Five Minutes on Anything

Volunteers give a five-minute talk about something they care about outside work — sourdough, Formula One pit strategy, the Dutch railway timetable, moths. You learn more about who your colleagues are in one session than in a year of stand-ups.

What it is good for

• Cross-team networkingConnecting people who would otherwise never share a meeting.
• Pure funNo learning objective. Sometimes that is the correct answer.
• RecognitionMaking good work visible to people other than the manager.
• InclusionDesigning participation so the loudest voice does not set the pace.

What you need

• A screen, if people want slides
• A visible five-minute timer

The run sheet

1. Ask for six volunteers, not sixty (prep)

   Six talks is a good hour. Ask by direct message rather than a group call for volunteers — the interesting people rarely raise their hand in a channel.

2. Ban work subjects explicitly (prep)

   The rule is the activity. Without it you get three roadmap updates and the session is dead.

3. Hard five-minute limit (per talk)

   Visible countdown, and you stop people at five. Everyone forgives a hard stop; nobody forgives a fifteen-minute talk on moths.

4. Two questions, then next (per talk)

   Two questions maximum, which keeps the energy up and means the sixth speaker gets the same room as the first.

Facilitator notes

• Slides optional, and say so loudly. Requiring slides halves your volunteers.
• Run it monthly and keep a running list of who has spoken. The person who says no in month one usually says yes in month four.
• If you have a large and quiet group, seed the first session with two people you have asked privately and who you know will be good.

Debrief questions

Ask these immediately afterwards, not next week. Fifteen minutes of these is what turns the activity into something the team refers back to — see the debrief guide.

1. Who do you now want to ask about something?
2. What subject should we hear about next month, and who should give it?

Variations