Randomised Coffee Trials as explained by David Gurteen
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/randomised-coffee-trials
A Randomised Coffee Trial or RCT for short is a fancy name for an incredibly
simple idea. RCTs are used to connect people in an organization at random and
give them time to meet to have a coffee and talk about whatever they wish.
The original idea was inspired by Pedro Medina and developed by Michael Soto
and Jon Kingsbury of Nesta UK in 2013. Nesta is an innovation charity with a
mission to help people and organisations bring great ideas to life.
An RCT can be run in a wide variety of ways but one way is like this:
Anyone interested in taking part, sends an email to a central address and asks to
be randomly connected with someone else in the organization. An administrator
collects these requests and enters them into a specially designed spreadsheet
that matches people at random. Some organizations use a simpler technique like
drawing names from a hat or use more sophisticated software that automatically
does the matching. The administrator then tells the person with whom they have
been connected.
It is then up to them to get in touch with that person and organise a 30 minute
chat over coffee. It need not be a coffee - it could be tea, lunch or dinner.
Whatever works best for them. Better still, in a geographically dispersed
organization - the meeting could be a virtual one say over Skype.
This is what Nesta says about the benefits
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Provides legitimacy to chat to people about things that aren't directly work related.
Although every time there have been direct beneficial impacts on various projects
and programmes. Totally random conversations, as well as some very useful work
related conversations.
Breaks silos at Nesta in a really effective way. Offers the chance to make time to talk
to people they should be talking to anyway, and to meet people who they won't be
directly working with but it's nice to know who they are! It's a really good way of
revealing links within the organisation and encouraging us to collaborate.
It's interesting that being part of the wider 'RCT' banners gives permission to spend
and honour the time.
Less likely to cancel a catch up if it's an RCT coffee than a social catch up on a busy
day.
They like the prompt to talk to someone new (or someone they already know), and
the permission to take 30 minutes just to see what's going on, without any particular
agenda or goal.
See more at: Institutionalising Serendipity via Productive Coffee
Breaks http://www.nesta.org.uk/blog/institutionalising-serendipity-productivecoffee-breaks#sthash.2x2JnO0G.dpuf
The following organizations are running various forms of RCTs:
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Nesta
Cabinet Office (UK)
Scottish Government (UK)
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Royal Society of Arts (UK)
KHDA (Dubai) (Called Shareachino sessions)
Mars (UK)
4Ps Marketing (UK)
Surrey County Council (UK)
National Audit Office (UK)
MWH Global (UK)
BAE Systems (US)
SABMiller (UK) (They call them Random Beer Collaborations)
Red Cross Red Crescent (Global)
Bank of England (UK) (They call them CoffeeFours and match 4 people together)
Linklaters (UK)
NatCen Social Research (UK)
The British Library
UK Trade and Investment (UKTI)
Aberdeenshire Council, Scotland
Link for the Red Cross/Red Crescent film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kII5rRhtfts&list=PL1NGmds2X8Gqfo0h5v5T3HLnFa4nV
4dpP&index=1
Feedback from the Red Cross/Red Crescent RTC trials (source David Gurteen):