ThinkBIG! is a specific team-wide sync meeting I implemented on the Package feature team. After a myriad of successes with this work style, I partnered with other design, engineering, and product management leaders to implement it across the GitLab product organization.
A ThinkBIG! is designed to create a shared understanding of purpose and goals with all stage group members. Everyone in the stage group is invited to participate in a facilitated discussion around vision, roadmap, user research, design, and delivery of upcoming product features.
Think Big's are meetings that drive knowledge-sharing across the organization at the stage group and section levels. Participants are given the opportunity to review and ensure short-term activities are aligned with long-term goals.
Watch past recordings in the GitLab Unfiltered YouTube channel.
Having a synchronous meeting with a large number of individuals may feel like it goes against GitLab's Values and culture. It is essential to evaluate the Think Big meetings regularly to ensure they are valuable to the team. Some questions to ask could include the following::
If any of the above questions are answered with a "No" it is a sign to reevaluate the topics, discussions, and structure of Think Big and iterate to ensure the team gets the most value out of the meeting as possible.
There are many ways to gather feedback in a sync-meeting, one example is to use a Round Robin turn-based structure that gives everyone on the call an opportunity to share their thoughts quickly and efficiently. In each turn (which is about 1 minute long), participants are expected to respond with the following (in priority order)
Remember, the goal is to capture a quantity of specific feedback. While it may be tempting to start discussions around the design choices and feedback, this activity doesn't make for a proper forum. The designer will follow up with reviews asynchronously afterward in the issue(s) to start discussions and conversations around the feedback.
