Review [5 minutes]

Last week, at the end of the Metalearning workshop, you chose a skill to work on and ended the workshop with a "next action" for learning that skill. How are things going?

Introduction [5 minutes]

ROSE has spent the last several years developing a systemized path for self improvement. It is time to take what we have learned and see what we can collectively create together. We have always wanted the Guild to do things, and we have also had repeated requests to have inter-cohort collaboration and competition. This is our way of accomplishing both.

Over the upcoming months, we hope to phase out some of our weekly workshops in favor of 'Quest Sessions', a time where the Guild works together on a project. The tentative model is for each month to have 2-3 weeks of Quest Sessions, a Level Up session, and a traditional workshop session.

This will make your Cohort meetings more important; they will be where you can process workshop content, for those of you who need help on your personal journey (particularly for newer people who have not attended workshops).

We may also incorporate some other kind of “office hours” for instructors, where people can drop in to learn workshop material and ask questions, but this is very much an experimental idea.

It's important that our members have creative control over this, so today’s “workshop” session is an open forum for us to discuss what you envision the Guild can do for Quests. If you are new to the Guild, all the better! You can provide a unique perspective as someone who isn't attached to our current ways of doing things. Our goal is to generate a soft list of Quest proposals, which the Council will then pick from.

We are deliberately refusing to provide specific examples to avoid biasing your ideas, but some important criteria are:

• Quests should be fun to participate in. You should personally enjoy the process and end result of the Quest. People on the outside looking in should think to themselves “Wow, they are having a lot of fun doing that, I’d like to join them.” To this end, Quests should have something for anyone regardless of which Guild Archetype they emphasize in their personal journey.
• Quests should not bring shame to the Guild. Do not mistake Quests for some kind of “service project”; they can be entirely for our own benefit, ranging from the practical to the silly. However, it should be at least neutral to people outside the Guild.
• Quests do not have to be a digital/technical project. Anyone should be able to help on a Quest using a highschool education and our existing workshop material.

Babble and Prune [30 minutes]

'Babble and Prune' is a technique for idea generation. It consists of two stages:

1. Babble: Generate an indiscriminate list of ideas with no consideration for feasibility, silliness, or "cringiness". It is vital not to be judgmental or shame these ideas; that would ruin the algorithm.
2. Prune: analyze each idea with nuance. Most ideas will probably not be good, but try to gauge roughly how much it isn't a good idea, and if there is anything salvageable from it.

Babble [15 minutes]

Everyone, spend the next 10 minutes generating a list of possible Quests the Guild can do. Write down the minimal viable description for each. Try to come up with 5-20 ideas.

Try using both focused mode and diffused mode thinking for this. Spend a few minutes brute-forcing the list, then spend a few minutes standing up and walking around to clear your mind. These two different ways of thinking can help break you out of a rut.

After 10 minutes, post your list in your Cohort channel (not the general or voice text chat). Take an additional 5 minutes to read everyone's responses, but do not respond or react yet. We will then take a break while we ruminate on them.

Break [5 minutes]

Prune [10 minutes]

Everyone, share your top 2-3 favorite ideas from the total list of ideas generated. Include one of the less reasonable ideas and how we might be able to get something out of it (again, do not condescend anyone's ideas).

Create Quest Proposals [50 minutes]

We should now have a total pruned list of roughly 15 ideas. Each person in the cohort will select one idea to champion. Discuss the following questions about your championed idea with your cohort and record the answers here.

1. What resources would be required for this Quest?
2. What is the most tedious/challenging part of this proposed Quest, and how can we make it less tedious/challenging?
3. What would be the most fun part about this Quest, and how can we make sure we emphasize that throughout the Quest?
4. How can other Cohorts from other workshop sessions be collaborated with? Can we turn this into a friendly competition?

Conclusion

Submit your quest proposal form before leaving for the day. If you don't have time to answer all the questions now, or have some changes to make later, edit your submission at your convenience.