How it all works

The Slam in brief

Participants will be teamed and introduced to a fictitious organization (or maybe two), hereafter called “Company X” that needs input from an IA/UX team. Company X staff is represented by the Slam presenters, each of whom has a specific role within the organization.

Following a presentation of Company X and the specific project, teams will have exactly 1 hour to come up with a suggestion/solution and prepare suitable deliverables – whatever it takes to convince Company X to choose their team as the future development partner.

Each team will be given 7.23 minutes to make their official presentation. This will be followed by 3.77 minutes of questions from representatives of Company X – the judges.

At the IA Slam Review the following morning, the Slam presenters will explain the rationale behind their decisions and award absolutely fabulous prizes to the winners – guaranteed to generate looks of envy throughout the weekend. These unique collector’s items are not available in stores (not even eBay)…operators are standing by (well, Dick Hill is).

Picking teams

At the outset of the Slam, each participant will receive a mysterious, hermetically sealed envelope, the contents of which ultimately determines individual team membership (probably some old bit of colored paper). Until the actual time of the Slam, these envelopes will be safely hidden away in…well, if we told you, they wouldn’t be hidden, would they? As far as possible, all teams should be of statistically equal size with 6.3 people per team - which may require painful surgery for some participants.

If two or more people want to work together on the project, they will be allowed to “trade” themselves to other teams.  If 6 individuals want to work together, and announce their intentions to the presenters in advance of the Slam, every effort will be made to accommodate their wishes.

Under no circumstances will the Slam coordinators accept bribes. Not even really good ones. No, we just don’t believe in bribes. Nope. We only wanted to mention bribery here so no one wasted time thinking up a really, really appealing bribe. Thank goodness no one at the First Official IA Slam in Austin, Texas even tried to bribe us. Not a single person. Not even folks from the winning team (well, Laurie bought Eric a beer, but that was after the voting, but Laurie didn't know that).

Tools for the creation of deliverables

Officially, there is no internet access in the Slam room and there are no computers, apart from those used by Company X staff. However, a wide range of user-friendly analog communications devices and interfaces (including crayons, post-its, and big sheets of paper) will be available.

On the other hand, participants may bring in whatever digital equipment they desire, as long as this does not directly impede the work of the other teams (although making other teams jealous is perfectly acceptable and may give bonus points). Company X staff is not required to search for extension cords or help set up the equipment, so you probably don’t want to ask. Teams may use Company X’s video projector for their presentations, but not before.

Interviewing representatives of Company X

All four representatives of Company X will be circulating among the teams while they are working on their projects. Team members are welcome to ask Company X staff any questions regarding the company and its products. Company X staff will always answer to the best of their ability and will attempt to treat all teams equally, if not necessarily fairly. Remember, Company X staff is not required to volunteer information. Hence, the quality of the information you receive will often depend on your ability to ask relevant questions.

Teams that waste Company X’s time, or are suspected of monopolizing Company X staff in a conscious effort to prevent access by other teams, will be penalized.

Deliverables

What your team decides to provide is up to them. In fact, the only “required” deliverable is a single sheet of paper on which your team briefly outlines the “big idea” and up to three other ideas that make their work unique and valuable. See “Presentations.”

If you think it’s important to dazzle us with your Visio and PowerPoint skills, great. But you will be judged on the merits of your ideas and the communicative qualities of your presentation, not necessarily its execution. That said, although neatness is nice, legibility is a must.

Presentation

At the end of the hour, all deliverables will be collected and sequestered. Each team must submit their “big idea” sheet to Company X staff before the presentations can start.

Teams will be called up in random order by pulling pieces of colored paper from a hat. After the first presentation, the second card will be drawn. After the second presentation, the third card will be drawn, etc. Not particularly high-tech, but effective nonetheless.

If a team takes longer than 3 minutes to set up, they will be penalized.

Team presentations must not last longer than 7 minutes and will be automatically cut off if they exceed this limit. All judges have received advanced training in the use of both airhorns and six-shooters. At least three minutes should be allowed for Q&A, over and above the initial 7 minutes. However, if a team only uses 3 minutes for their presentation and 2 minutes for Q&A, they may use the remaining 5 minutes to sing a song or do a dance – assuming they haven’t already given us a song and a dance.

Judging criteria

The judges will examine qualities relating to:

• Specific proposal
• Deliverables/take-aways
• Presentation
• Team behavior
• Other sneaky stuff that we won’t tell you about

The specifics within each of these areas will not be available until after the Slam. And even then we might not tell you.

Moreover, throughout the course of the afternoon, Company X staff may award points to a team or penalize them as they see fit. As opposed to the real world, cheating and idea-stealing are NOT acceptable at the IA Slam and both will be dealt with summarily and harshly.

Although the judges will make a modest attempt to be fair, like real life, they reserve the right to be as nasty and arbitrary as they wish. The decisions of the judges are always final. And we also reserve the right to change these rules at any time (but only to make things even more fun).

Want to know more? Check out our main IA Slam page. Ready to come to Montreal? Check out the full program at the official ASIST conference site.

Legal disclaimer: These Rules of Engagement have been officially certified by the Royal Canadian Association for Information Architecture Slamming. You could visit their website at http://www.rcaias.org if they had one.