Strategic planning is an organizational strategy used in companies of all sizes, across business verticals. It provides a roadmap for a company’s future. In this post, we’ll cover what strategic planning is and when it should be utilized. Strategic planning companies are experts in the key aspects of the strategic planning process and can help organizations outline and implement strategic planning initiatives. Organizations without a strategic planning foundation and forward-thinking process are much more likely to face roadblocks or even worse, potential bankruptcy.  

What is Strategic Planning? 

Let’s review what strategic planning is and then we’ll discuss when strategic planning and the help of a strategic planning company should be utilized, 

Strategic planning, as defined by Indeed, is “a process used by organizations to identify their goals, the strategies necessary to accomplish those goals, and the internal performance management system that will be used to monitor and evaluate progress. Most organizations use a SWOT or gap analysis to identify the underlying factors driving their current performance. This, in turn, informs the selection of the most high-leverage strategies to create change. The strategic planning process culminates in the development of a strategic plan document that serves as the organization’s collective roadmap.” 

Elements and components of a strategic plan include:

• Mission and vision statements for context
• Goal setting
• Strategy implementation timelines
• Progress monitoring timelines
• Benchmarks and/or objectives that inform progress towards goals and how they support the mission and values
• Defining how and when progress will be tracked
• Outline of roles and responsibilities for each employee or team

While each company and its strategic plan will be unique, many strategic planning frameworks include some variation on the following phases:

• Initial organizational analysis or assessment
• High level strategy formulation and development
• Strategic plan documentation 
• Translation of high level plan into operational planning and action items
• Performance evaluation 
• Strategic plan review and refinement as needed

If strategic planning sounds like something that your organization or team could benefit from (spoiler alert: most companies will benefit), you may consider working with a strategic planning company to develop the plan, especially if this is your first time utilizing the framework.

5 Ideal Times to Work with a Strategic Planning Company 

1. You’re First Starting a Business

Having a strategic plan in place when you first start a business will be helpful in setting your business up for success. It will provide structure during a confusing and often chaotic time, and helps to keep everyone focused on key priorities. In a new organization’s case, a strategic plan would be one smaller piece of the larger business plan (such as financial and marketing plans). Strategic planning companies are especially useful in this scenario, as they provide the expertise and guidance that brand new organizations often lack.

2. During Turbulent or Changing Times

We all learned recently how much a pandemic changes and impacts various industries and the way we work in general. Times like these, when the market experiences significant changes, are another ideal time to adopt strategic planning and strategic planning companies for a go-forward strategy. Strategic planning can provide clarity and organization during uncertain times. In light of recent events, an effective strategic plan looks a lot different today than a few years ago, in large part due to the increasingly hybrid workplace. Your team members are probably not in the same location, or even if they are, may not all be coming into a physical office. Many organizations had to develop strategic plans when determining how to successfully work in this hybrid and virtual environment. 

Pro Tip: Lean into this new remote-first environment and ensure your team is set up for success by having the right tools and tech in place. 

3. Before Launching a New Product or Feature

Strategic planning companies can help accelerate innovation during a new product or feature launch through design sprints and innovation exercises. This will ensure your team has their best foot forward during a key business time period when stakes are high and there are many variables and moving pieces. Learn about when you should run a design sprint here and how Voltage Control can help here. 

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4. Following a Merger or Acquisition with Another Company

Mergers and acquisitions are never easy or straightforward but are a necessary and natural part of business. Having a strategic plan in place during M&A will help with team alignment, collaboration training, and team culture, even if your team is remote. A strategic planning company can help put together a strategic plan in order to make the transition time more clear and set goals and expectations accordingly. As an unbiased third party, they are removed from office politics and provide a neutral voice during a complicated experience.    

5. During a Change in Leadership

Similar to the above, a strategic plan and strategic planning company will provide clarity and an unbiased view during a change in organizational leadership, especially important when happening at the senior level. In addition to assisting with the strategic plan development, the strategic planning company can bring in an expert to help facilitate meetings and conversations. A facilitator is someone who plans, designs, and leads a key group meeting or event and can help when dealing with larger or sensitive topics. They offer a non-biased opinion and take care of logistics while making sure everyone stays on track. 

Pro Tip: Check out Facilitation Lab, our weekly virtual meetup focused on helping facilitators hone their craft to help improve the quality of meetings. Control the Room, Voltage Control’s Annual Facilitator Summit, is another resource for facilitators. The summit provides facilitators with the opportunity to deepen their knowledge on how to facilitate meetings that matter and connect with other facilitation and meeting practitioners.

Strategic planning is a necessary (and exciting!) process when an organization wants to set and identify vision and goals and determine future initiatives. Strategic planning often occurs at the onset of a new business venture or product, or during a time of change and uncertainty. Organizations considering strategic planning should also consider utilizing strategic planning companies. They, as an unbiased third party, bring expertise and guidance, promote team alignment and provide a more streamlined process.

Create your strategic plan today

Does your organization need help developing a strategic plan? Voltage Control offers training and facilitation services. Reach out to hello@voltagecontrol.com to learn more or schedule a consultation.  

The post What is Strategic Planning and When Should You Utilize It? appeared first on Voltage Control.

Welcome to Magical Meetings Stories, a series where I chat with professional facilitators, meeting practitioners, leaders, and CEOs across industries about their meeting culture. We dive deep into a specific magical meeting they’ve run, including their approach to facilitation design, and their tips and tricks for running meetings people thrive in. 

Today’s story is with Petra Wille, an independent product leadership coach and author of Strong Product People: A Complete Guide to Developing Great Product Managers who has been helping product teams boost their skill sets and up their game since 2013. Alongside her freelance work, Petra co-organizes and curates Mind the Product Engage Hamburg, Germany. 

“There’s a saying from the world of coaching: ‘You can’t push the car you’re sitting in.’ It’s the same principle – if, as a product manager, you spot patterns emerging before everyone else, it’s because you’re not really a part of the team. And that’s an advantage you should put to good use.” -Petra Wille

I spoke with Petra about a meeting she designed called Team Radar, the purpose of the meeting, what it helped accomplish, and why it was so powerful.

Showing is Better than Telling

Team Radar was originally prompted when Petra realized she was missing some of the tools and meeting structures she needed to be an effective lateral leader to her product development team. She was searching for a structure that could help her surface topics in a retrospective without dictating the group discussion or directly providing her recommended solution or ideal outcome. Rather, she wanted a way to have the team working on the project or deliverables be able to discuss and ideate, as the direct team can usually come up with workable solutions that work best for them. She wanted to provide the framework to productively discuss and show them that they could figure out the problem on their own, rather than her simply telling them a solution.

“You know that moment when you realize that something is not quite right in the team? Often you think you know straight away what needs improvement, but for some reason, the team can’t see what you’re seeing. What’s wrong with them? It’s so obvious!

There’s nothing wrong with them. There’s a saying from the world of coaching: ‘You can’t push the car you’re sitting in.’ It’s the same principle – if, as a product manager, you spot patterns emerging before everyone else, it’s because you’re not really a part of the team. And that’s an advantage you should put to good use.” -Petra Wille

Petra explained an Agile coach recommended she utilize a spider web graphic with eight axes, with labels for each “leg” (or axis) and a scale (1-7) for each of the axes. Each axis represents a topic to be discussed in the meeting as shown in the example below: 

This structure helps Petra set up some of the topics to have the team discuss them, but then also gives her a chance to observe their take on them rather than her influencing the discussion or decisions. “I was on the lookout for a facilitation method to actually bring this conversation up without me telling them what to do because there was no right or wrong. I was fine with either way, but I wanted them to discuss it to avoid this tension building up,” she said.

Petra has used the Team Radar meeting with various teams she’s coached and worked with. She explained that the meeting purpose varies depending on the specific team situation she’s working with, but that it is fundamentally designed around gaining alignment, understanding, and clarity. “The purpose of this meeting is that a team of people discusses several topics and that somebody else sees what’s in it for them. So, do they consider it a problem? Do they think they’re doing fine and it’s not something we need to tackle now? It’s a management tool, actually, more or less.”

Let’s take a closer look at Petra’s process to learn what made this meeting magical.

The Meeting

Pre-Meeting Prep

Petra’s outline for how to prepare for the Team Radar retrospective meetings:

1. The meeting leader or facilitator should plan the Team Radar graphic and topics beforehand on a flip chart – this way, it can be hung up afterward for reference (if you’re in a physical office with the team). Alternatively, more advanced teams can decide on the topics during the meeting. If the meeting is being held virtually, MURAL or Miro (virtual whiteboard collaboration tools) can be utilized instead
2. Bring pens and Post-Its in four different colors (if holding the meeting in person).
3. The leader, moderator or facilitator should also put some thought into how they want to open up and introduce the meeting. This is where they set the stage for the meeting.
4. Ensure to send a calendar invite blocking off enough time. Petra recommends 2 hours for an 8 axes exercise, or 1 hour for 4 axes.
5. If you’re having the meeting in an office, book a room with plenty of wall space for all those Post-It notes!

Exercise 

Petra recommends holding the Team Radar meeting once a quarter, depending on team needs, with no more than 10 people in attendance (but also depending on team needs and team size). Attendees are typically made up of a cross-functional group or the delivery team, including product managers, engineers, and designers. The meetings can be held in-person or virtually, and are typically structured in the following way:

1. The moderator or facilitator starts by introducing the meeting and setting the stage (as mentioned above).
2. Then they’ll take the team through the Team Radar infographic–either on the flip chart, a whiteboard, or virtual collaboration tool if the meeting is being held remotely. The facilitator should plan to cover the following:
   • Why were the listed topics chosen? Context should be given around reasoning. If the team is more advanced, the topics can be agreed upon by everyone together during this step instead.
   • Ask the team to assign and agree on a rating (1-7) for each topic. Ratings could be confidence level in the topic, future outlook, etc. This will vary by team and organization, and should be defined and communicated by the facilitator. Note: Don’t spend more than 10 minutes on each axis.
   • Decide who will write notes on the Post-Its. Petra recommends utilizing the different colors for organizational purposes, such as blue for positive comments and pink for negative.
3. Next, the team discussion occurs, starting with the first axis and working through all eight, topic by topic, rating by rating.
4. Once all topics have been discussed, connect any dots or determine which topics have scored negatively and why.
5. Gauge general sentiment from the team – ask the team to indicate via quick feedback or thumb voting if a topic is improving or if they expect it to get worse.
6. Finally, derive and assign action items for 2-3 of the topics. Start with topics that scored the worst (or lowest) and note what steps can and should be taken next.

Outcomes and Deliverables

I asked Petra what outcomes and deliverables come out of these Team Radar meetings. She mentioned the two key outcomes being “aha moments” and action items. The “aha moments” will come as a result of learning what others on the team think about particular topics. The action items are especially useful for future improvement, as the lowest-ranked topics should be prioritized in the discussion. 

Tools

There are a few tools Petra uses to create magic and connection in these meetings:

• Whiteboards or flip charts – this is how the Team Radar graphic is documented and displayed if the meeting is in person
• Post-Its: Used for note taking on each topic and rating (organize by color)
• MURAL or Miro – These tools can be utilized if the meeting is virtual or hybrid, in place of the physical whiteboards, flip charts and Post-Its

An Alignment Initiative

We also discussed what makes this meeting unique, along with what Petra is most proud of related to Team Radar. 

“I think it’s the only type of retrospective I know where you can set a topic. So if you as a product manager or Agile coach want to talk about something, then that is a way to really set the stage without influencing the team too much about their take on that,” she said.

She mentioned she’s most proud of the fact that it helps teams discuss underlying or broader issues in a productive way. Even if the meeting doesn’t end with a ton of action items that are being solved immediately, it helps with team building and is an alignment initiative. 

Looking Ahead

I like to end these Magical Meeting Series conversations by asking where there’s opportunity for improvement or what else could be done if the interviewee were to be really bold. Petra said she sees teams usually start with the obvious topics, but would love to encourage more philosophical or high-level topics on the axes. That, she says, is when the most interesting and productive conversations happen.

Do you have a Magical Meeting Story to tell? Share it with us!

The post Team Radar appeared first on Voltage Control.

Have you ever thought about how brain chemistry affects your workplace and performance across your teams? Of course the way our minds work impacts our effectiveness and ability to work with others. How could it not? Everyone’s brain is different. We all have unique experiences, thereby we respond to stimuli differently. We could experience the same event, yet our perception and response to it could be drastically divergent based on our unique neurological makeup.

“There are deep-seated, neurologically-based differences in our perceptions, assumptions, and selection of which stimuli we act upon and which ones we overlook.” – Karen Gordon, the CEO Magazine

This is an extremely important concept to keep in mind when it comes to working effectively with others. In order to get the best performance from each individual in a team, we must first understand that no one mind thinks alike. Secondly, it is critical to understand what drives our own impulses as well as the impulses of others in order to work cooperatively.

“When collaborating with coworkers, we must remember that people at all levels work in different capacities on different tasks, and it’s less about strengths and weaknesses than it is about identifying the areas an individual has the most energy for. This is where productive collaboration can improve, particularly in how you manage a team and build culture. By pinpointing the areas in which you and your team, staff, or managers can easily complete tasks or work together on projects (but still feel fulfilled and challenged), you can create a team environment that avoids burnout, fosters positivity and success, and offers pathways for communication between colleagues that were previously unknown.” – Karen Gordon

How does the cocktail of various brain chemicals impact how we get work done? When you have a better understanding of how the brain works, you are more skillfully equipped to design meetings that get the most out of their attendees. 

Utilize Brain Science To Increase Team Collaboration 

Be Inclusive

While you can’t control the way people think, there are scientifically proven ways to create the conditions necessary to foster collaboration and optimal team performance. 

Brain science tells us that inclusion brings out the best in people. Being included drives trust, productivity, and collaboration with others. “Humans have a fundamental need to belong,” said Dr. Nathan DeWall, a psychologist at the University of Kentucky. “Just as we have needs for food and water, we also have needs for positive and lasting relationships. This need is deeply rooted in our evolutionary history.” 

Multiple peer-reviewed studies have found that the brain registers exclusion the same as it registers physical pain. “Being excluded is painful because it threatens fundamental human needs, such as belonging and self-esteem. Again and again, research has found that strong, harmful reactions are possible even when ostracized by a stranger for a short amount of time.” -Dr. Kipling Williams, Purdue University psychologist 

To make your team feel included, offer ample opportunities for group cohesion, skill-building, and team development. To increase inclusion in meetings, allow all participants an equal opportunity to participate and contribute. Create a safe environment where everyone feels comfortable to speak and be heard. 

Pro tip: Use our Workshop Design Template for MURAL and Miro to consider everyone’s needs and maximize participant potential during your meetings.  

Avoid Information Overload

Too much information delivered all at once can cause cognitive overload. Don’t overwhelm participants with too much information, too quickly. People need time to process and digest information if they are going to properly retain it. Serve meeting attendees bite-sized information. Contextualize it with a hands-on activity that allows for engaged learning and personal connections. Always be sure to debrief during and especially at the end of a meeting to make sure that everyone is on track and nobody needs further clarification. 

Increase Productivity: Trigger Brain Chemicals

“Dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins are the quartet responsible for our happiness. Many events can trigger these neurotransmitters, but rather than being in the passenger seat, there are ways we can intentionally cause them to flow.” –Thai Nguyen, Huffpost 

Make brain chemicals work for you by intentionally stimulating them. Low dopamine levels are linked to low motivation. Increase dopamine levels in your meeting by incorporating an energizer or icebreaker for a fun blast of energy. Play uplifting music during group work sessions. Research shows that listening to music can reduce stress, increase feelings of pleasure, and improve mood.

Pro tip: JQBX is one of our favorite remote working tools at Voltage Control. It’s like a team jukebox that allows you to listen to music together with your team while working apart. Also, check out our comprehensive Design Sprint playlist to listen to while you work.  

High serotonin levels are associated with confidence, self-esteem, and a sense of purpose. They’re also crucial to combatting the stress hormone cortisol. Spike serotonin levels amongst your team by acknowledging team members’ good work. Recognition of achievement is key to creating serotonin in the body. Simply thanking your team for their work and commitment does wonders for getting the juices flowing. 

Oxytocin is correlated to trust and bonding, and it reduces stress levels as well, which leads to feelings of contentment and security. Bring your team together and start your meeting with a moment of gratitude, wherein everyone shares something they’re grateful for–work-related or not. Check-in with your team during and after the meeting to see how everyone is doing. Even if no one needs anything, they’ll feel seen and taken care of knowing you’re concerned for their wellbeing. 

Create Psychological Safety

Fear and anxiety can shut down the brain as people enter into fight or flight mode. Keep this in mind as you are designing your meetings. If people feel closed off, they are unable to perform at their best. In order to get all attendees optimal performance, it is crucial that they feel completely comfortable sharing their thoughts and feelings in a group setting. Set ground rules at the start of a meeting to encourage a healthy environment. Let participants know that their ideas are not only welcome but essential. If an individual is speaking over other participants, gracefully remind them that the group would like to hear from everyone or simply ask “who haven’t we heard from?” Instead of putting quiet attendees on the spot by demanding their participation, invite them to join an open discussion. It can also be helpful to prompt the group with a question to consider quietly before anyone speaks, giving individuals time to think through their responses. 

Intentional planning is the easiest way for you to make an immediate difference in the impact of your meeting outcomes and the experiences you deliver to your meeting participants. The use of science-backed methods will help you cater to individuals’ neurology and ultimately tease out your peak meeting performance. The more productive your meetings are, the better your team and overall business will be.

The post Neurology of Meetings appeared first on Voltage Control.

Today’s rich virtual landscape provides businesses with accessibility and connection that don’t exist with in-person work alone. You can work async with people anywhere, instantly. All you need is internet connection and a business-on-top outfit. Remote work is a no-brainer–it significantly boosts productivity, performance, engagement, retention, and profitability. Businesses can get the most out of a virtual workplace by educating employees on proper video conferencing etiquette to enhance video interactions.

Companies that conduct successful virtual meetings enable collaboration among remote workers to optimize overall success. It is key that all employees are on the same page and know what is expected of them to achieve the best results. Read on to learn how remote workers can get the best from online conferences.

Virtual Conference Etiquette

1.   Create a Professional Setting

The beauty of virtual meetings is that you can participate from almost anywhere. However, it’s essential to maintain high standards for formal video calls.

Set up the room you are calling from professionally. No matter your expertise, people will doubt your seriousness if your room looks disorderly. Consider a background that’s pleasing to the eye and doesn’t distract other viewers. If you’re in your office, make sure it’s organized and appropriate for others to see. Open the windows to allow natural light into the room and turn the lights on if necessary. Make sure other attendees can only see what you would keep in your office.

Consider having a wall behind you. Test your setup before the meeting commences to confirm your devices are working and everything looks professional.

If your environment is not conducive to a professional work setting, use a tool like VirtualOffice or Zoom Virtual Backgrounds to choose a suitable virtual background.

2.   Dress for Success

While teleworking gives you the freedom to dress the way you like, dressing for success in virtual meetings can indeed impact your website performance.

Dr. Adam Galinsky coined the term “enclothed cognition” in his pre-pandemic research that explored the connection between the clothes we wear and the messages they send to the brain. He found that wearing certain clothes that have a symbolic meaning–think: wearing a nice suit to a high-stakes business meeting–led to more focused attention. Another study found that dressing more formally for work correlates with big-picturing thinking that’s related to someone in a powerful position.

That said, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg famously wore sneakers, jeans, and hoodies while building his multi-billion dollar company. Other Silicon Valley tech world powerhouses followed suit and the sector is now known for its casual businesswear.

The major takeaway is to dress in clothes that make you feel confident, powerful, and able to work well. Find what that looks like for you and rock it. Just make sure it abides with your workplace dress code.

3.   Minimize Distractions

Distractions are everywhere, but they are more prevalent when you’re working away from a traditional office setting. When meeting with coworkers online, strive to limit outside distractions as much as possible. Identify the things that can hinder smooth communication or divert you or your colleagues from the meeting.

Limit distractions in your virtual meetings in the following ways:

• Warn other house occupants not to disturb you during meetings
• Shut the door to your room
• Mute unwanted background noise using a tool like Krisp
• Turn off all notifications on your phone and computer
• Turn off your entertainment system
• Only have relevant pages open on your computer
• Use a noise-canceling headset for richer sound
• Take notes with a pen to eliminate keyboard clicks or mute yourself while others are talking
• Don’t interrupt other speakers

If, for some reason, you can’t prevent a potential interruption, alert other team members at the beginning of the meeting. It will eliminate the need to apologize or explain yourself along the way.

4.   Start the Meeting Right

If you are heading the virtual conference, start by asking the participants to introduce themselves, whether they know each other or not. It’s a great way to let everyone know who each person is and their roles in the meeting. Once the members are on board, remind them why you have met, and briefly highlight what you hope to achieve.

Pro-tip: Incorporate an icebreaker or energizer to spike participation and increase productivity.

If you are an invitee and your leader doesn’t introduce you, announce yourself once you join. It’s a courteous way of informing others that you are present, so they don’t have to scan through the members to verify who just joined.

5.   Stay on Schedule

Stick to the schedule to prevent wasting other people’s time or missing a discussion. If you are the host, start the meeting precisely at the designated time and ensure the session doesn’t run long.

Avoid the temptation of repeating things when latecomers arrive. Instead, follow up with them after the conference as those who came on schedule may have other commitments.

Create a detailed agenda in advance and broadcast copies to everyone. The attendees will come prepared, enabling them to stay on the same page. It will save time since the participants will know the topics to stick to, minimizing the chance of unrelated interjections.

6.   Manage Your Screen

It’s paramount to close apps and tabs unrelated to the conference call before launching a call. Eliminating content irrelevant to the meeting will reduce the risk of exposing sensitive or distracting information if you have to share your screen. Keeping only the information you need during the call will also help you stay more focused and present.

If you want to keep your tabs running, open a new window, or use a different browser for the meeting. Clear your browsing history to prevent awkward auto-complete results from popping up on the address bar.

Get more control over what others can see by setting your device to share only one screen or program instead of the entire desktop. Such measures ensure the team focuses on matters relevant to the meeting and nothing else.

Self-Presentation

Just like in an in-person meeting, you should be present with virtual meeting attendees by turning on your camera and being audible. It’s the best way to connect with your team and get the most out of the meeting.

Here are some tips to enhance your interaction with other attendees in a video conference:

1. Look at the Camera

Facing your computer screen and camera when others talk demonstrates your presence and concentration on the subject matter. You can appear disinterested and distracted if you continually face other directions.

Similarly, you engage better with your audience when you look them in the eye while addressing them. Face the camera to create that connection. If you are distracted by seeing yourself on the video conference screen, turn off the visibility of your personal video in your video conference platform settings. Attendees will still be able to see you, you just won’t be able to see yourself. This way you can focus solely on other participants.

2. Be Loud and Clear

In a virtual meeting, there can be internet connection problems and microphones and speakers of different quality. Individuals may even have different accents. These issues can make it difficult for participants to understand one another.

Use a headset or headphones with a crisp microphone. Speak clearly and project your voice to facilitate smooth communication. You’ll save the attendees the hassle of straining their ears or turning their volume too high trying to listen.

3.  Mute Yourself When Not Talking

You cannot always achieve complete silence, no matter your efforts to reduce background noise. When working at home, for instance, you’ll occasionally hear children playing, the fridge buzzing, vehicles honking, dogs barking, and so forth. Therefore, it’s imperative to mute your microphone when you’re not talking in a virtual conference. If you are leading the meeting, mute all participants from the start of the meeting. Attendees can unmute themselves when it’s their turn to talk. A virtual conference would be too noisy if all participants had their background noises captured and transmitted to the meeting. Additional noise can come from echoes that occur when multiple microphones are in use. It’s best practice to manage muting/unmuting your own microphone.

Want to learn more about running successful virtual meetings?

If you’re new to virtual meetings or would like to improve your virtual meeting culture, we’re here to help. We can assess your needs and guide you on the right conferencing tools and strategies to use for maximum benefit.

Check our guidebooks for helpful tools and information or email us to connect and start working with us today.

The post Improve Virtual Meetings: Video Conferencing Etiquette appeared first on Voltage Control.

“I think that everyone has been strained with this pandemic, and no matter who you are, it’s not been an easy time for anyone. And I think that we have an opportunity here to improve on existing (meeting) systems by making them more accessible to everybody.” – Regine Gilbert

Show Highlights

[01:10] Regine’s Career Journey
[07:37] Problems with Accessibility in Virtual Environments
[14:24] Necessity’s Role in Developing Creative Solutions
[16:53] How to Have Conversations Around Accessibility
[26:00] Designing for the Future, Now

Links | Resources

Regine’s LinkedIn
WebAim
EqualEntry

About the Guest

Regine Gilbert is a designer, educator, and author. In her work as an Industry Assistant Professor at NYU Tandon School of Engineering, her pioneering vision challenges the status quo with empathy at the forefront of her motivations. The combination of her experience in UX and accessibility-focused work provides her with an unshakable belief in opening up the world in an effort to widen communities and reconcile connection.

About Voltage Control

Voltage Control is a change agency that helps enterprises sustain innovation and teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.

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Full Transcript

Douglas Ferguson:

Welcome to the Control the Room podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting.

Douglas Ferguson:

Today, I am with Regine Gilbert who works at New York University, where she is an industry assistant professor. She’s also the author of Inclusive Design for a Digital World: Designing with Accessibility in Mind. Welcome to the show, Regine.

Regine Gilbert:

Oh, thank you. Happy to be here.

Douglas Ferguson:

It’s great to have you. So, I’m really curious to hear just a little bit about how you got your start. I think working in accessibility and design is really important work, and I think if you’re anywhere similar to my age, there was certainly no degree in this. So, how did, how did you find yourself doing this work? How did you get there?

Regine Gilbert:

Well, I first started in user experience design about seven years ago. So, I haven’t been in it as long as some others in the area. And when I got into user experience design, I didn’t really know much at all about accessibility. I believe the course that I took had one slide, from what I remember.

Regine Gilbert:

But I woke up one day and I said, “I want to make the world a more accessible place.” And of course I go to Google, and I’m like, “Accessibility. What does that mean?” And when I put in “accessibility in New York”, I found a meetup, and luckily the meetup was happening, I think, within a week of when I had Googled this. And I went to my very first A11yNYC meetup. So, a11y is a numeronym for accessibility. There’s 11 characters between the A and the Y.

Regine Gilbert:

And I went to this meetup and I met some people who are still my friends to this day, and I really just got into accessibility, and learning about it, and applying it to my work. And at the time, I was doing freelance UX research work, and I was looking at websites and doing information architecture stuff. And I was like, “You know, your website’s not accessible.” And they’re like, “What does that mean?” And it’s like, “Well, I mean, do you know people with disabilities can’t really access your site, and you’re excluding them.” And they were like, “We had no idea.”

Regine Gilbert:

And I just found that more and more people knew very little about it, and that led me to speaking about it. And then speaking about it led to me writing the book.

Douglas Ferguson:

I want to talk a little bit about just how that moment you had when you searched on accessibility. And it’s like, “How do I even define this?” And I think that awareness is the first step, right? And you even talk about these companies that didn’t even realize that they had a problem, or even that there was such a thing. So, I’m curious how your definition of accessibility has changed over the years and how it’s continuing to evolve.

Regine Gilbert:

Yeah. I think that when I first got into it, I was really web focused. And then I started looking into other areas and looking into service and service design and building. Now I notice if I’m in a building and I’m like, “Well, somebody with a wheelchair couldn’t come in here. There’s no space, or they couldn’t use the bathroom here.” So, over the years, I’ve become a lot more aware of the inaccessibility of the world, and society, in a lot of ways. And yeah, that’s how it’s changed and evolved. I notice more.

Douglas Ferguson:

So, what have you been noticing since COVID, as we’ve all been thrust into these virtual environments?

Regine Gilbert:

Oh, that people with disabilities said, “You should have listened to us all along. See? People can work from home.” That’s one of the bigger lessons, is that all these companies who said, “Oh, no. We can’t have people working from home.” And all of a sudden you can. And Haben Girma, who’s deaf and blind, says people are disabled or non-disabled. And when a majority of non-disabled people need to work from home, all of a sudden there’s a way to make it work. Right?

Regine Gilbert:

So, that has been interesting. I think that a lot of people in the disability community are like, “Welcome to our world, because this is how we function a majority of the time. We can’t be around a lot of people, and that isolation you feel, that’s something we feel quite often.”

Regine Gilbert:

And I think that we have seen, it’s like the best of times and the worst of times in some ways, in that we’ve seen people really come together, form different groups, form different communities, but then we’ve seen the antithesis of that and people saying, “Oh, this isn’t real. We don’t care about other people.” And they’re being really silly and selfish about it all.

Regine Gilbert:

So, I think we’ve seen a duality of the best of times and the worst of times during this pandemic.

Douglas Ferguson:

And it’s interesting you pointed out how being forced into the situation kind of created empathy. You could argue that it’s artificial, but it’s there. The forcing functions manifest it.

Douglas Ferguson:

And it reminds me of the activity of “a day in the life”, or “in the shoes”, where I’ve even heard stories of designers walking around on their knees to think about the experience of children, right? And even people putting themselves in a wheelchair to like, “Let’s navigate the space,” or do these things trying to see through the lens of that experience. And so, I’m kind of curious. How do you take that a step further? I’m sure there’s some advanced techniques there that could be explored.

Regine Gilbert:

Yeah. There’s varying opinions on doing simulations. Some people in the disability community feel that they’re not accurate because you’re putting yourself in a wheelchair, but you’re not a wheelchair user. So, you may find it extremely difficult because it’s your first time doing it, and then you just make that assumption that it’s always difficult. And so, then, I think the best thing that you can do is actually get actual people with disabilities involved in whatever it is you’re creating, and have them be a part of the process, and hire them. Get them to give input, because there’s nothing better than getting it from the source.

Douglas Ferguson:

I love to hear that. That’s awesome. And so, let’s think about the virtual meeting space. As we’ve been kind of forced to spend our days on Zoom and use tools like Mural, et cetera, are there things that you are noticing, or that you’ve known, that are just being exacerbated now, that maybe more people should be paying attention to?

Regine Gilbert:

I think we’ve discovered the limitations of things like Zoom that are not really necessarily welcoming to people who are deaf, because there’s no captions that are provided through Zoom. You have to have a third party. Whereas with, let’s say, Google Meet, for example, you can actually see who’s talking because they use machine learning for captions. And even if you’re doing a presentation on Google Slides, you can also use captions so that someone can read along.

Regine Gilbert:

And there are other different artificial intelligence plug-in things that you can use for Zoom, but I think we see that these tools that we’re using are not as accessible as we wish. I mean, sometimes it’s not even about a person being disabled, but they might be in an environment that’s super loud, and they would love to have captions because their three kids are having their Zoom classes behind them. And even though they have their headphones on, it’s really hard to focus. So, I think that we’ve seen a bit of limitation with the tools themselves as we’ve gone through this process of being pretty much online, and it looks like we’re not getting out of this anytime soon.

Douglas Ferguson:

It also makes me think of some things we’ve run into with some of our workshops where there’s socio-economic imbalances as well. There’s accessibility issues where people maybe don’t have good internet, or they don’t have a powerful laptop or computer because there are requirements to run these things.

Regine Gilbert:

Yeah. And in the United States, more than half of the country does not have high-speed internet. And so, a lot of people are like, “We’ll do Zoom, and I want everybody to keep their cameras on.” I was like, “Not everybody can keep their cameras on. It really will just shut down.” And I think we need to be mindful of that, not everyone has what we have.

Regine Gilbert:

If you’re in a bigger city, you really need to be mindful of where people might be coming from and what might be best for them to communicate. Maybe it’s just better for them to call in, and that should be fine.

Regine Gilbert:

And at the end of the day, I’ve had the pleasure of working with Gus Chalkias. He’s an adjunct professor at NYU, and he’s also blind, and he and I teach a class called Looking Forward for Assistive Tech. He says that accessibility is options, right? At the end of the day, that’s what it is. You’re giving options. And I think about that all the time. Why aren’t there more options here?

Douglas Ferguson:

Right. So, when we’re thinking about the options we need to create, what are some things we should be considering? I imagine there’s some categories that might be… I mean, to your point, nothing’s going to replace talking to people. I think having some categories to at least explore can help maybe even expose who we should be talking to.

Regine Gilbert:

Yeah. I think about things lately in terms of senses. We think of our five senses, and if we take away a sense, can we still experience that thing? And that’s how I like to look at things now.

Regine Gilbert:

If I take away the sense of touch, how different is this? If I take away my sense of sight, how different is that? If I take away my sense of smell, how different is this thing? And I think that when we start to think about, maybe, exclusion from the start, then we can look at things differently. It’s all perspective, right, and again, providing those options.

Douglas Ferguson:

It also makes me think, too, that it’s not just binary. And even if we don’t have blind people in our meeting, they might be colorblind, or they might be limited in some capacity.

Regine Gilbert:

Right. Or someone might have low vision. Or how many people are feeling comfortable going to get their eyes checked, and they know they need to? I just got a notification saying, “You haven’t had your eyes checked in a while.”

Douglas Ferguson:

Absolutely.

Regine Gilbert:

And I said, “I need to go because things are…” I could tell things are changing for me. So, yeah, it is really thinking about someone who’s not us.

Douglas Ferguson:

And it’s interesting. You talked about not getting your eyes checked. I mean, how many people haven’t bought blue-blocking glasses, or have they been staring at a screen too long and they’re getting dizzy, and maybe they need a break. It makes me think our design, if we’re throwing too much stuff at people, we might be creating disabilities that they didn’t even start with.

Regine Gilbert:

Well, with this pandemic, I decided I’m going to buy a Nintendo Switch. And I bought the Switch, and I’m very excited because everybody talked about Animal Crossing, and I was like, “I can’t wait to play.” And “I can’t wait to play Mario Kart.” And so, I got my Switch, and years ago I had carpal tunnel issues in my right hand, and so I started doing a lot of things with my left hand.

Regine Gilbert:

And when I use this controller, after a while my hand starts to hurt. And I just think, “There’s no accessible controller for the Switch.” There is for Xbox, but I did actually just find an accessible controller that can lay flat, but it’s only available in Japan at the moment for the Switch. I was like, “Why isn’t this available in America?” I mean, so, give me the options, right? Just give me the options to do things different.

Douglas Ferguson:

The irony was not lost on me that the accessibility device was not accessible in the US.

Regine Gilbert:

Right. Yeah. It’s not accessible in the US, so I was hoping I can figure out a way to get it from Japan.

Douglas Ferguson:

So, are there companies that specialize in aftermarket accessibility devices?

Regine Gilbert:

I’m not aware of any, but now you’re making me curious to look.

Douglas Ferguson:

Yeah. I was wondering. So, was this a device made by Nintendo and they just haven’t brought it to the US yet?

Regine Gilbert:

I think I want to say the company is Hero? I’m not sure of the name,

Douglas Ferguson:

What a noble mission that would be. Hey, there’s tons of products out here. They’re not all necessarily accessible. We’re going to provide aftermarket add-ons for everyone that’s in need. I love that.

Regine Gilbert:

Yeah. In the US, there’s an organization called the Able Gamers charity, and they do a lot of work to make gaming accessible. I need to look into it more, but they might have some stuff.

Douglas Ferguson:

Yeah, that’s cool.

Regine Gilbert:

Because people end up building it themselves if they can’t make it.

Douglas Ferguson:

I don’t know. That’s amazing through just open-source software and YouTube and online communities of all sorts, there’s this amazing stuff that’s been happening. And in fact, I’m diabetic, and there’s diabetics that have taken it on themselves to reverse-engineer the hardware and build in more capabilities that the device manufacturers haven’t been doing. And they’ve now got two different devices that we depend on talking to each other.

Regine Gilbert:

Wow.

Douglas Ferguson:

Because that would require FDA clearance, and the companies getting partnerships built and working together. And so instead, their hashtag is, #werenotgoingtowait. And I love this idea of the consumers standing up for themselves and coming together and just making amazing stuff to better their lives.

Regine Gilbert:

I mean, this is where things come from. I think a lot of times people will wait, and “I wish somebody would really come up with this thing.” And even for me, when I got asked to do the book, I was like, “Who wants me to write a book? What do I know?”

Regine Gilbert:

And I learned, actually, a lot as I wrote the book, and I wrote the book because I got a lot of questions from students. I had questions, and I answered those questions in the book. And sometimes when those things don’t exist, you have to make them yourself.

Regine Gilbert:

And the disability community, they are the most innovative group because they’ve had to make things work when they haven’t been given that option. And that’s what I put in the book. There’s so much innovation that comes out of the disability community.

Douglas Ferguson:

Well, necessity, right? I mean, follow the old quote. So, I want to talk a little bit about your point that you made around how important it is to talk to the people. And I know that there are some folks… Again, I would be willing to wager that there’s a large portion of the population that are afraid of those conversations because they don’t know how to approach them.

Douglas Ferguson:

And so, if you’re going to invite someone with a handicap to the conversation and be curious about their needs, do you have any advice on how to approach that conversation with, I don’t know, generosity, maybe?

Regine Gilbert:

I think going into it being open, and not assuming anything. We all come with our own bias, and I think we have to kind of put that to the side and be open to what people have to say, and listen. And this is something, especially in this country as of late, listening has been something that’s really hard to come by.

Regine Gilbert:

And I heard this, and I can’t remember where, but it said, “If you’re questioning things, then you’re open, and if you’re saying statements, then you’re closed minded.” And I think that a lot of statements are made, and not enough questions.

Regine Gilbert:

And I think that asking questions, and asking questions that are appropriate, and not insulting to people. And listening to people’s experience and having them tell their stories. I think that our stories we all have are so important and need to be heard, and people need to listen to them. So, that’s what I would say, is be open.

Douglas Ferguson:

And do you have any advice on the types of questions that are just really good? Because you said you want to ask questions that aren’t offensive.

Douglas Ferguson:

I think maybe that’s where people get stuck, even if they… I’m sure there’s plenty of people that just aren’t even trying. But the people that are trying, I think when they get stuck, it’s probably because they’re worried about offending, and it’s easier just to clam up and not say anything. Right?

Regine Gilbert:

Yeah, I think you can ask someone, how do they go about doing XYZ thing? Right?

Douglas Ferguson:

Yeah. So classic ethnography type stuff.

Regine Gilbert:

Like, “How do you go about your day to day functions of work? How do you use Zoom? Are there any difficulties that you face?” And ask why to things.

Regine Gilbert:

If you really want to understand, you have to ask the question “why”.

Douglas Ferguson:

Yeah.

Regine Gilbert:

And I’ll give an example. This past spring, I was talking with Gus. And Gus, who is blind, was saying… I don’t know, somehow we started talking about augmented reality because I have real interest in it. And we got on the subject of Pokemon Go. And he’s like, “I wish I could play Pokemon Go.” And I thought to myself, “Why can’t he play Pokemon Go?”

Regine Gilbert:

And because it’s a very visual game, right? And it’s not exactly easy to use with a screen reader. So, we started a discussion about this, and what would it mean for an augmented reality experience to be accessible for someone who’s blind?

Regine Gilbert:

And ultimately, this led to a decision where Gus became my students’ client, and my students worked on creating a concept for an augmented reality experience for Gus. And a lot of them came up with different games, games that use audio-spatial sound and haptic feedback. And it was really great for the students to think outside the box because a few of them were asking me, “How do we make augmented reality, which is a digital overlay over a physical space, into… How do we do that? How do we make it, and it’s not going to be visual?”

Regine Gilbert:

And I said, “Sound. Touch. Feedback. Inputs and outputs.” And they all came up with really cool stuff this past summer. And so, there’s opportunity there, but you have to be open to having the discussions and asking the questions and listening, and working with people.

Douglas Ferguson:

Yeah. The spatial audio is really interesting to me, especially as a facilitator who really loved working the room, has now been confined to his digital compartments that we whisk people to and fro. And with the spatial audio, the idea of people clustering, that’s a breakout group. But certainly, folks that are vision impaired wouldn’t know where to go.

Douglas Ferguson:

And so, having the haptic feedback to have some indication of where they are in the space, that’s really fascinating.

Regine Gilbert:

Yeah.

Douglas Ferguson:

So, I’m curious more about just how we think about, as we’re designing experiences for teams to meet and come together, what do you think the best way is? I mean, the first thing that comes to mind for me is maybe just actually taking the step to be aware that there might be some attendees in the meeting that may need special attention. We might need to design for their needs. But are there any things that folks should be considering, just in general, as they design meetings to be more accessible?

Regine Gilbert:

I think that looking at people, looking at the four areas from the web content accessibility guidelines is a start, right?

Regine Gilbert:

So, you’re looking for cognitive, mobility, hearing, and vision, and having an understanding if someone on your team has any disabilities. And a lot of disabilities are not even visible, right?

Regine Gilbert:

You can not see if someone is dyslexic or colorblind. And I think it’s making sure that the meetings themselves are as accessible as can be by providing captions when available, or a transcript if it’s something after the fact, because certain plugins can capture transcripts, and then any sort of documentation, and making sure the documentation is accessible, making sure that PDFs are accessible for a screen reader.

Regine Gilbert:

And I think that having an understanding and having an awareness of the needs of accessibility for meetings, because I think that everyone has been strained with this pandemic, and no matter who you are, it’s not been an easy time for anyone. And I think that we have an opportunity here to improve on existing systems by making them more accessible to everybody.

Regine Gilbert:

So, just having that understanding of awareness, that not everybody’s experiencing the thing as you do, and that you need to provide options for people when they need them. You need to allow people to keep their cameras off if that’s the case because they might have five kids running around, right? You need to provide captions when you can, and on and on.

Douglas Ferguson:

So, are there good resources out there to learn about the standards, or are how things are evolving, so that we can stay in tune with new ideas and new ways to be more accessible?

Regine Gilbert:

Yeah. I always like the website webaim.org as a go-to resource because all this stuff can be extremely overwhelming, but I think they lay it out in a very good format.

Regine Gilbert:

I would also recommend equalentry.com. They have a lot of great blog posts related to accessibility that are short little reads. And I’m trying to think what else for anybody new to it. But those are the two that I would recommend.

Douglas Ferguson:

Excellent. So good. And I guess considering where the world is, and what could be possible if we were willing to be more bold and take more risks, where do you think the opportunity is? Where do you see things going?

Regine Gilbert:

Well, part of my research now is looking into accessible XR, and XR stands for extended reality, which is augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, and other immersive-type experiences.

Regine Gilbert:

And personally, I’m just going to be real. I think about myself and getting older, and the fact that I still want to experience stuff. So, I think when we make things accessible, it can be used throughout our lifetime.

Regine Gilbert:

In the past, I’ve done this workshop, Designing for Your Future Self, where I have people think about themselves as a 70-plus-year-old. And what does life look like? People go, “This is depressing. I never thought about this.” And I said, “But why aren’t we thinking about it? And why aren’t we thinking about it with more hope and excitement?”

Regine Gilbert:

Because we have an opportunity now to make things for our older selves, and in turn, we’re making things more accessible for people now. So, part of why I love what I do as an educator is that my students give me extreme hope for the future, and what we can do, and how we can apply what we know now, and make things better for the future.

Douglas Ferguson:

Wow. I just got goosebumps. This concept of designing for your future self and the ripple effects it makes, and the target that we set when we do that. That’s amazing.

Regine Gilbert:

Yeah. And I like that you said ripples, because I think about everything as a ripple.

Douglas Ferguson:

Awesome. So, I want to talk a little bit, too, about just the notion of XR, and how that, in itself, can create accessibility in itself.

Regine Gilbert:

Oh. Well, I mean, there’s a lot of work being done around XR and accessibility by my friend Thomas Logan. He is the owner of Equal Entry. And their XR, extended reality, is being used in therapy for folks. It’s being used to help people with Alzheimer’s or dementia by using iPads and having them direct them back to their rooms, if they’re living in a facility.

Regine Gilbert:

There’s so many potential applications for this type of technology, and I think especially around augmented reality. And I look at MacRumors and things like this, that Apple is putting a lot of money into spatial audio. And I think about that, but I also think, “Well, what if someone’s deaf? What are they experiencing then?” Right?

Regine Gilbert:

And so, I think there’s a lot of opportunity to improve on our current lives, but not all of it is going to be technical or technological.

Douglas Ferguson:

I guess the thing that comes to mind, it’s something I saw recently where Amazon was doing these little… I forget what they called it, but it’s these little micro-vacations that were virtual.

Regine Gilbert:

Yeah.

Douglas Ferguson:

And I thought, “Wow, that’s really…” I mean, I shared it with a few people, and they were kind of like, “Oh, that seems silly,” because they’re avid travelers. And I’m like, “Well, A, in this time of COVID I’m not getting on the plane. And then B, it would be kind of cool to go there before you visit so you can kind of understand a little bit, and you kind of experienced it.”

Douglas Ferguson:

I didn’t actually dive too deeply into it, but my vision of how cool it could be is if you had a tour guide that was just slightly customizing it for you and answering your questions, and you kind of see it virtually.

Douglas Ferguson:

And then, as you were talking about XR for accessibility, I began to think about physical therapy could be… Maybe you need to go in periodically, but you can almost do it daily if it was just a 15-minute check-in to make sure, “Are you doing the thing you’re supposed to do?”

Regine Gilbert:

Right.

Douglas Ferguson:

And so it becomes more accessible by convenience, or by the fact that it’s there and available, versus having to be tuned for their need, if that makes sense.

Regine Gilbert:

Yeah. And I forgot to mention, this semester, actually, my undergrad students are working with a nonprofit out of Seattle called Home Again VR. Which, when people think about virtual reality, they tend to think, “Oh, I have to put on a headset.” That’s not necessarily the case.

Regine Gilbert:

You can actually do WebVR, which is more like a 360 type of experience. But this organization Home Again VR services folks who are elderly, or children in hospitals, and it’s the participant and a tour guide. And the tour guide will choose a location. Let’s say, Tokyo, Japan. And the two people will be in separate locations, but they’ll see the same things. And the tour guide will take them, and point out things, and they’ll start to have a conversation.

Regine Gilbert:

It’s a really cool thing. So, my students are working on giving some ideas on how to improve on the tool. And I think there’s a lot of… Not everybody can leave the house, right? So there’s a lot of opportunity there as well. And I personally have been using, in virtual reality, an app called Wander, and I have been able to kind of see the world in that way, even though I can’t leave my house.

Douglas Ferguson:

That’s cool. It’s amazing. Right? Just this notion that these things are being brought to us and it kind of reminds me of all the science fiction where people just tap into the second life or the simulation.

Regine Gilbert:

Right. I mean, the smallest thing can just take you to a new place.

Douglas Ferguson:

Absolutely. Yeah. It’s fascinating to think about all the levels of technology. Right? Because I’m sure there’s focus on making existing stuff more accessible, or creating systems that are just by nature solving an accessibility problem.

Regine Gilbert:

Yeah. There’s a lot of work being done in different universities. There’s an organization that I am part of called XR Access, which is, I think Verizon’s part of it. Cornell Tech is part of it. And they focus on different areas of extended reality accessibility, from the hardware, to looking at policies, to education in different areas.

Regine Gilbert:

There’s students in VR and educators in VR that are exploring those worlds, and the W3C, the World Wide Web Consortium just last year had an event on inclusive design in this field, and they’ve created some guidelines around XR and accessibility. So, there is some progress, but we still have a ways to go.

Douglas Ferguson:

Absolutely. So, when you think about the difference between accessibility and inclusive design, how would you differentiate those?

Regine Gilbert:

Well, I would call inclusive design the big umbrella, and accessibility falls under that umbrella. Because we don’t really… When people ask, “How do you define inclusive design?” I was like, “Well, you can look it up. I mean, you’ll find different things for it.”

Regine Gilbert:

But I like to refer to Kat Holmes, who wrote the book Mismatch Design, who says, “We don’t really know what inclusion is, but we know what exclusion is.” And so, when we make things inclusive, typically will include accessibility in that. But inclusive is looking at things from a cultural perspective, from a language perspective. It involves a little bit more than accessibility.

Douglas Ferguson:

Yeah. I think a lot of times, when we think about designing meetings, it’s the inclusivity piece that’s so, so critical. Whereas, we don’t always run into the accessibility stuff because I don’t think that really… Well, when you’re thinking about products that are going to have massive scale, the likelihood that you’re going to run into users that you never even meet, right, you don’t even know, you’re having to address and support.

Douglas Ferguson:

Whereas the inclusivity stuff is definitely a challenge that I think we face all the time, and whether we notice it or not. Even moreso in this new global environment we’re finding ourselves in.

Regine Gilbert:

Right.

Douglas Ferguson:

I mean, I’ve been noticing things where the English speakers have an advantage because they can read the material faster, and then they’re getting impatient while the other people are trying to catch up. Or, there’s lots of things.

Douglas Ferguson:

In fact, one that’s really fascinating that I’ve run into recently, and just been noticing this a lot. So, different cultures have different lengths of pause. That’s, I would say, their natural pause to indicate that there are no questions, or no one has anything to add.

Douglas Ferguson:

And so, if you mix two cultures, one that has a really fast pause, they don’t have to wait very long to make sure no one has anything to add, and the culture that has a long pause, as a facilitator, you have your work cut out for you because the people from that short-pause culture are going to run over those other folks.

Regine Gilbert:

Right. Yeah. I think that’s something to account for. Even time, right, and time differences, and understanding that if you’re having a meeting early, it might be late for people, and people may not be their sharpest when it’s midnight, and it’s earlier for you. So, there’s so many considerations when it comes to inclusive design that we need to consider.

Douglas Ferguson:

Absolutely. So, do you think there’s any, just kind of switching back to the accessibility piece, are there things that you would encourage folks just to keep top of mind more than anything, as they think about their meetings?

Douglas Ferguson:

Are there any blind spots that are just kind of easy to… Easy is a difficult word to grapple sometimes, but what are some things that people could just have on their checklist?

Regine Gilbert:

What is a checklist? I think being mindful of people’s situations, their time zones, how people communicate, as you alluded to, when it comes to how people pause or don’t pause.

Regine Gilbert:

I think making sure that documentation is available, providing a meeting agenda so people know what to expect, are things that are just considerate. And I think being considerate in the space where we are all a little bit struggling, I think, from time to time.

Regine Gilbert:

So, I think for sure coming to the meeting with a clear agenda, and making sure that you are mindful of people’s time, because our time is so different now with being home, and if people have families, that really needs to be taken into consideration.

Douglas Ferguson:

Absolutely. And I think, too, there’s a big opportunity to, as a facilitator, be vulnerable yourself.

Regine Gilbert:

Right.

Douglas Ferguson:

Because if we don’t model that behavior, how can we expect those in the audience to speak up if they’re not being supported. And so, we need to work hard to support them, but then also, maybe not come off so polished that people are afraid to disrupt things.

Regine Gilbert:

Right.

Douglas Ferguson:

Excellent. Well, it’s been a super pleasure chatting with you, and the work you’re doing is super important. And really, I would say, hopeful to think about. And especially, I’m going to be thinking about this “planning your future self” and designing for that. It’s really provocative. So, I want to just give you an opportunity to leave the listeners with a final message.

Regine Gilbert:

Oh, well, thank you. Thank you for having me on the show. I want folks to think about… One of the things that I ask first in my book is, “Have you ever wanted to go somewhere and you couldn’t get in? And how did that make you feel? Or, did you really want something and you couldn’t get it? How did that make you feel?”

Regine Gilbert:

And most folks will say, “I didn’t feel very good.” And at the end of the day, a friend of mine said, “We are an experience as human beings.” Right? And we create experiences.

Regine Gilbert:

And what we don’t want to do is we don’t want to leave people out. We don’t want to have people feel like they’re not wanted, and we want to be more inclusive in that way. Right? We want people to feel included.

Regine Gilbert:

So, I would say, don’t leave people with the feeling that you’ve probably experienced yourself, and be more inclusive and accessible in yourself and what you do in your work.

Douglas Ferguson:

Awesome. It was such a pleasure having you on the show. Thanks again.

Regine Gilbert:

Oh, thank you.

Douglas Ferguson:

Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don’t forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. And if you want more, head over to our blog where I post weekly articles and resources about working better together. Voltagecontrol.com.

The post Episode 35: Accessibility in the User Experience appeared first on Voltage Control.

When was the last time you took a look at the way you conducted team meetings? If the answer is “never,” you’re not alone. Analyzing meeting systems are not always on every leader’s agenda. However, with the amount of data and research that’s available on meetings and productivity, it should be. What are some effective meeting guidelines that will energize your team? One study showed that pointless meetings are costing U.S. companies approximately $399 billion a year. This jarring figure is fueling more companies to host fewer meetings that are action-oriented as opposed to more meetings filled with fluff.

Additionally, the channels of which most meetings are conducted have shifted entirely over the last year. Offices around the world went from in-person interaction to quickly learning how to adapt and fully operate in a virtual setting. Many companies are leveraging Zoom, a seemingly harmless tool that facilitates meeting needs. Unfortunately, many of these virtual meetings are conducted the same as if they were in-person. Only, virtual is not the same. Research has proven that processing an overwhelming number of social cues from a grid of individuals through a screen can be physically draining. This mental burnout may even lead to us turning off our cameras in an attempt to self-preserve.

Whether we remain remote or progress into a hybrid workplace, meeting systems and proceedings need to be reevaluated and evolve regularly. Learning how to properly run effective meetings is a critical component to a team’s success. Here is our guideline to effective meeting strategies that will leave everyone more engaged and less exhausted. 

1. Determine the need for the meeting.

Too many Zoom meetings are leaving attendees virtually exhausted. Therefore, every meeting you schedule should have clear objectives and move projects forward. Meetings “just because” not only waste resources and time, they damage company culture. Before you dive into planning, make sure that the meeting is necessary. Status updates or announcements may be better shared through asynchronous communication or team huddles. 

Furthermore, determine who is needed for the meeting. Do not over-invite. If the meeting only requires certain participants to reach the objectives, be sure to only invite those individuals. We can easily fall into the habit of inviting everyone. But if someone attends that doesn’t provide value, it can actually be counterproductive to the overall efficiency of your meeting.

2. Prepare in advance.

Prepping for a meeting is as important as the meeting itself. Many elements need to be ready before the meeting commences. One of those key items includes a strategic agenda. The agenda outlines the start time, meeting duration, end time, and clearly defined topics that will be discussed. Another important aspect of preparation is to determine the tools you’ll use. Although Zoom has become a default for many teams, there are scores of new tools that are available to enhance your meeting and participant engagement. Whatever tools you use, familiarize yourself with each through demos and videos. Recruit volunteers for a test-run so you absolutely know it will complement your meeting needs. The meeting itself is not the time or place to experiment with brand new software.

Lastly, refresh your facilitation skills. At times, you may need to bring in a professional facilitator. Not only do they have the expertise and tools to lead your meeting, but they can navigate your team through difficult or sensitive subject matter. It truly can be helpful to have an unbiased facilitator lead a meeting from a fully objective perspective.

3. Share expectations and goals.

At the start of every meeting, outline what you expect from participants as well as the meeting’s end goals. Expectations can range from keeping cameras on (if virtual) to being respectful of everyone’s time. If working remotely, you may want to remind everyone that virtual isn’t a pass to multitask. For a meeting to fully run efficiently, attendees need to be present and focused. Ground rules will not only help with the flow of the meeting, but they also promote dynamic engagement. If an issue arises, you can reference your meeting expectations at any time to keep everyone on track.

4. Create a safe space.

One of Voltage Controls’ holy grails for a successful meeting is to foster emotional safety. The heart of this concept is to create an environment where every attendee feels safe to be themselves and participate in the discussion. Everyone should feel comfortable sharing their ideas. This may mean monitoring those who dominate the conversation or calling upon those who are quiet. Pay attention to ways you can amplify voices. If someone gets cut off, make it a point to circle back to their thought or idea. Hiring a meeting facilitator helps with this process because they are experts in understanding unconscious bias and cultivating an inclusive environment for everyone.

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5. Stay on track and redirect.

Resolving items that aren’t on the agenda can be tempting, but you should remain loyal to your objectives. Veering off course will only eat up time and you’ll lose valuable steam. If you notice the conversation drifting away from the agenda, redirect. Suggest that the conversation be taken offline or saved for a future meeting. Additionally, attendees shouldn’t spend too much time on one subject. Pay attention to the clock and move the topics along to remain at a productive pace.

6. Recap and gather feedback.

Ending the meeting with a group debrief is an integral part of an effective meeting. Share an overview of the next steps and deadlines. Everyone’s responsibilities should be made clear. Additionally, allow time for participants to offer any significant takeaways. To strengthen your weaknesses, you’ll also need to receive feedback from attendees. Constructive feedback can be used to adapt to group needs that you may be blinded to and improve future meetings. 

7. Follow-up.

All the work you put into the meeting is wasted if nothing is achieved and projects don’t move forward. Following up reinforces what was achieved at the meeting and reminds everyone of their role in next steps. With everything fresh in your mind, a follow-up email should be sent directly after the meeting if possible. If not, within a 24-hour window is ideal. Huddles may be needed for updates on any hurdles your team is facing.

Meetings don’t have to be met with eye-rolls or yawns. If designed with purpose and intent, they can inspire deep and creative thinking. Meetings can also draw teams closer, even at a distance. This requires the right facilitation skills that take time to master. To hone in on your technique, join us for our virtual community facilitation practices. These free weekly meet-ups help facilitators perfect their craft and improve meeting quality. You will practice your facilitation approach, discuss fresh trends, and connect with and learn from fellow facilitators. Exceptional meetings begin with exceptional facilitators. 

The post Effective Meeting Guidelines To Energize Your Team appeared first on Voltage Control.

Meetings become derailed all the time. It doesn’t matter how perfectly crafted your agenda is, how talented or productive your team members are, or how many years of experience you have facilitating. People get distracted. People get off-task. The question is – how do you steer your meeting back in the right direction?

Here are three effective methods for getting a meeting back on the right track once it has already started to derail.

Reference Visible Resources & Allow for Self-Correction

One of the best ways to steer a meeting back on track in the early stages of derailment is to reference meeting resources that the participants can see. Physical reminders of the task or topic at hand and how long they have left to work with it will usually result in participants steering themselves and their peers back on track.

Physically pointing at an agenda is an excellent go-to. Your agenda should be posted where all of your participants can reference it at any time; when a conversation begins veering off-track, politely point at the activity or discussion in the agenda your meeting is currently focusing on and verbally remind your team what the current timeframe is scheduled for. If they are getting distracted with a matter that will be tackled later on in the meeting, you can also point out that timeframe on the agenda and assure them that there will be time later on to delve into that content.

Timers are a wonderful resource for keeping your team on track during a discussion or activity. The gentle pressure of a time limit manifested as a visual countdown encourages participation, discourages distractions, and cuts back on tangents, sidebars, and other divergences that can derail your meeting. If your team does get off track under the presence of a timer, reference it as you did the agenda. Point to the timer, remind them of the goal they need to reach by the end of the countdown, and let them know how much time they have left. It looks like we have about 5 more minutes left before we have to move on to our next activity. Let’s be sure we’ve accomplished our current task before time is up.

In addition to a posted agenda and a visible timer, having notes about the work that has already been accomplished during your meeting can be an incredibly helpful resource. Have a designated notetaker keep track of discussion points, discoveries, completed tasks, and other key moments and takeaways during the course of your meeting. If a discussion gets caught in a loop or becomes repetitive, reference these notes; according to our meeting notes here, we already discussed _____. How can we approach the topic at hand in a new way? The notes can also be referenced if the meeting is suddenly derailed by a digression; according to our notes, we were discussing ____. Can we save this for later and circle back to what we were discussing before?

Directly Address Team Members

Sometimes the most effective course of action is to be direct. If you’re able to identify a single team member (or maybe just a few) who seems to be off track, you can address them specifically.

The key is to never assume that there isn’t a connection between the topic at hand and what the participant is saying just because you’re not seeing one. Perhaps there’s something you missed or don’t understand about the subject that is preventing you from seeing the connection, or perhaps the participant isn’t communicating their thoughts clearly. Allow them the opportunity to either clarify their thoughts or self-correct their departure from the topic at hand by addressing them with a question. I’m afraid I may be having a hard time putting two-and-two together here. Can you help me understand how this is related to what we were discussing/working on?

If you have a small handful of participants derailing the meeting, it may be helpful to use the refocusing of attention to another participant entirely to aid in the transition back to the subject that the room should be handling. Acknowledge the detour and then ask a team member who hasn’t yet spoken to the original topic at hand for their thoughts. Before we move on from our original discussion I would like to make sure we’ve gathered everyone’s thoughts. _____, what do you think about [original subject]?

If a team member seems particularly concerned with a subject that you were not intending to handle in the meeting, it may be helpful to offer them a later time to discuss their thoughts with you. It can be hard to put an important issue on the backburner without assurance that it will be handled in the future. If a divergence seems important to tackle at some point but is not in service of the meeting’s goal, acknowledge the issue’s significance and ask the participant to schedule time with you after the meeting. That does seem important to discuss, but I want to make sure we stay on task with the limited amount of time we have today. After this meeting, can we schedule a separate time to talk about this?

Ask the Group

If your entire team is having trouble staying on track despite attempts at redirection, it may be a symptom of an ineffective agenda or an unmet need. When in doubt, the best thing to do is simply point out the derailment and ask why it’s happening. It seems like we’re having a tough time staying on topic. Can someone help me understand why that is?

It may be that your agenda’s scheduled discussions and activities don’t serve the meeting’s end goal as well as you thought, and your team is having trouble simultaneously doing meaningful work and working towards this goal. Alternatively, maybe there’s an issue you didn’t account for while creating your agenda that needs to be handled before the topic at hand can be effectively targeted. In scenarios such as these, it is best to be flexible with your agenda and allow your team to help adjust the plan to better serve the work that needs to be done.

Another possibility is that your team has so much swimming around in their minds that it’s difficult to compartmentalize or distinguish their thoughts on one discussion point from their thoughts on another. If your team needs to clear their heads, it is time for a break. If they are running out of fuel, it is time for lunch or a snack (or perhaps some coffee). They know best what they need to unwind and refresh – ask them what you can do to help them more easily focus on the topic at hand.

Need an expert facilitator for your next meeting, gathering or workshop? Let’s talk.

Voltage Control facilitates events of all kinds, including design thinking workshops, innovation sessions, and Design Sprints. Please reach out to us at hello@voltagecontrol.com if you want to talk or for a consultation.

The post 3 Ways to Get Your Meeting Back on Track appeared first on Voltage Control.

We are passionate about helping people everywhere have better meetings. So we’re sharing one of our pro-level tips to do so: do the work in the meeting, not after. By that, we mean each meeting is used to intentionally do work together at the scheduled time, not just talk about what needs to be done. This makes for much more productive syncs; you get WAY more done and meetings aren’t dull. They turn into working sessions, not slogs. There are concrete things to talk about. Everyone’s excited and engaged, which means more gets done.

Now, unanimous attendee participation is key to doing the work in the meeting. How do you capture and maintain the attention of everyone in attendance? Let’s take a look.

How to Maintain Steady Group Participation

To enable great participation, we make our meetings optional at Voltage Control. We think it’s up to the individual to choose if it’s right for them to attend a given meeting because you want each participant to bring their best self and be enthusiastic about contributing. When you give employees the choice to attend, you allow them to take ownership of how to spend their time. In essence, making meetings optional eliminates excuses. Now, there is no excuse for anyone to sit idly by in a meeting they don’t want to attend. Or, say, work on other material that they find more exciting or urgent.

If they value doing other work over being an active part of a meeting, they have the freedom to do so. The people who choose to be in the meeting, then, are much more likely to be engaged, creative, and responsive, because they decided to be there. This elevates productivity in the room and leads to more productive meetings.

In most cases, start the meeting with a no-device rule. By closing the laptops and putting away the devices, you will be amazed by what can be achieved when everyone is paying attention to the activities at hand. If you are meeting virtually, request that attendees use an app like Krisp to silence background noise and notifications that may come through on their laptops during the meeting. Focus everyone’s attention to the meeting at hand to get the most out of it.

Embrace the Child’s Mind for Optimum Performance

Being active, present, and curious creates a fruitful foundation for discovery and productivity.

Embrace the child’s mind. We all still have an inner child, we just need to access it. Luckily, there is a shortcut to do so: focus on verbs rather than nouns in our thinking and while we work. As professionals, we usually focus on nouns more than we do verbs. In other words, we tend to assign tasks and work expectations with rigid words and concepts (adult brain) that limit our creativity and productivity (child brain). It can be difficult to keep our adult-minds from taking over more than they should, but with a seemingly simple change of language, we open ourselves up to more possibilities and overall success.

Kids are masters at living in the verb. Just watch a few of them doing arts and crafts or playing on a playground. They are verbing more than they are nouning. They care less about being an official “artist,” and they don’t seem to even care about the final product of their creations. They are just “making art” or “building something.” There is an emphasis on the joy of the process, rather than obtaining a specific title or end result.

If each person in the room brings their child’s mind when we do creative work, we are all able to explore ideas freely, without obsessing on how “perfect” the results might be. We are ready to go on a journey to find the right idea instead of trying to get the idea just right.

When play is incorporated in work culture, a safe space is opened to fail fearlessly and to make room for marvel instead of judgment.

You can integrate improv exercises or deploy Liberating Structures to prevent participants from becoming too serious. This means a higher ceiling for creativity, therefore more ideas and more possibilities for solutions. Incorporating play will also help your team stay in the moment and process the work as it comes. When we get curious about, well, everything, we have more opportunities for discovery.

Lead with the concept that the sky’s the limit and anything goes in the brainstorming stage of innovation. That’s where the magic happens. Participants who feel safe to think big won’t waste brainpower feeling timid or overthinking their ideas. They will then practice better active listening skills and more fully process the work being done in the room.

You will get the best results when you work to keep everyone engaged at your meetings. Capture and maintain attendee’s attention to experience truly magical meetings.

Want to learn more about how to have Magical Meetings?

Check out Douglas Ferguson and John Fitch’s upcoming book: The Non-Obvious Guide to Magical Meetings (No Matter Who is in the Room).

The post Always Be Capturing: Keeping participants in the moment appeared first on Voltage Control.

Words are powerful. They hold weight and meaning, sometimes beyond what we immediately recognize when we use them. Take the word “meeting.” What do you think of when you hear it? Maybe you’re filled with dread, thinking about adding another unproductive time-suck onto your calendar. If so, you’re not alone. Most people don’t have a great relationship with meetings, and using the word itself can fill people with resistance and a predetermined notion of what to expect. We’re on a mission to change that. 

Poor meeting culture is a problem because we need meetings; they are vital to company success. 

Schedule & Label Meetings With Purpose

The problem with defaulting to the word “meeting” is that most of us are guilty of a particularly bad behavior in a meeting:  gathering people only to give them a status update. This is simply a waste of everyone’s time. When we bring people together just to give status updates, no work gets done in the meeting; it’s not a productive meeting at all. When we call these types of gatherings “meetings”, people associate the word with this kind of experience, giving “meetings” a bad rap. An email, Slack message, or phone call is better suited for status updates. We must reserve true “meetings” for collaborative work sessions to get things done together. 

I will admit, I am guilty of using the word “meeting”. I use the word “meeting” a lot. I say it often, and it is in the title of this article.

I bring this subject up to offer a suggestion: if we rebrand the word “meeting” to reflect the work we will actually do in it, we will have better meetings. We all want better meetings and to get rid of the ones that are pointless and waste our time. I have an easy and effective hack for you to do so: Change up your taxonomy. Be intentional with the words you use to set the right purpose for a meeting, and do your best to not use the actual word “meeting” in the title.

Specifically name your meetings like you would the subject line of an email. For example, “Team Sync” for team check-ins and to discuss current business happenings, and “Marketing Ideation” for a marketing team brainstorm session. What is the meeting about? What can people expect? That should be the name of your meeting. 

Do the Work in the Meeting

My favorite meeting title upgrade is “Review” because the naming of it insists there is going to be an artifact that a group of people will review. This could be a prototype, a work-in-progress idea, a diagram, a marketing story, or anything that someone would have made. It allows the team to live out one of our 10 meeting mantras at Voltage Control: “no prototype no meeting.” It enforces that we do the work in the meeting–the gateway to truly productive meetings.

By simply taking some time to be intentional with the title of your meetings (there I go again), you are setting the tone for the participants. You are clearly defining a purpose. And with that purpose, you can then line up the correct exercises to keep all participants focused and engaged. You can do the work in your meeting rather than just providing another status update, where no productive work takes place, and you’ll likely have to make up for that labor that should have been done. 

Build a Lexicon

Try this exercise to put this renaming method into practice: Look at your calendar and notice everything that is labeled as a meeting. Are there different categories of meetings? Can you call them something different/be more specific?

Identify the types of meetings you frequently have and build a lexicon specific to your company. 

Here is an example of my calendar:

As you can see in the calendar above, you can replace “Meeting” with “Review”, “Pivot or Persevere”, or “Work Session” to more clearly define what the sync is about. 

Pro tip: Rename your meetings when you send out an invitation on a calendar. This allows attendees to know what to expect and come more prepared. 

This is just one technique to build better meeting systems for your company. Try it out and see how it transforms your meetings! 

The post Rename Your Meetings appeared first on Voltage Control.

1. Make Sure You Actually Need a Meeting

How many times have you been sitting in a meeting thinking ‘this could have been an email?’ Before you start planning your meeting, think critically about its purpose. Will this be a valuable use of the participants’ time? Unnecessary meetings waste both time and money. Status updates and other information relays are better delivered through asynchronous communication. Your meeting should require the active participation of its attendees towards a clearly defined, specified goal.

2. Thoroughly Prepare

Prepare your meetings with all the care and forethought of a surgeon preparing to operate. You will lose the trust and attention of your participants if your meeting is disorganized or chaotic. Prepare a thorough agenda with activities that will work towards your goal, gather all supplies you may need, and distribute invitations (as well as your agenda!) to your participants ahead of time. If your meeting will be in person, be sure to book a space with room and equipment that will work for the activities in your agenda. If your meeting will be remote, prepare all technology ahead of time and make sure participants will be ready to use it; if you are asking them to use an online tool that they may be unfamiliar with, be sure to provide instructions or a brief tutorial.

3. Invite the Right People

It may be a habit to invite everyone, but this will not set your participants up for success. It would not be a good use of the time or skillset of a marine biologist to invite them to participate in a workshop regarding electrical engineering. Invite only participants who will be directly affected by the meeting’s content or who can reasonably contribute to the problem that is being solved. It may benefit your meeting to make it optional; this will ensure that every participant in the room feels that the meeting is relevant to them and that they have something to contribute.

4. Brush Up on Your Facilitation Skills

No matter how experienced you are, it never hurts to go back to basics. Get focused by giving yourself a refresher on foundational facilitation skills. If you’re out of practice, new to leading meetings, trying out new techniques/approaches, or otherwise feeling unready, it may be beneficial to rehearse a little. Workshop that new activity with another group or read up on techniques for asking good questions. The world of facilitation is always developing new strategies and techniques. Circling back to refine and develop your basics every now and then is one of the best ways to honor a growth mindset.

5. Set Expectations

At the beginning of your meeting, clearly outline what you expect from your participants as well as what they can expect from you. Expectations may range from putting away electronic devices to being open to new ideas. Consider posting expectations somewhere participants can see them during the meeting, such as a whiteboard. This will allow you to use them as a tool to get your meeting back on track should participants need a nudge; for example, if a participant is talking over another participant, you can reference your meeting expectations to remind them that each participant’s time to speak should be honored as their own.

6. Foster Psychological Safety

One of Voltage Control’s meeting mantras is Foster Emotional Safety. Participants who feel safe to share ideas, express opinions, and be themselves are more engaged, more productive, cooperate more effectively, and create better work. Beware of assuming that you understand how your participants are feeling. Take moments to check in and ask each person how they are feeling. Psychologically safe meetings are better able to benefit from room intelligence.

7. Follow Your Agenda

An expertly-crafted agenda means absolutely nothing if it is thrown out the window the second your meeting commences. Remaining loyal to your agenda will help you stay on task and ensure that your meeting ends on time, which is crucial for maintaining participants’ trust. Be sure to post your agenda where all of your participants can see it. This will help eliminate time-wasters such as irrelevant discussion and jumping the gun, as all participants will know what they are to be focused on in the moment as well as what they will have the opportunity to discuss later on in the meeting.

8. Always Debrief

Your meeting should always, always, always end with time for the group to debrief. Use this time to emphasize major takeaways to your participants, clarify next steps, set deadlines, and assign tasks and responsibilities. This is also a wonderful time to get feedback from your participants about how they feel similar meetings can be more effective in the future.

9. Send a Follow-Up Email

A follow-up email should be sent to participants within 24 hours of your meeting’s conclusion. If it’s possible, it is best practice to write this email directly after the meeting is over, before moving on to your next commitment. This will guarantee that the work and discussions handled during your meeting are still fresh in your mind. Your follow-up email should include the following:

• A thank you for attending
• Meeting highlights
• Tasks that need to be completed going forward
• Responsibilities given to specific people
• Deadlines for tasks and responsibilities

10. When in Doubt, Hire a Facilitator

Some meetings are best-handled by professional facilitators; this is why the profession exists. Professional facilitators can help your team tackle a difficult or sensitive matter, solve a problem they’ve been stuck on, or even hit the reset button after a history of unpleasant or unproductive meetings. If you’re unsure whether your meeting needs a professional facilitator, check out Voltage Control’s article Should Your Organization Hire a Workshop Facilitator?

Need an expert facilitator for your next meeting, gathering or workshop? Let’s talk.

Voltage Control facilitates events of all kinds, including design thinking workshops, innovation sessions, and Design Sprints. Please reach out to us at hello@voltagecontrol.com if you want to talk or for a consultation.

The post 10 Tips for Effective Meetings appeared first on Voltage Control.