Conducting the Interpreter's Lab Meeting

Key Insight

The interpreter's lab meeting aims to challenge internal assumptions and cultivate deeper insights into newly envisioned meanings. To ensure productive depth of reflection, interpreters are briefed 2 to 3 weeks prior, clarifying the target people and life experience under investigation. Crucially, the brief shares underlying 'assumption questions' derived from the meaning factory, rather than disclosing the team's strategic directions, allowing interpreters freedom to elaborate insights without bias.

The meeting is structured around clustered themes, with each interpreter leading a discussion on a chosen theme. The lead interpreter initiates by presenting a metaphorical object, song, or picture that embodies their emotional and symbolic interpretation, followed by background from their research or experience. This use of metaphor helps keep the conversation at an immediate, intuitive level, anchoring abstract concepts in tangible experiences.

After the lead interpreter's introduction, the discussion expands to all participants, including other interpreters and the internal team. This fosters both 'clashing' of different viewpoints and 'fusing' to explore the reasons behind these differences, aiming for novel interpretations rather than consensus. Following the lab, an intense debriefing session reorganizes all captured insights, allowing the internal team to reframe their original meaning directions, identify any overlooked meanings, and prepare for subsequent user testing.