Remote work, hybrid workplace, working from home, virtual meetings. Although not net new ideas, these themes became much more common within the last year. Even as more and more people plan to return to work in person, the concept of a distributed workforce will be the new “normal” for many, and companies and employees will need to learn to adjust accordingly. Distributed workforce best practices will need to be applied to be successful in this new landscape. There are new ways of working across the board – this includes a combination of remote employees, physical offices, and working with colleagues and team members in other locations and time zones (even if they are in another physical office). 

The Voltage Control team has always been remote (outside of our in-person workshops and events) so this shift to virtual work and the distributed workforce wasn’t new to us – we’ve documented best practices for remote teams, and even assembled a toolkit that allows our remote team to facilitate virtual meetings that are as, if not more, effective than traditional face-to-face interactions.

Many large corporations are making the decision to offer permanent remote work options for their employees, including Twitter, JP Morgan, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft. A distributed workforce, when directed by effective systems and processes, can and will be successful with adjustments and best practices.

Employees have demonstrated the ability to work productively in a distributed and/or remote fashion, in large part due to available tools and technology. However, it will take more than simply downloading Zoom and a good Wifi connection (though they are both very important) for a successful distributed workforce. We outline 5 distributed workforce best practices below.

Distributed Work Best Practices

1) Implement recurring check-ins and meetings 

Communication is key. Ensure communication flows between all team members, regardless of physical location. This is increasingly important as workers become more spread across different time zones and locations. Consider daily standup updates on Slack, end of day status emails, all hands/town halls, check-ins with direct reports, and virtual meetings–with video when possible–to include everyone on the team. This isn’t to say you should have a million meetings just to have them by any means. There should always be a clear purpose to avoid wasting time (among other Meeting Mantras). Keeping an open line of communication through all levels and team members will help align and push forward projects and initiatives in a distributed workforce setting.

2) Utilize the best tools and tech

These tools played an obvious role when the majority of office workers were forced to be remote. They will continue to be critical to keeping everyone aligned and organized as the virtual, remote + in-person worlds merge into a distributed workforce. Some of our favorite tools for a distributed workforce include: 

• Asana – Project management tool to help teams organize, track and manage their work.
• Basecamp – Real-time communication tool to keep track of everything you’re working on in a shared space. 
• Doodle – Calendar scheduling system for time management and to easily coordinate one-on-one and team meetings. 
• Focus To-Do – Pomodoro time and task management app that helps you perform tasks efficiently. 
• Google Docs – Smart editing and styling tools support joint teamwork to flow smoothly and easily and keep ideas in one place. Teams can work on different pages or in different docs accordingly. 
• Google Slides – Interactive work templates with multiple pages to allow individual and collective work.
• Google Sheets – Collaborative spreadsheets to organize and update tasks and information. 
• Google Drive or other cloud storage – Drop all assets and work content into a shared space for easy access for all team members. Use different folders to organize information. 
• Harvest – Time tracking software with multiple integrations and extensions.
• Loom – Screen recorder that allows you to capture video screen messages instead of sending long emails. It’s also helpful for sending team members visual directions if you cannot screen share in real-time.
• Process Street – Make checklists for your team to help you remember and keep track of all of your to-do’s. 
• SessionLab – Dynamically design, organize and share workshops and training content.
• Slack – Team messaging platform that is a smart alternative to email. It allows the team to have a shared view of work progress and purpose
• Trello –  A place for assigning work and tracking work progress using a Kanban-style list-making application.
• World Time Buddy – World clock, time zone converter, and online meeting scheduler to coordinate and plan across different time zones.
• Zoom – Videoconferencing platform with breakout room capabilities.

3) Establish and define clear goals for everyone

The success of a distributed workforce depends on meaningful goal-setting. A distributed workforce provides flexibility, in the sense that employees aren’t held to the same confines of a traditional workplace. However, this also means goals and tasks need to be defined even more clearly since the full team won’t be together in person and important details can get lost in translation. Set reasonable goals then make sure that all team members are on the same page so you can accomplish them as a team. Many companies and employees use SMART goal setting:

• Specific: Make your goals specific and narrow for more effective planning.
• Measurable: Define what evidence will provide you’re making progress.
• Attainable: Make sure you can reasonably accomplish your goal within a certain timeframe.
• Relevant: Goals should align with values and long-term objectives.
• Time-based: Set a realistic, ambitious end date for task prioritization.

4) Track projects and productivity

With any team, but especially a distributed one, tracking projects, and productivity is important. You are unable to stop by a team member’s desk to check in like in-person offices so you need a way of making sure that everyone is on task. There are many ways of doing this even if you are not together in person, such as Asana or Trello for project management, and Harvest for time tracking. Team members are able to see what everyone else is doing, what stage a project is in, and coordinate with one another in real-time. Monitoring responsibility online leads to more productivity and collaboration. It also saves time being able to view the status of all projects across all team members, in one platform.

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5) Promote team bonding 

Host offsite/virtual social events so remote workers can get together in person or via video conference for team-building and socializing. The specific events will depend and differ based on location and circumstance. Virtual happy hours or game nights are a fun way to bond. Connection is often more elusive online, so setting aside time for your team to relax or have fun together when distributed is more important than ever. These sorts of social events can have a big impact on your distributed team’s morale.

Numerous experiments have shown how employees are much more productive and engaged when they’re given flexibility on where, when, and how they’ll get their work done. A distributed workforce can boost not only productivity but also retention. Turnover is 25% lower at companies that support remote work environments. The evidence is clear: Remote and distributed employees have great potential to be highly productive and extremely engaged, as long as you know how to engage them. Testing the distributed workforce best practices outlined above is a great place to start.

At Voltage Control we are exercising and sharing the best tools and techniques needed for teams to thrive in the hybrid and distributed workplace, through productive meetings (in-person and virtual), remote work team collaboration, considerations for return to work, facilitation skills, virtual events, meeting culture, Magical Meetings and design sprints.

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This article is based on our downloadable Remote Design Sprint 101 Guide. Check it out!

A lot has changed over the last year and a half, but not our ability to collaborate, creatively solve problems, and design impactfully. While some are beginning to return to physical offices, many companies and employees are opting for a hybrid work model resulting in the shift to a distributed workforce. With the right practices and technology, we can still have meaningful virtual meetings and remote workshops. Namely, remote Design Sprint workshops are an essential tool to utilize during these transitional times. They’re more important now more than ever, as companies adjust to survive and thrive in the pandemic-impacted world – from solving big business challenges quickly, to refining company processes to launching innovative ideas.  

A Design Sprint is used for validating ideas and tackling business problems, guiding teams through a design-thinking-based process to uncover insights, prototype an idea, and test it with users. We at Voltage Control have successfully adapted our tried-and-true Design Sprint model for remote work and documented everything in our Remote Design Sprint 101 Guide. This comprehensive guide is for anyone who wants to plan and run their own remote Design Sprint. Some of these ideas were also featured in The Sprint Book‘s Remote Design Sprint Guide, written by the inventor of the Design Sprint Jake Knapp.

In this article, we’ll review some of the benefits of running a remote Design Sprint in your organization and how to lead your own in the virtual landscape. Let’s continue to work and create together! 

Remote Design Sprint Purpose & Benefits

Before we jump in, let’s recap some reasons you may want to run a Design Sprint. Design Sprints have multiple benefits, including:

• Aligning a team around a shared vision.
• Answering critical business questions.
• Discovering the essence of a creative challenge or problem.

Some excellent times to run a Design Sprint are:

• When kicking off a new initiative.
• When looking for new breakthrough features for a product.
• If you want to test divergent solutions.
• When you’re prioritizing potential business opportunities.
• When you need to switch gears or iterate on a current product.
• When you haven’t talked to your users enough.

Remote Design Sprints are not the same as in-person design sprints in many ways, so we must treat them differently. Read on to find out how you can successfully run your next remote Design Sprint.

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5 Tips to Run an Effective Remote Design Sprint

1. Move slower

We are often asked if we facilitate a remote Design Sprint in the typical week-long format of an in-person sprint. In general, we believe that the pace of the Design Sprint needs to be slower in a remote setting. While technology can indeed speed us up, it can also slow us down. That’s because remote workshops account for many factors that we don’t face when we’re connecting face-to-face, such as time zone differences or Zoom fatigue.

For example, you don’t want remote participants to spend more than four hours at a time on Zoom, as being chained to a desk and laptop for any longer can stifle focus and participation (learn more about tips on how to get rid of Zoom fatigue and energize your remote team here). Another consideration is the limited ability to read the virtual room intelligence to ensure that everyone is on the same page. The physical separation makes it difficult to notice if someone is distracted, struggling, or falling behind. Keep in mind the need for team connection, which is especially important in a virtual setting. If you do manage to detect that someone needs help, it takes extra time to stop and catch them up. Simply put, things take longer online. There are inevitably delays and extra processing time needed to get everyone on board no matter what tools you are using (more on that later). Account for extra buffer time to set up and field mishaps during the remote Design Sprint. You’ll need to prepare to support those that are less familiar with the tools you’ve chosen or having trouble with their internet connection. 

Another factor to consider in a remote Design Sprint is that participants are more likely to get distracted online. An effective Design Sprint ground rule to increase productivity is to ban the use of personal devices. However, it’s impossible to eliminate the distraction of screens during remote Design Sprints because laptops and tablets are the means for connection. In short, you have to wrangle the cats more. That’s because each participant is in their own physical environment. Natural external factors of working from home are also at play, such as pets or children. Facilitators will have the most success when they allocate extra time and are prepared to assist participants through these distractions (note: if you are looking for other general ways to improve remote team alignment, see here). 

2. Tweak the schedule

Running any successful remote workshop (especially a remote Design Sprint as it’s more complex than other remote meetings) requires adjustments to a typical in-person one, as fostering the same spirit of focus and connection can be a major challenge. However, this doesn’t mean that any remote workshop or remote Design Sprint is doomed to fail. With the right perspective and a little bit of tweaking, your remote Design Sprint can provide all of the value and human connection of an in-person one.

Because things move slower virtually, we request our Design Sprint participants commit to a series of mini-workshops rather than asking them to commit to the five full days (which is the typical length of time for an in-person Design Sprint). Between each mini-workshop, we assign homework and set the expectation that they will present their work at the next group session. Setting the expectation that the participant will present creates social pressure to encourage participation and ensure the work gets done. In the Design Sprint tradition of working alone together, participants do work alone offline in addition to the moments where everyone will be on the Zoom call at the same time. 

These mini workshop sessions build chronologically one after the other. This sequence could happen over the course of four days, or even eight if needed. Combined, they create the complete virtual Design Sprint calendar. Designing around the in-between times is powerful and an opportunity that in-person doesn’t support. 

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Another crucial aspect of scheduling a remote Design Sprint is considering different time zones, which isn’t a concern when everyone is in person in the same place. Time zones present a serious challenge and should not be ignored. It is important to be conscientious of all participants’ time differences. For example, it is unrealistic to invite someone to a workshop that would occur at 2:00AM their time. We use Worldtimebuddy and Calendly to easily select times that are convenient for all participants.

The extra headache of aligning time zones is well worth the benefits of connecting a globally diverse team, which is something we don’t get with in-person Design Sprints.

This shift to virtual and hybrid work has required us to see what is possible and has exposed new workshop designs. For instance, you would never fly someone from China to Austin, Texas to have a two-hour workshop on Monday and another one on Friday. It’s just too expensive, even if that was the perfect design for the content and the arc of decision-making. This is now possible because the logistics are different.

And because you will likely be dealing with different time zones in your remote Design Sprint, there is no standard schedule like when you meet at the same location in a physical sprint. You will have to adjust your Virtual Design Sprint schedule for each virtual sprint team so that it is reasonable for each participant’s given time window. We make a bespoke schedule for each virtual Design Sprint that follows the schedule principles mentioned above.

Now that we are immersed in them, we realize that remote workshops offer some incredible things that you CAN’T do in person. 

3. Set the stage and make sure to debrief

PSA: Virtual Design Sprints require more prep!

Remote Design Sprints need more planning because there are more outside factors to consider including the best tools to use and adjustments that need to be made for timing and methods to optimize engagement. At Voltage Control, we’ve developed multiple virtual workshop tools to help individuals, teams, and companies build the skills they need to design and run exceptional virtual workshops and remote Design Sprints. We also put together a Virtual Work Guide highlighting how to set up and facilitate productive virtual meetings to make them just as purposeful and successful as in-person meetings (if not more so). 

First and foremost, participants need to understand the tools, the process, what is expected of them, how things will unfold, and why they are doing all of this in the first place. This is much different than doing a Design Sprint in person. In-person, it doesn’t take a participant very long to properly acquaint themselves with the sticky notes and a whiteboard. That’s why we make sure to spend enough time getting everyone acquainted with the new digital tools and processes so they are set up for success. 

One way we properly set the stage is by investing a lot of preparation time into our Design Sprint MURAL board. This is the digital space where both individuals and the group will participate in most of the Design Sprint exercises. The more prep we can do in the MURAL board, the less headache for the virtual participants. We can’t expect them to be as savvy with our virtual facilitation tools as we are. So we create videos of us walking through the MURAL board, the exercises, and the key features they will be using. And just in case someone didn’t watch the videos, we schedule boot-up time at the beginning of the sprint so everyone can understand this new paradigm.

Another helpful preparation that aids in the process of training up participants is to set expectations before the workshop. Create an agenda that optimizes the remote attendee experience – set clear objectives for why you are running the remote Design Sprint and what your team needs to accomplish by the end of it. Outline the objective for each day of the remote Design Sprint and the activities participants will be engaging in. Remember to pad your agenda to account for potential technical difficulties, clarification, distraction, and other hiccups.

Send a checklist and supplies list ahead of time so participants know what to order and are ready to go. It’s also incredibly helpful to make sure all participants know what their deadlines and deliverables are from the get-go so everyone can successfully accomplish them. As a facilitator, you demo the expectations and process for everyone else, field questions, and then let them go off and do their individual work. You don’t want to surprise anyone or embarrass them. The goal is to have everyone on the same, productive page. 

Schedule cleanup time after each day is over. This should be in addition to the official debrief or retrospective (which should be held after the remote Design Sprint is over). Purposefully dedicating time for both the “cleanup” and debrief is important to provide opportunities that may be otherwise missed in a remote environment, and also ensure everyone is on the same page for next steps.

4. Pick the right tech

The transition to virtual means choosing the right tools and platforms that best support your goals and needs for the remote Design Sprint. Here are several tools we use and recommend:

Zoom

The virtual meeting platform gathers everyone into a main meeting room. Note: ask everyone to turn on their video! It’s crucial to foster the missing element of physical human connection when working remotely. Zoom also has built-in rooms that you can use to assign participants to breakout rooms. We’ve found this especially helpful during storyboarding. The feature to automatically route participants in and out of breakout rooms and back to the main meeting room makes the virtual facilitation experience much easier. You also have the capability to mute all participants at any time (cancels out everyone’s individual background noises) which is helpful when giving directions or speaking to everyone all at once in the main meeting room. 

MURAL 

Imagine a Design Sprint wall of post-it notes, then make it digital. That’s the essence of MURAL. It is a virtual whiteboard tool that supports complex group work and allows teams to virtually share and collaborate on digital stickies. Miro is another option for virtual collaboration. We prefer MURAL for our Design Sprints because it has the most features to support facilitators. For example, you can use a super lock feature to identify elements that can only be unlocked by users with Facilitator Superpowers. It’s a nice feature so that a curious participant doesn’t accidentally mess up your template and confuse the rest of the team.

When working with a dynamic group, MURAL’s ‘Summon’ feature really comes in handy during all of the different activities within a Design Sprint. This helps the facilitator draw focus and attention throughout the sprint. And if summoning isn’t your cup of tea, MURAL also has a ‘follow’ feature where you can request that participants follow your screen. Get acquainted with how to use MURAL with our MURAL Cheat Sheet. By adding the MURAL app to Zoom, attendees will be able to collaborate without leaving Zoom.

Figma

Just like how MURAL allows our team to collaborate in real-time on a Design Sprint digital board, Figma allows the prototyping team to collaborate in real-time on a digital prototype. Whether you are prototyping a mobile app concept, a website marketing page, a software feature idea, or other forms of digital collateral, Figma allows many designers to rapidly create, assemble, and then present a believable prototype facade that a test user can interact with and react to. One pro tip is that we recommend embedding GIFs into your Figma prototype if you need to create video explanations or interesting animations to compel your test user. 

And to pair well with the Figma prototyping, we built out a MURAL template to help the prototyping stitcher to more effectively coordinate with the team on prototyping day. 

Control Room App

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Pen & Paper

We still like attendees to do some of the Design Sprint activities locally before sharing them on the MURAL board, and we have learned that you cannot assume that they have the basic supplies with them. So, you can either drop ship pens, paper, and stickies to the attendees, or you can confirm that they have something equivalent before the sprint begins. And if you can’t send them supplies and they don’t have any, we recommend discussing digital methods for them to do solo work on their tablet or computer before surfacing it on the MURAL board. 

Finally, we also curated a guide for all the hardware you need to run virtual magical meetings here.

5. Engage a Professional Facilitator

Depending on your specific situation, it may be beneficial to hire an outside facilitator (especially when making big decisions). It’s also beneficial to have an outside facilitator when you don’t feel confident that someone internal can do the job effectively. The facilitator is the key ingredient to the Design Sprint process; it is critical that they be confident in their role and have a deep understanding of the design thinking process. If you are wary or unsure whether an internal facilitator will lead your remote Design Sprint participants to excellence, it may be best to bring in an expert from the outside. This will also allow internal team members to see expert facilitation in action and may give them the insight they need to successfully lead a Design Sprint in the future.

Working remotely certainly has its challenges, but it also has great potential. Now more than ever we have the opportunity to connect and collaborate on a global scale. This shift to virtual is shaping the future of facilitation in ways that will benefit us for years to come. Instead of waiting to be in person with your team to reap the benefits of a Design Sprint, adapt it to the virtual landscape and run a (just as effective) remote Design Sprint. 

We offer virtual facilitation services.

Voltage Control facilitates virtual design thinking workshops and Design Sprints, virtual innovation sessions, and virtual transitions. Please reach out at info@voltagecontrol.com for a consultation.

The post How to Run Remote Design Sprints appeared first on Voltage Control.

The Voltage Control team has always been remote (aside from our in-person workshops and events, which were put on a pause due to the pandemic), resulting in our team constantly learning about and improving upon the best and most efficient ways to collaborate virtually. Effective remote work collaboration for teams relies on having the right tools in place. As experts in remote work, our team put together a Virtual Work Guide documenting our learnings for you to more easily navigate work with a distributed team. The past 18 months have also provided additional opportunities to refine remote meetings and develop virtual workshop tools. To succeed in today’s virtual and distributed workforce, all remote teams will need to implement the right tools, processes, and methods to optimize how they work together.

Virtual workshops require careful planning and preparation, as there are various factors to take into account that you don’t need to consider for in-person ones (including Zoom fatigue, scheduling across multiple time zones, and maintaining human connection in a virtual landscape). By nature, digital tools are necessary for virtual workshops to run smoothly and effectively. Improve your next virtual workshop with 10 of our top curated tools: 5 tools we’ve created here at Voltage Control through our own experiences with virtual work, and 5 additional tools we recommend you test out for your next virtual workshop.

The following tools were developed by the Voltage Control team to help individuals, teams, and companies build the skills they need to design and run exceptional virtual workshops.

5 Voltage Control Virtual Workshop Tools 

1. Design Sprint Guide

This guide provides an overview of everything you need to run your own remote Design Sprint, and outlines everything we’ve done at Voltage Control to successfully adapt our tried-and-true Design Sprint model for remote work.

2. Workshop Methods & Activities Templates

A collection of tools to inspire methods and activities for your next workshop, spanning facilitation frameworks, design thinking, improv, active learning, idea generation, prototyping, and more.

3. Workshop Design Template for MURAL

Use this MURAL canvas to design your workshop, meeting, training, or course for lasting growth and transformation. The best workshops are impactful learning experiences. We created the LXD Canvas to introduce learning experience design principles to facilitators who haven’t considered them and to help everyone apply them more effectively in your facilitation to maximize participant potential.

Unfamiliar with MURAL? Use our MURAL Cheat Sheet to learn how to use it.

4. Workshop Design Workshop

Our Workshop Design Workshop is a 2-day virtual experience where you learn techniques on improving engagement, retention, and participant commitment during and after your workshop. You can expect to learn and practice the principles and tools to drive lasting change.

5. Control Room App

This tool helps you run virtual workshops and is for anyone wanting to run magical meetings. We custom-made this tool based on our own facilitation experiences to help you facilitate exceptionally good meetings and events. It includes20 free activities and premium features that allow you to maximize meaningful connection and productive work amongst your attendees. This simple tool is filled with meeting activities that keep your team engaged and captures feedback so you can constantly improve. Check out our videos to learn more.

We utilize the following tools side-by-side with our own to run effective virtual workshops and meetings. Try these out in your next virtual workshop or event if you haven’t already.

5 Virtual Workshop Tools We Recommend

1. Zoom

This video conferencing tool is a must for almost any virtual meeting, but especially important for virtual workshops due to its breakout room capabilities. They even have an Events solution to better host virtual experiences, with features including branded event hubs, customizable registration and built-in ticket options, and analytics to help you understand your event performance and improve your virtual events.

2. MURAL

MURAL is a digital whiteboard with collaborative templates for visual collaboration including planning, brainstorming, and designing. We personally like MURAL because it’s a customizable virtual whiteboard that supports interactive and collaborative work with a remote or virtual team. Everyone can work together in one visual space, and you can create your own templates to support your specific needs. Check out our MURAL cheat sheet for a quick reference on how to use MURAL.

3. Figma

Collaborative design platform to design, prototype, and gather feedback in real-time in one place. Companies like Spotify, Netflix, Nike, and digital innovators have been using Figma to design their next mobile app, marketing website, or proof of concept. We use Figma in almost every Design Sprint process.

4. World Time Buddy

One benefit of virtual workshops is that people can join regardless of location. However, this also means multiple time zones need to be taken into account. This tool is a world clock, time zone converter, and online meeting scheduler to coordinate and plan across different time zones.

5. SessionLab

Dynamically design, organize and share workshops and training content. This tool helps you easily plan and create virtual workshops. It includes 150+ expert-reviewed remote-friendly facilitation methods (and a library of 800+ total methods) and helps ensure your virtual team is engaged and aligned while making changes in real-time.

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Make virtual workshops run seamlessly and get the most out of your attendees by incorporating the right tools and practices. If you are interested in learning about additional tools and best practices for managing remote teams, see here.

Run Your Own Virtual Workshop Successfully

Do you want to run a successful remote workshop but don’t know where to start? Voltage Control facilitates events of all kinds, including live online workshops, boot camps, summits, and meetings. Please contact us at hello@voltagecontrol.com if you have questions or would like to schedule a consultation.

FAQ Section

What collaboration tools does Voltage Control recommend for virtual workshops?
At Voltage Control, we utilize a wide range of collaboration tools, including Google Docs, Google Forms, and Google Drive, alongside other online design tools like Figma and MURAL. These tools enable efficient digital collaboration, allowing teams to work together in real time during virtual workshops and training sessions.

How can I improve team collaboration in virtual sessions?
Using advanced features of virtual workshop platforms and online whiteboards ensures effective online collaboration. These platforms support virtual offices and offer interactive sessions that enhance team collaboration, brainstorming sessions, and the overall creative process.

What are the key features to look for in virtual platforms?
When selecting a virtual platform for your workshop, key features include breakout sessions, video chat, audio calls, and online communication tools like Zoom or Google Meet. These platforms should also support virtual whiteboards and other tools that facilitate digital collaboration and the engagement of your entire team.

What are the benefits of using Google Workspace tools in a virtual workshop?
Google Workspace tools like Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Google Drive allow for efficient collaboration and communication within virtual workshops. These tools facilitate document sharing, scheduling, and real-time editing, making them ideal for organizing collaboration sessions and workshop activities.

Can virtual workshops offer the same level of engagement as in-person workshops?
Yes, virtual workshops can be just as engaging as in-person workshops with the right digital facilitation tools. A lot of platforms combined with the use of online whiteboards and engagement tools, allow for interactive and collaborative workshop activities. The virtual space offers flexibility while maintaining high levels of team engagement.

How do I ensure the success of virtual brainstorming sessions?
To succeed in virtual brainstorming sessions, use online collaboration tools like MURAL or Figma as we already mentioned, since they are perfect tools for visual and design collaboration. Google Forms can serve as a survey tool to gather feedback, while breakout sessions in Zoom or Google Meet help maintain team focus and productivity during brainstorming activities.

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At Voltage Control, we are Liberating Structures enthusiasts. Liberating Structures is a framework for facilitation created by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless, intended to provide simple rules that make it easy to promote inclusion and participatory decision making. At a high level, Liberating Structures consists of 33 microstructures designed to build trust and enhance cooperation and communication between teammates. In today’s increasingly hybrid environment, Virtual Liberating Structures will also become more prominent as more of the workforce elects to work remotely. Applying Liberating Structures virtually will also come with its own set of nuances. Learn how to utilize Virtual Liberating Structures to unleash engagement, provide space for good ideas, and address challenges your team or organization may be facing. 

What is the Liberating Structures Framework?

The Liberating Structures framework is built around improving coordination and promoting participation by including and unleashing all team members. The framework consists of a collection of structures or methods that are meant to introduce small shifts in the way teams meet, plan, decide, and learn. They put the innovation once reserved for experts into the hands of everyone within a team or organization. Each of the 33 microstructures is easy to learn. Regardless if you’re an experienced leader at the executive level or new hire at the entry-level, this framework can work for you and your team (with a little practice, of course). 

Most organizations in today’s business environment rely on what Lipmanowicz and McCandless refer to as “conventional microstructures.” These microstructures are structures that teams default to when meeting and organizing into groups. These conventional microstructures are either too inhibiting (i.e. status reports/updates, managed discussions, presentations), or too loose and disorganized (i.e. open discussion and brainstorming) according to Lipmanowicz and McCandless. They often are limited in the number of participants and the control is isolated to one individual or a select few–often the extroverted participants in the group. As a result, these conventional microstructures can routinely stifle inclusion and/or engagement. Liberating Structures, and Virtual Liberating Structures, provide more constructive alternatives than the conventional structures by including everybody regardless of group size, seniority or comfort level, and distributing control among all participants.

For more information on when to use Liberating Structures and solutions on using the best Liberating Structure for the job, download our guide here.

Why Virtual Liberating Structures Are Important

Liberating Structures offer an alternative way to approach and design how people work together. In today’s distributed workforce, Virtual Liberating Structures will become more necessary as teams and organizations won’t always be all together in the same office anymore. Even when in person, conventional facilitation and microstructures can be creativity’s worst enemy. They often end up in the exclusion of the more introverted team members in the room, lack organization, and discourage out-of-the-box thinking. It’s difficult to feel encouraged and engaged after a 30 minute PowerPoint over Zoom presentation followed by an unfacilitated brainstorm (in which a couple of the highest-positioned extroverts do most of the talking). 

When applied to virtual meetings, these drawbacks of conventional facilitation and microstructures only get worse. Little regard to the unique challenges of virtual facilitation and participation will result in frustration for both you and your team. Remote participants face more distractions, more technical difficulties, and less engagement than in-person participants in virtual meetings and/or workshops. You will want, and need, to put extra thought into inclusion, participation, and engagement to make the most of remote, virtual and hybrid communication. This is why Virtual Liberating Structures is such a great framework for remote teams. 

The framework’s advantages–participation promotion, creative empowerment, and cooperation improvement–precisely counteract the challenges of meeting and working together remotely. When everyone in the virtual room feels enabled to participate, virtual meetings will naturally produce more and higher quality work. Team members and participants are invited because they have something of value to offer, regardless of title or level. Consequently, it’s critical to empower them to contribute. Collaboration between participants will promote individual creativity by enabling everyone to build off each others’ ideas and inspire one another. The group is smarter than any individual.

The Liberating Structures frameworks’ focus on participation will make attention management significantly easier, especially in a remote and virtual environment. Liberating Structures, whether in person or remote, operate under the philosophy that every participant has a lot to contribute, which means that every participant is being asked to take an active role. Participants who are actively engaged and engaging are much less likely to become distracted and/or disengaged.

Virtual Liberating Structures Examples

We understand that adapting all 33 Liberating Structures in a virtual setting can seem daunting. That’s why we detail Liberating Structure activities to strengthen virtual collaboration in another post here. In summary, here are a couple of Liberating Structures that are applicable to the virtual work environment and can strengthen virtual teams:

Troika Consulting

This activity allows an opportunity for two participants to become consultants for a third group member (the “client.”) The first client shares a question or challenge, then the consultant has 1-2 minutes to ask clarifying questions. When time is up or the consultants are finished asking questions, the client will mute their audio and allow the consultants to spend 4-5 minutes generating suggestions and advice. The consultants will then have 1-2 minutes to share their most valuable feedback to the client. This activity builds trust between teammates and helps participants better understand each other’s strengths and areas of expertise.

Conversation Café

This is a longer activity that will make group discussion more structured and train participants to strike a balance between speaking and listening. Participants will break into small groups or breakout rooms in Zoom; one participant from each group will act as The Host, whose responsibility (in addition to participating in the activity) is to step in when another participant isn’t following a simple set of agreements. Within these groups, team members will move through four rounds of conversation:

• First round: Each group member will have one minute to share their thoughts or feelings regarding the given conversation topic.
• Second round: Each group member will get another minute to share their thoughts and feelings after having listened to what others had to say. Traditionally a “talking object” is passed around in person to signify whose turn it is to speak, but in a virtual setting, you will have an appropriate replacement.  For example, everyone mutes their microphones and participants use the “raise hand” feature in Zoom to signal that they’d like to talk next, or each participant is asked to bring a common household item to the meeting, such as a mug or a spatula, to hold up in place of one singular talking object.
• Third round: This is an open conversation in which participants can speak when they wish rather than taking turns. You may choose to continue using your talking object method (or “raise hand” feature) or to leave them in round two. This is likely where The Host will need to step in the most; ask them to encourage quieter members to talk and over-sharers to leave space for them to do so.
• Fourth (and final) round: Give each member a moment to share their biggest takeaways from the previous three rounds of conversation, round-robin style.

This exercise helps the quieter or more introverted participants build confidence contributing during virtual conversation, and the small groups make it harder for a participant to fade into the background (which is a bigger issue on Zoom vs. in-person meetings).

Additional Resources

We feel strongly that Liberating Structures has an approach to address almost any challenge you may have to overcome. Therefore, we developed a variety of resources to help support you as you navigate Virtual Liberating Structures for your team. 

We created interactive MURAL templates for the activities we use most often and hope you enjoy using them as much as we do. Note: find the template overview here.

We will be hosting a workshop on Virtual Liberating Structures later this year. Let our expert facilitators guide you to better understand and integrate Liberating Structures with your teams, both in-person and virtual. You will learn the principles behind why Liberating Structures work and experience specific structures that will allow you to tap into the room intelligence no matter how large the team. 

Finally, Voltage Control offers an online Liberating Structures course that provides you and your team with the key foundations in Liberating Structures to unleash creativity in your meetings through maximum participation.

Want more assistance helping your virtual team thrive?

Here at Voltage Control, we are exercising and sharing the best tools and techniques needed for teams to thrive in the virtual workplace, through productive meetings, remote work team collaboration, considerations for return to work, facilitation skills, virtual events, meeting culture, Magical Meetings, and design sprints.

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Here at Voltage Control, we’re passionate about educating individuals and companies about why facilitation skills are important. As the workplace shifts toward more remote work and a hybrid workplace, virtual collaboration training becomes even more important as leaders and facilitators won’t always have the luxury of having every team member present in a physical room. Virtual teams are becoming more common and the best leaders will need to adjust the way they manage and train their teams – just because all teams aren’t in-person anymore doesn’t mean they can’t be equally, if not more so, effective. 

The Voltage Control team has always been remote (outside of our former in-person events and workshops), so we practice what we preach of our extensive knowledge on this topic. The new virtual landscape unlocks many opportunities for collaboration and partnership that weren’t possible before. Now, we can connect with people around the globe via interactive virtual workshops, attend conferences, or productively collaborate with the team, all from a remote or home office. This is without the cost of travel, renting event room space, and provides more possibility to bring people together who would otherwise be unable to attend – collaboration and meaningful work are now possible with internet access alone! Greater diversity in collaboration is another resulting benefit. We have the power to solve problems and create collectively at a higher level than ever before. The question now becomes, how do leaders and facilitators train virtual teams to collaborate more effectively in the remote workplace?

Here are 5 ways facilitators can promote more effective virtual collaboration training:

1. Facilitate Productive Virtual Meetings

One of the biggest differences of working virtually is that screen time replaces face-to-face interactions. Remote facilitation skills are more important than ever with virtual meetings and teams. Always schedule with purpose – no purpose, no meeting. Identify the main goal of the meeting and distribute an agenda beforehand. When planning a remote meeting agenda, scale down expectations on how much time participants will invest (try to limit to no more than 2-4 hours/day). 

Another way to promote virtual collaboration training is to create homework and group work. Have teams read material as pre-work so they come to the meeting prepared and less time is wasted during the meeting itself to get the group in sync. During the meeting, consider assigning group work and splitting into small breakout groups to complete tasks or exercises. Then, the groups can finish their work on Slack, email or smaller video calls, leading to more productivity and less wasted meeting time. (pro tip: Try Zoom’s “breakout room” feature to organize people in separate spaces).

2. Adjust Design Sprints for a Remote World

Team standups or weekly check-ins are relatively straightforward, making an easier transition to the virtual world. However, complex meetings such as remote Design Sprints will require more virtual collaboration training. 

Typically, a Design Sprint is a five-day process for tackling a business problem. Here are some ways that we’ve adapted our Design Sprint model for remote work:

• Move Slower: The pace of the Sprint needs to be slower in a virtual setting, due to distractions, limited ability to read the virtual room, and other inevitable delays.
• Tweak the Schedule: Five full days in person is not equal to five full days virtually. People can’t be expected to be glued to their screens for long periods of time. That’s why we shifted our remote Design Sprints to a series of mini-workshops as opposed to five full days. 
• Set the Stage: Virtual Design Sprints need more planning because there are outside factors to consider. What are the best tools to use? What adjustments need to be made for timing? What are some methods to optimize engagement and interaction? Set expectations before the workshop so team members come prepared with all the right tools and know their deadlines and deliverables from the get-go. As a facilitator, you demo the expectations and process for everyone else, field questions, and then let them go off and do their work. The goal of virtual collaboration training is to have everyone on the same, productive page.                                                               

3. Promote Human Connection

As a facilitator and/or team leader, training your virtual team to collaborate more effectively also means promoting connection with each other. Without the possibility of in-person “water cooler” conversations or after work team happy hours, don’t be afraid to get creative. Team bonding is still very much possible in a virtual environment. Here are some ideas for virtual ways to connect:

• Randomly match up different team members for virtual “coffee chats” – this gives people who might not otherwise interact a chance to meet and get to know one another.
• Hold a virtual happy hour on a Friday afternoon for the team after a successful week.
• Have beginning of the week standup meetings where the whole team joins via video and discusses their goals, updates, and questions with the group.
• Prioritize 1:1 meetings with those on your team.
• Sprinkle in elements of fun and surprise – for example, start meetings with a funny or inspirational video, add funny GIFs to presentations, or try implementing Kahoot! (an online quiz tool and game-based learning platform) to fuel some friendly competition.

4. Utilize the Right Tools/Technology

Tools and technology are even more important for virtual collaboration training when a team is remote. Some of our favorite tried-and-true tools for virtual collaboration are:

• Zoom – Videoconferencing platform with breakout room capabilities.
• Trello – A place for assigning work and tracking work progress using a Kanban-style list-making application. Assign individuals to cards to create clear to-do lists and organize priorities.
• MURAL & Miro Templates – Use our custom templates to help teams collaborate virtually. 
• Basecamp – Real-time communication tool to keep track of everything you’re working on in a shared space. 
• Focus To-Do – Pomodoro time and task management app that helps you perform tasks efficiently. 
• Process Street – Make checklists for your team to help you remember and keep track of all of your to-do’s. 
• SessionLab – Dynamically design, organize and share workshops and training content.
• Slack – Team messaging platform that is a smart alternative to email. It allows the team to have a shared view of work progress and purpose
• Loom – Screen recorder that allows you to capture video screen messages instead of sending long emails. It’s also helpful for sending team members visual directions if you cannot screen share in real-time.
• Doodle – Calendar scheduling system for time management and to easily coordinate one-on-one and team meetings. 
• World Time Buddy – World clock, time zone converter, and online meeting scheduler to coordinate and plan across different time zones.
• Google Docs – Smart editing and styling tools support joint teamwork to flow smoothly and easily and keep ideas in one place. Teams can work on different pages or in different docs accordingly. 
• Google Drive or other cloud storage – Drop all assets and work content into a shared space for easy access for all team members. Use different folders to organize information. 

5. Reference our Virtual Guide

Finally, reference our in-depth Virtual Work Guide. Virtual collaboration training and facilitating with a distributed team is both an art and a science. We created this guide for you to build a foundation for promoting quality work in the virtual workplace, and it expands on the above topics in more detail.

The future of work looks different, but bright. Successful virtual collaboration training will take some additional work and planning, but will eventually lead to more effective teams in this increasingly virtual work environment. We look forward to helping teams transition to the new business landscape!

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As a student of how to make working together better, I’ve been reflecting on the work of past thought leaders who have influenced the business world we operate in. I find we can learn a lot when we revisit original ideas and mantras and apply them to our modern lives today. 

One such thought leader is Peter Drecker, a famous business coach and management mogul of the 1900s. He is in fact one of the original business gurus–considered as the founding father of modern management studies by common consent. Many of his ideas and thoughts on management are still used by managers worldwide today. He was one of the first authors to describe management as a distinct function and the role of a manager as a distinct responsibility; he understood and had sympathy for the challenges and demands that managers face. 

I’ve been thinking about his mantra: “What gets measured gets managed.” To me, it means that if we don’t track something and keep it top of mind, we’ll have no hope of improving or maintaining it. For example, if we don’t record the fact that we are always spending more money than we take in, then we don’t manage that problem, and we never fix it. 

His idea inspired my modern-day mantra of visualizing your thinking: “What gets visualized gets velocity”.  In other words, if everyone is not clear on the opportunity or direction, it’s very difficult–if not impossible–to get steady traction on collaborative work; and the best way to get clarity quickly is through visualizing!

One of the most effective ways to visualize your thinking is through a prototype designed to transform ideas into tangible, workable artifacts. Prototypes are visual representations of ideas and can take various forms. A picture is worth a thousand words, as they say, and a prototype is worth a thousand meetings.

The type of prototype depends on your objective. For example, a project manager may use a storyboard, written brief, or sample pitch of an idea to present to her team. A designer may use a mood board to portray his ideas, and a developer might code something to show her approach to other team members. To choose your prototype, think about how your idea can best be portrayed visually. 

This is critical for productive work because when we come together and just talk about ideas, we’re not truly doing anything. It can actually stop us from doing any meaningful work at all. So many times when a leader or manager asks for something and there is slow or no progress it usually because the team doesn’t fully understand the ask, and it’s hard to get motivated if you don’t understand the what and why. Creating a quick prototype that visualizes what you are going to do adds tons of clarity.

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Also, if we don’t capture ideas and input during meetings, it is likely they will be forgotten and participants might walk away with different interpretations of what happened. When we come together and prototype, we are able to see individuals’ thoughts and ideas and surface differences. Without the alignment and clarity from visualization,  teams get stuck in endless cycles of stopping and starting work, lose momentum, and eventually fall short of maximum acceleration. You are more aligned and able to execute in unison when you visualize and bring the thinking “together”. Using a prototype during meetings means nothing is forgotten and more is explored–achieving more velocity. 

Prototyping Tools

There are several excellent tools that help you construct, share, and collaborate prototypes. Here are a few of our favorites as Voltage Control:

1. Google Docs – Smart editing and styling tools support joint teamwork to flow smoothly and easily and keep ideas in one place. Teams can work on different pages or in different docs accordingly. Use comments and tags to work in real-time.
2. Google Slides – Interactive work templates with multiple pages to allow individual and collective work.
3. Google Sheets – Collaborative spreadsheets to organize, plan and update tasks and information. 
4.  Mural – Digital whiteboard with collaborative templates for visual collaboration including planning, brainstorming, and designing.
5.  Figma – Collaborative design platform to design, prototype, and gather feedback in real-time in one place.

The team at Voltage Control uses each of these tools every day to create prototypes and work together. Here’s an example of one of our MURAL templates used to brainstorm and get inspired around a new idea:

Find what prototype tools work best for you and develop a practice of bringing a prototype to every meeting. Doing so will provide clarity, direction, and actionable steps to help your team visualize for velocity and achieve more by doing the work in the meeting, together.  

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By now, most of us have acclimated to a remote workplace, mastering the art of unmuting on video calls and staging our Zoom backgrounds to perfection. However, tools for remote meetings are constantly evolving, reimagining the way teams communicate and connect. While the in-person workplace may now feel abstract, company culture and employee engagement are experiencing a renaissance. These aspects of a team are an integral part of a company’s success. Poor company culture can be detrimental to a business. In fact, one in five Americans left a job due to poor company culture in 2019 according to a report by SHRM. Without the proper remote meeting tools, toxic workplaces can fester, even virtually. To cultivate engagement and achieve maximum collaboration leaders need to continue learning and leaning into new resources that support their remote teams.

Here are some of the best tools for remote meetings you need to know.

1) Scheduling Tool: Calendly

Meetings all commence in the same manner–by scheduling one. Simple enough. But synching various team schedules can be a nightmare, especially if participants live in different time zones or don’t share calendars. We’ve all felt the frustration of one key participant unable to attend and having to start the scheduling process from the beginning. To streamline this, companies can take advantage of the tool Calendly for all scheduling needs. Calendly is a free web-based tool that helps participants easily schedule meetings without redundant back-and-forth emails. 

Remember, the key to an effective meeting is to invite only the participants it requires to reach the meeting’s objectives. Leaders 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. Only invites who needs to be there and do it easily with Calendly.

2) Project Manager Platform: Asana, Monday, Basecamp, Trello, Etc. 

Many of us have already discovered and used a multitude of project management tools. These user-friendly collaboration platforms are designed to support communication and keep track of projects. They’re an effective way to stay organized and keep projects on schedule. Some platforms have more integrated features than others but most of them are relatively the same, providing a centralized location to submit pertinent project information and real-time status updates.

But beware, there is one significant defect that overlaps all of these tools. They must actually be adopted and used by the entire team to work.

We’ve witnessed many teams optimistically launch a project management tool to keep remote teams organized and communicative, only to have half the team active on the platform with the other half resistant to embrace the technology. These platforms won’t work if the entire team is not updating their tasks. Before implementing a project management tool, be sure everyone is on board and have every team member commit to the process. If you find this doesn’t work for your team’s workflow, don’t force this solution. Move on to another platform or system to better collaborate remotely across all skill levels and preferences.

3) Guidance: The Virtual Work Guide

For many teams, remote work was something they were thrust into. Newly remote teams were ill-prepared and lacked the skills and knowledge to make meetings a fully collaborative and effective experience. We created the Voltage Control Virtual Work Guide to help teams transition to the virtual workspace. It is a free resource that will help you understand how to best conduct virtual work meetings, virtual facilitation, remote Design Sprints, and how to keep and promote human connection in a virtual landscape. Well-designed virtual meetings will foster remote team alignment and fuel synergy.

4) Recognition Platform: Nectar

Recognition is important before, during, and after a meeting. Backed by science, we know that recognizing achievement is key to creating serotonin in the body. Thanking your team for their work and commitment does wonders for getting the juices flowing. Take recognition and team support to the next level with the tool Nectar. The platform allows remote team members to easily recognize and reward one another. Incorporating a healthy balance of positive reinforcement not only creates a supportive team, but it also cultivates a community.  

5) Website Feedback: Pastel

Collaborating on design and UX projects can be a challenge for remote teams. Shuffling through and implementing edits and feedback is a time suck. For website design, Pastel is the virtual collaboration tool you didn’t know you needed. Teams can leave comments, mockups, and copy suggestions across the website’s pages. This virtual collaboration tool makes exchanging feedback on websites streamlined and coherent.

6) To-do Lists: Focus To-do

Maybe an entire project management tool isn’t exactly what your team needs to stay on track. But you’d still like something to help organize and prioritize tasks, Focus To-do is what you need. This Pomodoro time and task management app helps teams perform and complete tasks efficiently. It’s an especially helpful tool to use to time your meeting’s brainstorm and breakout sessions.

7) Mind Mapper: Coggle

Remote teams may need more support for complex projects. Coggle is an excellent tool for remote meetings, especially when intricacy is involved. This diagram builder can be used for taking notes during meetings allowing teammates to contribute and edit your diagrams. The flexible mind-maps include multiple starting points, branches, and loops to represent process and workflow. Clarity is now just a Coggle away. 

8) Courses: Magical Meetings

Maybe you need a bit more than a guide for a renewed perspective on meetings and you’d like to discover even more methods and tools for remote meetings. To fully immerse yourself in meeting systems and better develop your approach, sign up for the Magical Meetings course. This comprehensive course will teach you how to make every meeting magical–from how to unearth valuable checklists and appealing agendas and getting the most out of your participants.

Virtual 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. 

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A post-pandemic world is on the horizon, however, working remotely may be here to stay. Many companies have opted to remain in a remote workplace or evolve the traditional office into a modern hybrid model. Before moving forward, leaders need to reevaluate processes in order to improve remote team alignment. Prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, only 7 percent of US employees had access to a “flexible workplace” according to a report by the Pew Center of Research. Companies were catapulted into swiftly accommodating remote employees in order to abide by stay-at-home orders. 

A dip in productivity has always been a top concern for companies in regard to remote work. However, many employees have embraced the changes. In fact, 65 percent of employees wanted to stay fully remote after the pandemic, while 31 percent preferred a hybrid work arrangement according to a survey conducted by Flexjobs. In that same survey, 51 percent of respondents indicated that they have been more productive working from home during COVID-19.

But what about the other 49 percent? How can companies improve remote team alignment that will bolster employee engagement and overall productivity without being in an office? With a lack of office distractions and politics, is it truly possible for employees to become even more productive? To answer these questions, you must start with your current company processes and analyze how they support or hinder an effective remote workforce.

Make the following five changes to your company processes to overcome common management techniques and attitudes, and you will steer your organization toward a highly efficient, creative, and successful remote work environment.

1. No Unnecessary Meetings

To compensate for the lack of team proximity, many leaders rely on meetings as a method to keep employees engaged. But filling up employee calendars with multiple meetings a week can have the opposite effect. Zoom fatigue is real. Excessive and unstructured meetings can cultivate more chaos than calm, suffocating productivity. Meetings must have a clear objective. One of our mantras at Voltage Control is “No purpose. No meeting.” Teams need to work together to obtain a tangible goal. As soon as the purpose of a meeting is clear, you can create an agenda equipped with the necessary structure to achieve it.

Status updates or announcements may be better shared through asynchronous communication (such as Slack) or team huddles. Huddles offer teams a space to present challenges and seek input from their colleagues. But this is not a free-for-all discussion. Instead, these huddles should include special project updates or notable undertakings. This ensures that projects move forward and team members are supported throughout challenges. If it’s your first time building meeting systems for remote teams, you may feel overwhelmed. Consider turning toward outside resources like our Magical Meetings course for expert guidance and support.

2. Check In On Your Team

We need more empathy now more than ever, especially in the workplace. It’s easy to hide frustrations and personal struggles when shielded by a computer. Without regular watercooler run-ins, personal interactions can quickly dissolve within remote teams. These exchanges are still needed to grow and click as a collective unit. 

Don’t just assume everyone is okay. Make it a point to reach out and check in on the team’s personal well-being. Offer space for everyone to share and bond. If possible, add elements to simulate an in-office experience. For example, the team can listen to a shared radio station such as JBQX while they work together, apart. Create various channels of communication that encourage your team to remain virtually social. This could be a “water cooler” channel on Slack that allows for team members to share non-work-related topics. From their favorite binge-worthy shows to photos of their four-legged assistants, sharing personal moments will help keep everyone connected. 

3. Update Meeting Systems and Tools

The extreme shift in workplace structure due to the pandemic caused many organizations to quickly move in-office processes virtually. Many companies were ill-prepared to set up remote work environments that were both collaborative and effective. Now that fully remote or hybrid workplaces are becoming permanent for many organizations, leaders need to reevaluate their current processes.

Well-designed meeting systems need to be addressed and thoughtfully curated to align with a virtual setting. 

A key component to meetings that need to be updated is the technology and tools incorporated into meeting systems. Video should be used during virtual meetings because it builds connection, boosts communication, and breeds comradery. However, not every team member is enthused by the idea of turning on their video for every meeting. Encourage the utilization of virtual backgrounds or Snap Camera to make the experience more fun and engaging for everyone. Another tool that continues to evolve is OBS for video recordings and live streams.  Incorporating these new technologies to support remote workplaces will allow for a more collaborative and cohesive team.

4. Eliminate Siloed Work

Transparency is key to improve remote team alignment and creates a culture of trust. To curate a transparent work environment virtually, lean into sharing projects and assignments with other team members and even departments. Use a tool like Google Drive or similar collaborative cloud-based applications to keep work visible and also break down virtual silos that hinder communication. This isn’t a tactic to encourage micro-managing. Instead, it allows for everyone to be informed on one another’s projects and builds a united front. By discussing and addressing challenges, individuals are more likely to take initiative in finding a resolution together.

Transparency also lends itself towards a more organized workflow. It’s critical to ensure that all team members are on the same page when you’re not in the same office space. Communication is most effective when team members can work in sync with one another. Shared project management tools like Trello, Basecamp, and Process Sheet help to keep everyone on track and provides clarity on tasks.

5. Avoid echo chambers

It’s easy for leaders to get stuck in their echo chamber, especially in a remote workplace. To break out of their own biases and to cultivate a more inclusive work culture, leaders need to collect feedback from the team. Requesting feedback allows you to make necessary adjustments to your virtual workflow and meetings. After gathering feedback, you must develop a plan to address issues and realign the team with new strategies. When your team feels safe to share their sentiment, it will foster remote team alignment and fuel synergy.

Another way to break out of your echo chamber is to seek outside support. Ask for input from other leaders in your organization regarding your processes. To navigate through complicated processes, consider collaborating with design-thinking facilitators. They provide third-party perspectives that can identify gaps in your meeting systems and explore new communication methods.

Need help improving remote team alignment?

We can assist you! We have several services and resources to help you get the most out of your team. Let us lead you through our specialized Team Alignment Process or inquire about our other consulting services so we can best serve your needs. Contact us at hello@voltagecontrol.com.

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The sudden shift to a remote office left many teams scrambling to maintain communication, productivity, and harmonious company culture. Lack of team structure can disrupt workflow, or worse, breed distrust. We quickly learned physical distance can be difficult, but emotional distance can be detrimental to a team’s morale. Gradually, remote offices assembled processes and implemented thorough procedures. Our community of facilitators stepped in to address immediate needs and support transitions with proven approaches to leading virtual teams. Yet there is an element of office work culture that organizations often struggle to adapt to in a virtual setting.

Leaders and facilitators must develop a substitution for the daily in-person interactions that build rapport and support a team’s feedback loop. 

But how do you have watercooler check-ins without a watercooler?

One proven way is through remote team huddles. There is a blurry line between team meetings and team huddles. While the definitions may vary across companies, at Voltage Control, we’ve outlined tried and true best practices for effective meetings. Meetings should include a purpose, an agenda, and a clear and tangible “prototype” or idea to flush out. Huddles, on the other hand, have a looser and less formal structure. While more succinct, if done correctly, huddles still encourage collaboration as well as provide a needed layer of accountability. In either case, we believe companies should not have a meeting for the sake of another meeting.

Before you send out that recurring invite to your team, here’s a look at what to do and what not to do when planning your next remote team huddle. For more advice, Voltage Control offers a weekly facilitation lab that hosts a community of facilitators who span skills, styles, and systems. The free workshop offers a safe place to explore, adapt, and practice facilitation approaches and methods.

Don’t overshare. Do have an agenda for your huddle.

Huddles offer teams a space to present challenges and seek input from team members. But this is not a free-for-all discussion. Just as you would have an agenda for an effective meeting, facilitators should also have an agenda for team huddles. The abbreviated agenda usually covers each team member’s current priorities and any issues they’re facing.  Shared tasks and initiatives should be unique and cover specifics. Huddles are not repetitive dialogue in which team members share their ongoing daily or weekly responsibilities. Instead, they should include special project updates or notable undertakings. This ensures that projects move forward and team members are supported if they’re feeling stuck. Without an agenda, you risk aimless conversations that don’t pertain to your team’s overall objectives.

Don’t pick a random timeslot. Do be strategic with scheduling, carving out times that work with your team dynamics.

Scheduling conflicts is one of the biggest hurdles when planning huddles. Optimal days and lengths look different for every team. Some teams need 15-minute huddles every afternoon while others need 30-minute morning huddles once a week. One option for teams that enjoy working alongside each other is to run a group call in the background during the workday. If someone has a question that doesn’t feel worthy of an entire email or just wants to have a quick chat, all they have to do is speak up. You may even find that your team works better with asynchronous huddles utilizing technologies such as Slack or Asana. 

To better identify what works best for your team, start by reviewing time zones and current schedules. Repetitive huddle allotments help team members ensure ongoing availability. Keep in mind that the huddles are designed to solve challenges, not be a challenge to attend.

Don’t ignore KPIs. Do encourage transparency.

Huddles are great for team building, but they should also keep team members aware of target objectives. This is an exceptional time to share metrics, KPIs, and project progress. Transparency here is key and will eventually boost performance. By discussing and addressing challenges in a group setting, individuals are more likely to take initiative in finding a resolution. If progress toward a specific goal is far off, that may be a sign that efforts or goals need to be reworked or redirected. Keeping everyone informed on one another’s project status will build a united front. 

Don’t ignore feedback. Do think about relationship building.

An important aspect of any meeting system is to collect feedback from all participants. Involving your team members’ feedback allows you to make necessary adjustments to your huddles. These continuous updates will improve participation and foster alignment. Incorporating feedback is also important in building genuine trust. Trust is the foundation of any healthy relationship. The biggest benefit of remote team huddles is cultivating and maintaining relationships even from afar. Listening to what your team requests and how they want to stay connected will only strengthen your bond. In our indefinite virtual workplace, this is a comradery you will want to continue to build.

Don’t think traditionally. Do get creative.

A decade ago, we could have never predicted the massive move to remote work. As organizations continue to develop innovative remote solutions to increase productivity, the traditional office appears more and more obsolete. Now is the time to think creatively about huddles. As mentioned prior, huddles don’t have to be designed in a specific format. Therefore, you can add elements to simulate an in-office experience. For example, the team can listen to a shared radio station such as JBQX.

Aside from apps, extensions, and plugins, additional elements that you could incorporate into huddles include personal announcements or achievements. Some team huddles include attendees sharing their current Netflix obsession or a favorite condiment they can’t live without. If you do include these personalized touches, be sure that they are part of the agenda and work within the brevity of the huddle. The point is this: adding these creative thoughtful details will keep your virtual team engaged and motivated.

Remember, it can be lonely out there.

Come to find, working remotely isn’t as marvelous as many would have thought. It can be a lonely experience, especially if you’re accustomed to a highly collaborative in-person work environment. It’s easy for team members to get stuck on an issue or lose sight of the big picture. You need strategies that pull everyone’s attention back to your overarching goal and feeling part of a team. Remote team huddles will ultimately keep your team better connected and establish a virtual work environment everyone can rely on. 

Whether you’re still adapting to a virtual workplace or you’re looking to swap ideas on the future of virtual facilitation, be sure to join our weekly meet-ups every Thursday, 1 – 3 p.m. CT, where the industry’s top facilitators are available to help you.

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How are your virtual meetings going? If there’s room for improvement, we are here to help. Adjusting to the virtual landscape can be a doozy if you don’t have the correct tools and processes–especially if remote work is new to your business dynamic. But you can have productive and effective remote meetings with properly executed virtual facilitation. The following five virtual facilitation strategies are high-level ways to encourage remote team engagement, provide optimal support for attendees, and achieve meaningful results.

1. Turn on your camera

Encourage all meeting attendees to use their cameras. Collaborating virtually already threatens team connection; it’s simply not the same dynamic as being together in the same physical space. You lose the necessary human connection imperative to having meaningful meetings when your team can’t see each other’s faces. When you do not enforce the use of video, you are inviting participants to multi-task with non-related material and you’ll lose their attention.

Partial attention does not foster productive meetings, it fuels unproductive ones.

2. Learn by doing

The best teacher is experience. Make your meetings interactive. This will not only keep people engaged, but it will also help with retention and a sense of ownership. Use a collaborative virtual space like MURAL–a virtual whiteboard tool–or simply use Google Docs to allow team members to engage and work together in real-time. Sitting and staring at a screen, while someone talks at you, is not nearly as enticing and inspiring as getting your hands dirty. You should do the work in the meeting, not after, to achieve the best outcome. Make meetings productive working sessions by getting the entire team involved. This will help you attain meaningful results. 

Pro tip: Assign a scribe to document important meeting notes, capture room intelligence, and synthesize information during the meeting. It is helpful to have a designated person focused on recording big themes and takeaways. 

3. Piecemeal information 

To uphold optimum productivity during virtual meetings, be wary of inflicting cognitive overload on attendees. The virtual landscape is a new frontier. Therefore, you need a new process of facilitation that best serves team members in a virtual space. Develop a process that makes it easy to instruct attendees and give them what they need to succeed.

It takes much more intentional prep-work to run successful virtual meetings.

For example, if you’re giving instructions to the group, provide it verbally on video as well as visually in the video platform’s chatbox. Sometimes information goes over peoples’ heads, especially with the many outside distractions that come with remote work. Provide instructions in various ways incrementally, rather than all at once, to help ensure all attendees retain them and follow them correctly. 

4. Provide necessary support

A key component of virtual facilitation is helping attendees understand technicalities specific to the tools you are using. Make sure everyone understands how to use the features of the video conference platform you are meeting on and any other tools they will need.

Pro tip: send all attendees a list of the tools they will need and how to use them along with a meeting agenda before the meeting so they know what to expect. You can also designate some time at the beginning of the meeting to explain the tools, how they work, and answer any questions. When everyone is on the same page, the meeting will run smoothly. 

If you are using breakout rooms in your meeting, it is helpful to have a facilitator in each breakout room to answer any questions that may arise. If this isn’t possible, make sure to give team members instructions on how to use the help button in the breakout room. Just like a flight attendant call light in an airplane, the facilitator will be notified they are needed in the room when the button is pushed.

5. Use the “raise hand” feature

Have you been in a virtual meeting and felt like you couldn’t get a word in? It can be tough to know when to contribute and how to do so respectfully in a virtual space. The “raise hand” feature in Zoom is a great tool to surpass this roadblock. Ask people to use the button when they want to be called on. It is a clear indicator of desired speaking space and it prevents multiple people from talking at once. You don’t want anyone to feel overlooked or that their opinion doesn’t matter. The “raise hand” feature is a simple yet powerful way to ensure voices do not go unheard.

Meetings matter, make each one count. Add these five strategies to your virtual facilitation tool belt to have more purposeful remote meetings. And check out our Virtual Work Guide for more remote work tools and guidance for fruitful meetings.

Want to learn more about virtual facilitation? 

Voltage Control offers virtual services including Virtual Facilitation, Virtual Transitions, and Virtual Meeting Design. Please reach out at hello@voltagecontrol.com for a consultation.

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