Sharing How Great Was Our Group Reading Session "Learning from GitLab: How to Create the World's Most Advanced Remote Organization".

Hello, I am Awache (@_awache).
We were so fascinated by the book "{2 Learning from GitLab: How to Create the World's Most Advanced Remote Organization - How to use documents to achieve maximum results without an office ](https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4798179426)" that we decided to hold a group reading session with both people from the company and from outside. In this article, I'd like to share our efforts with you.

But first, let me announce our next get together: We will be hosting the ‘finale’ of the group reading session for "Learning from GitLab: How to Create the World's Most Advanced Remote Organization"

A bit sudden maybe but it’s important. You can see the details below:

• Connpass: Grand Finale of the group reading session for "Learning from GitLab: How to Create the World's Most Advanced Remote Organization"
  • Date and time: 18:00 - 21:00 (Opening at 17:40) Thursday, April 25, 2024
  • Event Type: Offline
  • Venue: Muromachi Office, KINTO Technologies Corporation
    This event is intended for those who have read the book and participated in the previous group reading sessions of "Learning from GitLab: How to Create the World's Most Advanced Remote Organization - How to use documents to achieve maximum results without an office", but it is also open to those who are currently reading it or plan to do so in the future.
    We will discuss how the group reading session was conducted in each of the companies, how was the reception, and gather insights from the book, aiming to create an open forum for all participants to engage in the discussions. There are still spots available, so if you are interested, please join us! We'd like to find ways for everyone to enjoy the session casually. (Though the irony is not lost on me that we will be meeting in person to discuss remote organizations lol)

Common Challenges at Group Reading Sessions

• Ensuring continuous participation
  • Regular gatherings are necessary to complete reading a book in a group setting. By dividing the book into reasonable portions and meeting once a week, it would take about 2 to 3 months.
• Dropping out in the middle
  • It is always challenging to continue anything for long periods of time,
  • so it’s natural that one by one the number of participants dwindle as the meetings progress.
  • If we fail to keep the participants motivated, we may end up with a very lonely group reading session.
• Difficulty of joining in the middle
  • Given the nature of book readings, the hurdle for participation typically rises in the middle stages. As a result, the number of participants is likely to decrease, with opportunities to increase the number of participants being very rare.
• Sustaining leadership
  • Various burdens for the leader
    • Pre-preparations
    • Securing time for participants
    • Facilitation
  • These are not one-offs, but continues until the end of the book.
  • It takes a lot of motivation to continue doing things alone
• Recognizing differences in reading speed and understanding among participants
  • The speed and comprehension level of reading varies depending on the participant. Without recognizing this, the group reading session will end up with a lot of tedious time without much discussion.
    So taking all the above into account, it is quite challenging to finish a book in a group setting, isn't it? I myself have many times dropped out in the middle a book or couldn't read it until the end.
    However, this time, I really wanted to share the ideas of this book widely within the company and I was strongly motivated to finish it until the end. So, I was trying to figure out how to solve these issues.
    For example, I hypothesized that we could approach the issue effectively by creating an opportunity to conduct group reading sessions on the same subject in different ways at multiple locations beyond the boundaries of the company, not only by ourselves but involving others, and share our findings at the end of the session. However, there are limits to what I can do alone.
    I consulted with @soudai1025-san, who is a technical advisor in our DBRE team, and with his cooperation, we decided to hold “A Sodai-Naru (Great) Group Reading Session.”

Organizing The Reading Session

Several companies:

1. Using a kickoff meeting as a trigger
2. Will set a time of about three months to hold a series of group reading sessions internally,
3. After which findings will be shared together at the end
   We decided to divide our event in the above three-stages.
   You can check out our kickoff session on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBgmGtpW15Q

How to Start a Group Reading Session

I will briefly describe what I prepared for the group reading session after the kickoff was over.

Gathering team members

First of all, we gathered willing participants through internal open channels. We reached out to people interested in group reading sessions and waited for volunteers to raise their hands. As a result, we got 14 people interested!

Transcription (Transcribing a book)

I was determined to transcribe the book from the moment I decided to lead the group reading session. I think that the action of transcribing, which enables reading, writing, and reviewing simultaneously, is an excellent activity for quickly understanding the content of a book. However, this book is over 300 pages, so one needs determination! lol

Purchasing books in bulk

It is mentioned in our career website as well, but KINTO Technologies allows you to purchase the books you need. Since several of the 14 people did not have it yet, we used this program and purchased the books in bulk for those who didn’t.

Thinking how to proceed with our in-house group reading session

I seriously considered how we could ensure that everyone enjoys the session without feeling any pressure whenever they attend. I will introduce the specific actions later. While I was pondering this, I realized that time was passing by fast and our in-house group reading session was set to February.

The In-house Group Reading Session Kickoff

Working Agreement

I shared with the participants a summary of what kind of atmosphere I would like to create. Here are the details:

• This session is designed with the aim of minimizing pressure on the participants:
  • Follow up with each other even if someone did not read the book
  • For the first 10 minutes, we'll have quiet reading time
• The main focus is on discussion, and the output is made public to create an atmosphere in which even those who are not actually participating can join in during the process.
  • Summarize every output and make it available to everyone
  • Record the session via Zoom and publish it (whenever possible)
  • The same content can be read multiple times
• Do not interfere when other participants are speaking
  • Be respectful and accepting of what participants say
• Stimulate free discussion
  • Conduct discussions in breakout rooms of up to 4 people
    • Conduct discussions in small groups reduces the psychological barrier to speaking up and allows each person to bring up what they want to discuss
  • Do not refuse participation from ROMs (Read Only Members)
    • When participating, communicate each ones’ situation to the rest of the participants to create an accepting atmosphere. Things like:
      • I won’t be able to talk today
      • Due to where I am working from today, I may not be able to talk much
• Everyone actively creates output
  • Minutes of discussions are actively logged by those who are available (e.g., those who can’t speak that day)

How we proceeded with the group reading session

I still believe that a certain timeline is desirable for ongoing discussions. Even if you are a little late but want to join the group reading session, it may be psychologically difficult to do so if the session is in the middle of a heated discussion. On the other hand, if you have some idea of what you are doing, for example, you may be able to join in the middle of the session because it is now quiet reading time.
That's why I decided to create a clear structure for us.

• Basic Format
  • Quiet reading time (10 minutes)
  • Discussion time (30 minutes)
  • Content sharing (20 minutes)
• Content of the Discussions
  • What I could relate to
  • What I could not relate to
  • What I want to put into practice at KINTO Technologies
    • Perhaps the results of what was put into practice could be shared in the next session
• Discussion content output
  • The agenda during the discussion is described in Google Slide
  • After the discussion, everyone shares the topics that came up

Selection of tools to use

• Gather
  Gather was chosen as the web meeting tool. Since our main focus was discussion, the idea was to engage with individuals who were comfortable talking with those attending. With Zoom, you have to make a breakout room every time, and it's hard to sort them out. Gather, a virtual office space perfectly suited our needs to gather everyone together and later move to small rooms for discussion. However, it is not suitable for sharing recordings, so we gave up on that. Instead, we made sure to keep logs so that we can review them later.
• Microsoft Loop
  Loop was chosen as our collaboration tool. KINTO Technologies has been using Confluence for the most part, but it has had some weaknesses when it came to collaborative editing, with several participants writing notes freely. We decided on Loop because the experience is not so different from Confluence, but it is less stressful.

Setting Up Additional Meetings

The time for our group reading session was set for every Tuesday from 18:00 to 19:00. It was a bit late, and it might overlap with prime time for those who have unexpected business schedules or for those with children. If you miss participation even once, the psychological hurdle to rejoining becomes higher. So, I decided to hold exactly the same content on the following Wednesday but from 12:00 to 13:00. This reduced the risk of missed participation, and the participants who attended the day before to have time to understand the content in more depth. Moreover, listening to other participants' perspectives provided them with new insights, making each session more enjoyable.

Leveraging Generative AI

As I mentioned in the Working Agreement above, I had a strong desire to create a place where people can still follow up each other without having to read the book. Although there is a quiet reading time in the first 10 minutes, it is rather challenging to read the required amount within 10 minutes. The strong allies that helped us were transcribing and ChatGPT. By summarizing the transcribed text by ChatGPT as much as needed, we realized even 10 minutes of quiet reading time can make a big difference in the quality of participants' input. For example, here is a summary of the first part. Don't you think that silent reading time would be effective when you can condense about 12 pages into this amount?
The original text is also available in Confluence, so if you find something you are interested in the summary, you can search for keywords to quickly find the point. Personally, this was such an important factor that I believe it was the main reason we were able to make it till the end.

In-house Group Reading Session

As a result, a total of 17 group reading sessions were held. I was able to make it through all 17 without being left alone until the end lol. Some people participated fully, while others came whenever they could. Despite variations in the number of participants per session due to some sessions being repeated, I found the number to be quite good in terms of participation per chapter.

• Part 1: Understanding the benefits of remote organizations / Part 2: Process to parallel the world's most advanced remote organization
  • February 13, 2024 (6 participants)
  • February 14, 2024 (9 participants)
• Chapter 5: Culture is fostered by value
  • February 21, 2024 (8 participants)
  • February 27, 2024 (4 participants)
  • February 28, 2024 (4 participants)
• Chapter 6: Rules of communication
  • March 5, 2024 (7 participants)
  • March 6, 2024 (5 participants)
• Chapter 7: The importance of onboarding in remote organizations / Chapter 8: Fostering psychological safety
  • March 13, 2024 (7 participants)
  • March 19, 2024 (5 participants)
• Chapter 9: Bringing out individual performance / Chapter 10: Human resource system based on GitHub Value
  • March 26, 2024 (7 participants)
  • March 27, 2024 (5 participants)
• Chapter 11: Managerial roles and mechanisms to support management & Chapter 12: Achieving conditioning
  • April 2, 2024 (6 participants)
  • April 3, 2024 (7 participants)
• Chapter 13: Using L&D to improve performance and engagement & Conclusion
  • April 9, 2024 (7 participants)
  • April 10, 2024 (5 participants)
• Wrap up!
  • April 16, 2024 (5 participants)
  • April 17, 2024 (4 participants)
    To learn more about what was discussed, please join us for the Finale of the group reading session for "Learning from GitLab: How to Create the World's Most Advanced Remote Organization"! Ultimately, this book contains extensive information on what we should be aiming for, and there were intense discussions about how it may collide with reality, which is a little difficult to write about. So, please let me talk about this topic on another day.

What we gained and produced through this group reading session

• Connections
  I was able to learn about the thoughts of those who participated through this group reading session, and I will continue to cherish these connections as I work to make KINTO Technologies a more exciting place to work. We have a channel called #thanks where we can openly express our gratitude towards each other. I was also very happy to receive warm messages from the participants on the final day of the group reading session. ! [thanks] (/assets/blog/authors/_awache/20240422/thanks.png = 750x)
• Transcription
  I feel that transcribing is an important process if I want to continue to lead group reading session in the future, as it allowed me to respond to the AI summary and various other topics that came up during the discussions.
• AI Summary
  Summaries output using generative AI are really powerful. You may forget where and what was written over time, but if you have a summary, a quick 10-minute look can recall your memory.
• Mandala Chart
  In my own way, I summarized the key points of this book in a mandala chart template. Of course, it is impossible to do everything, so I would like to set points and themes and increase what I can do little by little.

Conclusion

How was the group reading session for Learning from GitLab: How to Create the World's Most Advanced Remote Organization - How to use documents to achieve maximum results without an office? I was personally more satisfied with this session than any other I have held before, which is why I felt compelled to share it on our Tech Blog. In truth, there is much more I would like to write, but it would be too long, so I will stop here for now.

Reminder: We will be hosting the ‘finale’ of the group reading session for "Learning from GitLab: How to Create the World's Most Advanced Remote Organization"

There are still spots available. We will do our best to make it enjoyable session as well, so if you are willing to come, please apply! Thank you very much.

• Cnnpass: Grand Finale of the group reading session for "Learning from GitLab: How to Create the World's Most Advanced Remote Organization"
  • Date and time: 18:00 - 21:00 (Opening at 17:40) Thursday, April 25, 2024
  • Event Type: Offline
  • Venue: Muromachi Office, KINTO Technologies Corporation
    This event is intended for those who have already read the book and participated in the previous group reading sessions of Learning from GitLab: How to Create the World's Most Advanced Remote Organization - How to use documents to achieve maximum results without an office, but it is also open to those who are currently reading it or plan to do so in the future.
    We look forward to seeing you at the event!
    See you!