I am working on facilitating a workshop (6 to 8 hrs) for a new project.
As the team is working from home, it will be challenging to keep people engaged throughout when they are just connecting over audio or video call or may be few people might just dial in from there mobiles (considering worst case due to connectivity issues).
I am looking for views, ideas about how to conducted such a workshop, effectiveness of workshop and if any new out of box ideas which might help. Saving Changes...
Biren ParekhDirector| CRISILMumbai, Maharastra, India
The best way to keep team engaged & involved in the workshop is to make it highly interactive whether video call is possible or not. Assign some preparatory work to the team pre-workshop & ask each team member to lead & drive the discussions. Also you can ask some of team member to take minutes (domain-wise) so that they will be also attentive. And yes, you can also keep seeking views, comments in round-robin manner so that people will contribute to the workshop.
Optionally, you can also announce some (token or otherwise) reward for contributing maximum suggestions or comments which are accepted and reasonable, if situation persists.
This way team will remain involved & contribute to the workshop making it effective.
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1 reply by Tarun Nair
May 30, 2020 10:25 AM
Tarun Nair
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Thank you Biren, few suggestions I can take here and think upon. Actually as the workshop will be completely remote and individuals will connect from home. It looks to be challenging to judge and facilitate as we do not see people.
You may want to look at virtual collaboration tools to inject a number of interactive, immersive exercises into the workshop. You could use this for things like ice breakers, establishing team ground rules, high level WBS definition and so on.
Miro is an awesome product which we use but there are many others as well which will let you be as creative and engaging as necessary!
Kiron
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1 reply by Tarun Nair
May 30, 2020 10:39 AM
Tarun Nair
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Thank you Kiron.
I had a short view on miro preview, looks interesting. I will look for details.
Thanks for other points also, we do have them in practice for face to face workshops we do.
But I feel it would be a bit difficult to keep the engagement and energy for almost fullday workshop as participants are @ home, which might affect the environment.
The best way to keep team engaged & involved in the workshop is to make it highly interactive whether video call is possible or not. Assign some preparatory work to the team pre-workshop & ask each team member to lead & drive the discussions. Also you can ask some of team member to take minutes (domain-wise) so that they will be also attentive. And yes, you can also keep seeking views, comments in round-robin manner so that people will contribute to the workshop.
Optionally, you can also announce some (token or otherwise) reward for contributing maximum suggestions or comments which are accepted and reasonable, if situation persists.
This way team will remain involved & contribute to the workshop making it effective.
Thank you Biren, few suggestions I can take here and think upon. Actually as the workshop will be completely remote and individuals will connect from home. It looks to be challenging to judge and facilitate as we do not see people. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
My daily work life from 25 years ago, taking into account that in the past (not to much ago) I have the possibility to use phone calls only. Here my comments: 1-Trust is the key. If you do not trust and the team do not trust each other forget about to do this type of things. 2-Ground rules has to be clear from the begining. This type of things must be planned and the plan along with pre assigned tasks must be distributed in advance with the enough time. Key to gain into engagement is end the workshop with acitivites and deliverables assinged to each person/group. This will help to people pay attention. 3-When you start, review the plan and objectives. 4-using skype or zoom could be great but if not you have to keep people focused by making a pull of questions or something like that giving people the opportunity to express each one.
You may want to look at virtual collaboration tools to inject a number of interactive, immersive exercises into the workshop. You could use this for things like ice breakers, establishing team ground rules, high level WBS definition and so on.
Miro is an awesome product which we use but there are many others as well which will let you be as creative and engaging as necessary!
Kiron
Thank you Kiron.
I had a short view on miro preview, looks interesting. I will look for details.
Thanks for other points also, we do have them in practice for face to face workshops we do.
But I feel it would be a bit difficult to keep the engagement and energy for almost fullday workshop as participants are @ home, which might affect the environment.
My daily work life from 25 years ago, taking into account that in the past (not to much ago) I have the possibility to use phone calls only. Here my comments: 1-Trust is the key. If you do not trust and the team do not trust each other forget about to do this type of things. 2-Ground rules has to be clear from the begining. This type of things must be planned and the plan along with pre assigned tasks must be distributed in advance with the enough time. Key to gain into engagement is end the workshop with acitivites and deliverables assinged to each person/group. This will help to people pay attention. 3-When you start, review the plan and objectives. 4-using skype or zoom could be great but if not you have to keep people focused by making a pull of questions or something like that giving people the opportunity to express each one.
Thank you Sergio for your comments.
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1 reply by Sergio Luis Conte
May 30, 2020 6:40 PM
Sergio Luis Conte
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You are welcome. It is some of the things I do each day.
Saving Changes...
Drew CraigSr. Agile & Product Coach| VanguardPhiladelphia, Pa, United States
However able to keep the audience engaged. Either through interactive material, both verbal and/or through collaboration tools such as Miro, Mural, Cardboardit, etc. Additionally, keep sessions as short as possible with breaks to help get people up and moving around, otherwise, they will tune out and begin to multi-task. Having the audience on video is ideal, but not always practical (low connectivity/bandwidth, or other restrictions).
Take a look at concepts from Liberating Structures or Training from the Back of the Room (TBR) for ideas.
Something else I've tried to do is share the content more from a storytelling perspective than reading powerpoint slides. Let the slides sit in the background of the narrative, less content on the slides will keep the audience focused on your storytelling, i.e., pictures over words.
Let us know what you come up with and how it goes.
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1 reply by Tarun Nair
May 31, 2020 11:55 AM
Tarun Nair
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Thank you Andrew for your suggestions, specially for Liberating structures and TBR. I will check for details.
The workshop possibilities are in discussion. Not sure if it will be finally happening or will be canceled due to current COVID19 situation. Still I would like to explore all possibilities to make it happen effectively. I will surely update on final approach and how it went.
Saving Changes...
Milena IlievaProgram Manager Global accounts| VMWareVienna, Austria
Hi Tarun,
What is this workshop - planning, kick off, brainstorming..
I think the way workshop is to be done depends on the way of interactions between the participants. There have been a lot of good suggestions and tools, the only thought I have is that duration of 6-8 hours online workshop for a relatively new team, may be challenging to achieve objectives. Have you considered splitting the workshop into two or three parts? It seems to me a big challenge for a project team that is just starting to work together in a new manner.
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1 reply by Tarun Nair
May 31, 2020 12:03 PM
Tarun Nair
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Hi Milena,
I agree with your view for possible splitting it in two three sessions, I am also thinking on that part. The usual flow is to do it in one long session, but that happens by meeting in-person. Now it might be more effective if we split it. Need to look at this options based on possibilities.
Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
May 30, 2020 10:44 AM
Replying to Tarun Nair
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Thank you Sergio for your comments.
You are welcome. It is some of the things I do each day. Saving Changes...
However able to keep the audience engaged. Either through interactive material, both verbal and/or through collaboration tools such as Miro, Mural, Cardboardit, etc. Additionally, keep sessions as short as possible with breaks to help get people up and moving around, otherwise, they will tune out and begin to multi-task. Having the audience on video is ideal, but not always practical (low connectivity/bandwidth, or other restrictions).
Take a look at concepts from Liberating Structures or Training from the Back of the Room (TBR) for ideas.
Something else I've tried to do is share the content more from a storytelling perspective than reading powerpoint slides. Let the slides sit in the background of the narrative, less content on the slides will keep the audience focused on your storytelling, i.e., pictures over words.
Let us know what you come up with and how it goes.
Thank you Andrew for your suggestions, specially for Liberating structures and TBR. I will check for details.
The workshop possibilities are in discussion. Not sure if it will be finally happening or will be canceled due to current COVID19 situation. Still I would like to explore all possibilities to make it happen effectively. I will surely update on final approach and how it went. Saving Changes...
