About two weeks I and four other members we finished our first “Working Out Loud” circle.

For all the five of us it was a completely new way to work on a personal goal while having a constant exchange with other people. Most of us didn’t know each other three months ago.

What is Working Out Loud (WOL)

WOL was developed by John Stepper, to give employees of big companies the possibility to work on self development in small groups. The limited size of this peer group makes it easier to build deeper relationships much faster and come to better exchanges quicker.

Each employee is motivated and when the group is made up of cross-deparment, also the company benefits from the newly found relations that wouldn’t have occured without a circle

John stepper describe it on the WOL Homepage:

Working Out Loud is a way to build relationships that help you achieve a goal, develop a skill, or explore a new topic. Instead of networking to get something, you invest in relationships by making contributions over time, including your work and experiences that you make visible.

Source: https://workingoutloud.com/de/about

How did I get to know WOL?

The first time I heard about Working Out Loud was two or three years ago. My brother had just started his first circle, of which the members still meet these days, support and learn from each other.

Back then this topic wasn’t of any interest for me, but after starting a new job I had a goal that I could focus on.

Alas, not only new years resolutions have the tendency to be left for dead quite quickly, but also goals you come up with during the course of the year.

After getting some feedback from my brother I decided to give WOL a chance.

How did I find interested people?

Since I wanted to work on a technical skill I had to starting points for my search. The first one was the Software Crafters Slack Channel and the second one was Twitter. I posted a short message to the main Slack channel and dropped of a tweet and waited.

About a week later I had five people who were interested in starting a circle and shortly after we planned our first meeting.

What’s to come

In the second part I’ll get into the details on how our meetings went, what I learned and what else the WOL circle did for me.