once. That was a bummer."
    ● "A lot of people never message me to set up up the meeting. I think I've initiated
    90% of the meetings."
    ● "Mostly I've been matched with interns, instead of people who've been at NPR as
    long as I have. So, while it's been great to meet the new blood, and share with
    them my experiences, it's not exactly what I was hoping for."
    ● "People not responding when I say hello."
    ● "Some people will meet with me for less than 30 min even though that's what I
    scheduled for, and I still would like to learn more about them."
    

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28. Has it been a success?
    

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30. Conclusions
    

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31. A Tale of Two Donuts, Revisited
    Single-department:
    ● Great for departments that have recently
    gone through a growth spurt
    ● Great for onboarding new employees
    ● High completion rates because people will
    likely end up working together eventually so
    you don't want to be seen as a jerk
    ● Encourages more in-depth conversations
    ● Doesn't really move the needle in terms of
    breaking down organizational siloes
    Company-wide:
    ● Good for breaking down siloes, actually
    effecting cultural change across an org
    ● Great for employees who are seeking new
    ideas/projects, opportunities for other roles
    ● Participants with the most enthusiasm tend
    to be interns
    ● Encourages superficial conversations (roles)
    ● Little incentive to actually meet up with the
    other person = high rate of ghosting
    

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32. Donut probably
    works best for
    small companies
    the size of our
    department.
    

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33. It's still worth doing.
    

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34. Open Questions
    ● The new "meet people across groups" feature: worth paying for?
    ● 3 or 4 weeks instead of the default 2 weeks: does it change engagement?
    ● What are some use cases for groups bigger than 2 people?
    ● Onboarding: how does it work?
    ● What kinds of Slack orgs other than companies would Donut work well for?
    

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35. Questions?
    Keep in touch:
    @xiehan
    nara.kasbergen@gmail.com
    Comments? Thoughts?
    

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