Deep Talk Method workshop

On 01 February 2021, we held a workshop on the deep talk method.

Instructors: Tuula Valkonen.

Tuula Valkonen, the developer of Deep Talk with the assistance of Maria Ntinda and Erkki Sutinen organized a workshop on the Deep Talk method. The workshop aimed to provide an opportunity for new graduates to open-up about their industry expectations and build confidence at their workplace. The Deep Talk method allows individuals or a community to play a game based on ancient stories, intending to empower each other through storytelling. With the Deep Talk method, the understanding of the game is built throughout the session where the session follows four spaces: (1) the story; (2) wondering; (3) communal play and (4) sharing.

The workshop consisted of six participants with a background in Software Engineering and was led by Tuula, who facilitated the session throughout by employing a storytelling technique. The story is divided into three series and after a series of questions, participants are asked to change positions. The session began with Tuula telling a story about a desert as shown in the video below, followed by well-defined questions.

During the session, participants would then wonder and share their thoughts and learn the language of values, attitudes, and ethics by a dialogue. The session showed how employees could express themselves freely and learn about their peers in a work environment. Participants explored how the method can be further developed to support software engineering students’ professional identity and its growth, and their communication competencies. The session will be described in detail in a conference paper that will be linked to this article upon publication.