Week 1 Tutorial: Observing the Method for the First Time

The observe/isolate/describe method, rehearsed once on a norm nobody in the room has any stake in, before anyone picks a real topic.

27 July 2027

This week’s Drop-in Session (see Orientation) is where the activity actually happens: watching how people queue for a shared coffee machine and isolating the smallest deliberate act that breaks the queue. This page covers the two things that go with it — what to record, and what to take away.

Activity#

In small groups, watch a queue for a genuinely low-stakes resource — a coffee machine, a shared printer, a water cooler — and note who cuts in, who lets someone in, and how the people already waiting respond, if at all.

Record your reaction#

Write down exactly what you saw, in the order it happened: who did what, and how the queue reacted. Resist the urge to summarise it as “someone was rude.” The method asks for the specific act, not the verdict.

Reflection#

In one paragraph, state the norm you think was operating, the smallest deliberate act that broke it, and precisely what happened next. This is the shape every case-study week from here on will take.