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A guide to the Design System monthly chat

Every month, the team hosts a session with the wider community. The sessions are usually a mix of show & tells, and lean coffee discussions. They are hosted on Zoom, and are ticketed with space for 500 attendees.

The goal of the monthly chat is for the GOV.UK Design System to share and celebrate their work with users whilst also creating a space for other members in the community to share their work. It’s also a space where facilitated conversations can take place on topics the Design System team are keen to learn more about.

How we plan the session

We create holds for future events months in advance so the team is aware when they are happening. We try to host the sessions on different weekdays each month to accommodate different working patterns.

In the weeks leading up to the session, a planning chat will take place between the community designer, delivery managers and team leads. In this session it will be agreed what show & tells will be prioritised, and appropriate lean coffee topics.

The community manager and delivery managers will then ensure speakers are recruited, and the session is supported and organised.

How support the session

There are various roles required in running the monthly chat. They are:

Facilitator

Introduces the session and general housekeeping Introduces speakers Facilitates questions for show & tells Leads the lean coffee discussion

Speaker

  • delivers a show & tell
  • answers questions regarding their show & tell

Retro host

  • designs an appropriate retro on Padlet
  • facilitates the retro during the call

Chat moderator (min. 2 people)

  • answers questions in the Zoom chat from attendees
  • shares links from the presentations

Troubleshooter

  • logs into the admin account during the session
  • records the session to their computer
  • enables captions and transcript
  • sets up breakout rooms
  • allocates co-hosts

Notetaker

  • records notes from the playback of the lean coffee discussions

Screen sharer

  • screen shares the presentation
  • allocates co-presenter so others can move slides
  • takes no other active role in the session as this interferes with screen sharing

How to promote the session

Comms and tickets for the session should be published at least two weeks in advance of the call. This is to give community members enough notice to attend.

Comms are sent out via the mailing list on Mailchimp, and on our Slack channels. Tickets are created via Eventbrite.

How to prepare for the session

Before the event, ensure all volunteer roles are filled. This is the responsibility of the delivery manager assigned to community work.

We should aim to have prepared the slide deck a week before the session so it can be shared with attendees in advance. This is generally best accessibility practice. If you are presenting or doing a demo, you should do a practice run before the session to check you are within the time allocated. You should check links and email addresses are correct and working.

If you are due to speak at the event, it is advised that you access Zoom via the desktop app rather than the browser. This is because accessing Zoom through a browser will prevent you from being able to “drive” the slide deck during your presentation. During the session the host will be able to give you co-presenter permissions which enables you to view your speaker notes on the same screen as the slide. It’s also helpful to have a quiet room to present from to limit background noise.

If using the desktop app, ensure the correct permissions are in place on your PC so you’re able to screen share, and share audio and video. You can do this via going to ‘System Settings’ — ‘Privacy & Security’ — ‘Screen and System Audio Recording’ and enabling permission for Zoom. You may need to restart Zoom for this to take effect. Follow the same steps for enabling ‘Microphone’ and ‘Video” within ‘Privacy & Security’.

After the session

The recording of the session should be uploaded to the team drive ready for editing. Transcripts should also be saved here and converted to a format that can be reviewed and edited by the team. Once edited, the recording and transcript can be shared with GDS comms & events team to be uploaded to YouTube. Once published, comms can be shared with our community to promote the video.