{"id":3664,"date":"2020-12-17T16:18:17","date_gmt":"2020-12-17T07:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdg.neuromagic.com\/?p=3664"},"modified":"2022-01-27T16:53:08","modified_gmt":"2022-01-27T07:53:08","slug":"remote-workshop-tips-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sdg.neuromagic.com\/en\/remote-workshop-tips-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Secrets for Remote Workshop Success [4 Tips for Facilitators]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Though remote work has it’s perks, there are certainly a few downfalls\u2014 especially when it comes to maintaining efficient, clear communication with colleagues. What could’ve been a 5 minute chat in the office ends up as a winding Slack thread, your quick meeting turns into a long back-and-forth conference call… it’s hard to keep track of what’s said, where.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Design Sprints<\/a> and workshops like the Marketing Alignment Workshop<\/a> can help! Use them to gather everyone in one place with a clear schedule and itinerary with pre-decided methods for decision-making to get everyone on the same page, efficiently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Workshop Activities<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
  1. Individual Ideatio<\/a><\/strong>n<\/strong><\/a><\/li>
  2. Idea Sharin<\/a><\/strong>g<\/strong><\/a><\/li>
  3. Voting<\/a><\/strong><\/li>
  4. Discussion<\/strong><\/a><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    The 4 basic activities in a workshop or design sprint are ideation, idea sharing, voting, and discussion. So, we split up these tips based on each step in the remote workshop process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Before you run your remote workshop, you’ll need to make sure you’re prepared, so check out our article about best practices Design Sprint\/Workshop Preparation here<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    To start, we’ll assume you have a video call open with your participants, as well as an interactive digital whiteboard for people to create sticky notes, share, categorize ideas, and vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    1. Ideation: Keep Everyone Focused During Individual Work<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Provide (quiet) Encouragement<\/mark><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    \"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

    Often during ideation exercises, workshop participants get held up wondering if the ideas they come up with are “correct”. One big advantage to the online whiteboard you will use during your remote workshop is that you can see what participants are writing in real time. When getting started with ideation exercises, it helps to make a few encouraging comments about the sticky notes showing up on the board to let participants know they are on the right track.<\/mark> It’s important to reinforce participants’ confidence, so they feel comfortable sharing their ideas freely.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    However, besides a few comments for encouragement, it’s best to keep quiet and not share too many opinions during individual work<\/mark>, so participants can focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Concentrate Until the Clock Runs Out<\/mark><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    Each activity in your workshop should be time-boxed. Most digital whiteboards have features where you can set at timer on everyone’s board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It’s common for participants to think they’ve exhausted every idea possible, and stop working before time is up. During an in-person workshop, participants will usually keep writing just because they can see the people around them are\u2014 unfortunately this doesn’t hold up through a computer screen.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Some of the best ideas come from pushing yourself when you’re sure you’ve thought of everything already, so make sure to encourage participants to keep writing and push out as many ideas as possible until the very end of the time block you’ve set!<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    2. Sharing: Stay Organized<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Grouping by the Facilitator Only<\/mark><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    \"\"
    \u25b2 Grouping similar sticky notes on miro<\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

    After everyone’s written their ideas out on sticky notes, it’s time to share. Before the next step (voting), similar sticky notes should be grouped together. This way, votes for similar ideas don’t get diluted, and the board\/canvas\/table itself doesn’t get too overloaded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    During in-person sprints and workshops participants can do the grouping themselves as they share or afterwards. For remote sprints however, it’s best to only have the facilitator or facilitator’s assistant grouping sticky notes.<\/mark> This way you can avoid having several people trying to move the same sticky notes, or accidentally placing them in the wrong place. Digital whiteboards can be tricky, so it’s best that facilitators, who are the most comfortable using them, handle this step.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    After all the sticky notes are grouped by idea, ask participants if they’re comfortable with the grouping or think any sticky notes need to be moved around and adjust accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    3. Voting: Pick Your Voting Method<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Built-in vs. Custom Voting Methods<\/mark><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    \"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

    After sharing ideas, it’s time for a voting session! This can sometimes be followed by a final vote from a pre-determined decision maker. During in-person workshops, you can use sticker dot voting to create a heat map, showing where stickers are concentrated throughout the sticky notes that are posted on our canvas\/board\/table. So how can do we vote remotely?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Well, the two most common digital whiteboards for workshopping, miro and MURAL, both have excellent voting functions, and you can use them as they are. However, you can also manually create a small circle that imitates a sticker and copy and paste it to imitate in-person dot voting. Let’s go over the advantages and disadvantages of each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    \u25a0 Digital Whiteboard Built-In Voting Feature<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Pros<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n