Where you hold your Sprint is critical. Whether you are running a Design Sprint, Innovation Workshop, Visioning Session, or another type of workshop, your venue or space is part of the event’s success. When planning your next workshop, I recommend that you consider these seven things.

1. LOCATION

Location is often the first consideration. Start with any geographical or budgetary constraints. Often, we pick a location based on where the majority of the workshop participants reside in order to reduce travel costs.

However, it’s important not to settle for whatever rooms might be available at your office. Many offices lack spaces that are ideal for workshops, so we recommend that you consider remote offsite locations. The investment is worth it. Working offsite might be helpful to get people out of their typical mindset. A change of scenery can be helpful for some companies, especially environments entrenched in the status quo.

Sometimes, instead of prioritizing the budget, we have to consider the availability of resources. Is there a participant or expert that we really want to include in-person? Perhaps we want to co-locate with our target users so that we can do our interviews in person. The opportunity cost could easily eclipse any additional cost of an outside venue.

Pro Tip: Check out websites Peerspace and Breather to find great creative spaces to hold your Sprint!

2. SPACE

It might seem nit-picky, but you should carefully consider the details of the room itself. First, it can’t be too small! Choose a space that is big enough to accommodate all attendees at the table(s). Don’t forget that you need enough room to move around and huddle at the walls.

A good rule of thumb is to pull all the chairs out from under the table so there is just a bit of space from the seat of the chair to the table. Is there still enough room to walk past the chair? That’s the absolute smallest room you should accept! Make sure to select a room that can proportionately accommodate the expected number of participants while respecting their personal space.

Pro Tip: For a Design Sprint with seven people, we recommend a room no smaller than 12 x 20 ft.

To take a more scientific approach, consider Proxemics. Proxemics, the study of personal space and boundaries, can give you some quick rules of thumb. During a Sprint, where seven people are in a single room, everyone is operating for an entire workweek in the Personal Distance Zone, which ranges from 2–5 feet. This space is reserved for friends and family — people you know and trust. It’s an easy and relaxed space for talking, shaking hands, gesturing, and making faces.

3. ENVIRONMENT

Think about how the workshop space will make your participants feel. This isn’t touchy-feely stuff, it’s actually key to the success of your event. Is it conducive to focus and fun? Is the space pleasant to work in and free from distractions? Consider air quality, decor, lighting, and the general vibe of the space.

Windows are always nice so that folks don’t feel like they are locked in a closet all day. A room that gets natural light from a window is always a good bet. Fun fact—daylit environments are known to increase productivity! A related consideration is the room’s temperature. Make sure you can control the temperature of the room so people aren’t too hot or too cold. (Or, make a note of it, so you can tell participants to bring a sweater!)

Pro Tip: Music is a powerful way to make your environment more inviting. Bringing a small speaker so you can play appropriate tunes when people arrive, during breaks, or even during brainstorming sessions.

4. FURNITURE

Ideally, your venue comes equipped with all the furniture you’ll need. You’ll need at least one chair for every participant. But, you also don’t want too many chairs or superfluous furniture cluttering up space.

Look for rooms that have tables that are easily moved and can be configured into different arrangements depending on your activities. For example, do you need to be seated in one large group for brainstorming? Or, will you be breaking into smaller groups? In that case, you need tables that can be utilized for breakout teams.

Pro Tip: Factor in time before your workshop starts to rearrange the room and make it *just right* for your agenda and participants. You’ll need at leave 20–30 minutes and more than one person to help!

5. WALL SPACE & WHITEBOARDS

One of the most important features of a great workshop venue is space for creation. You absolutely need dedicated space for hanging ideas, posters and/or Post-its. Make sure there is enough space on the walls to pin or tape things or that there are plenty of whiteboards.

For Design Sprint and most other workshops, you typically need two large whiteboards or 3–5 small ones. If you can’t get whiteboards, the 3M flipcharts can work. If so, consider buying an easel stand or two so they have something to sit on.

Pro Tip: If you have walls to hang on, they should be smooth enough that Post-it notes will stick to them. Avoid the comedy of errors of constantly falling Post-its at all costs!

6. AV / TECH

Ask about the venue’s audio-visual features and make sure it covers your needs. Usually, you can get by with a TV or projector with HDMI, VGA, or Airplay, which is used for projecting your presentation.

Also, having WiFi is preferred, but you could get away without it. Although, your participants might not like it!

7. REFRESHMENTS

When you are looking at venues, think about where the participants will eat. Well-fed participants are happy participants! If you do not have a separate space for lunch, there should be room in your space to accommodate lunch. Have an additional table at the ready where you can lay out your lunch spread without disturbing your workspace.

Lastly, this might sound mundane, but be sure that there are adequate recycling, compost, and landfill containers for the team in the space. Bonus points if you can get the waste bins out of the room after lunch to prevent any distracting odors throughout the afternoon.

These are the criteria we use at Voltage Control when planning and facilitating Design Sprints and innovation workshops for our clients.

Pro-tip: with these considerations in mind, use our Workshop Design Canvas download to design your workshop like a learning experience pro.

Are you in need of a facilitator for your next meeting or workshop? We’re here to help. Voltage Control facilitates events of all kinds, including design thinking workshops, innovation sessions, and Design Sprints. Let’s chat!

The post 7 Things to Consider When Choosing a Workshop Venue appeared first on Voltage Control.

While most companies were struggling to figure out Zoom meetings in 2020, one large CPG company brought cross-functional, international teams together to remotely prototype packaging and products for the U.S. and abroad. 

These Design Sprints were a response to the CEO encouraging management to embrace a more agile approach to problem solving. Inspired by the nimbleness of startups, he directed his teams to find ways to accelerate product development and how they worked in general.

This inspiration empowered our client — the organization’s Design Thinking Champion — to explore opportunities for rapid iteration. In the year or so prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, she’d begun to assemble stakeholders from various departments and divisions at locations around the world for in-person collaboration. Still, the virus (and subsequent lockdown) upended this practice.

In response, the Champion engaged Voltage Control to help her continue her design thinking sessions remotely. She had been impressed by the wealth of free online resources Voltage Control had created as well as founder Douglas Ferguson’s books. She also liked that we had a relationship with Google Ventures’ Jake Knapp — author of the popular book Sprint — and conducted the five-day Design Sprints he popularized at GV (formerly Google Ventures).

Voltage Control worked closely with the Champion to plan and execute nine Design Sprints in total. One of which was a five-day workshop to explore innovative, sustainable packaging designs for three hot wax hair removal products. The challenge at hand was to use consumer-centric techniques to address the deeper needs of the brand’s customers. To accomplish this, Voltage Control defined the objectives for each day: 

• Monday – Map
• Tuesday – Sketch
• Wednesday – Decide
• Thursday – Prototype
• Friday – Test

Day 1: Map

A big part of the first day was setting goals, asking questions and exploring how the team might arrive at a solution. Because of Covid-19 protocols, each team member joined the workshop via Zoom and collectively recorded thoughts in the online collaboration tool Mural. 

To kick things off, Voltage Control socialized observations from the pre-work everyone did before joining the session. This ensured participants had the chance to connect 1:1, and everyone was heard. We then asked everyone to share what was interesting about the challenge and what questions they had going into the session.

Some of these included:

• Do we understand consumers’ key drivers for purchase?
• Can we find a solution that doesn’t impact other usage aspects like safety?
• Can we combine functionality with aesthetics?
• Will consumers be able to recycle/reuse/compost independently of their country of origin?

These questions were then followed with a review of the problem space. Voltage Control believes no one knows everything, so a group discussion helped unlock individually held knowledge and provided a chance for the larger team to get aligned. 

Day 1 then concluded with the design thinking activity “How Might We” (HMW), which encouraged participants to think big without getting mired down by the painful details of bringing a complete solution to market. Each team member selected their top four HMW notes, and the entire team reviewed these essential questions to keep in mind during testing. Affinity grouping and dot voting were used to select the most significant questions without debate.

Day 2: Sketch

Picasso once said, “great artists steal,” and that’s what guided Voltage Control as the second day of collaborative work began. The team located and shared analogous inspirations via Mural. These included competitor products, adjacent services, intuitive interfaces, strong branding, and compelling content.

This complemented the previous day’s work, where the group discussed the problems and the potential solutions. When they considered what they’d “stolen” along with the goals and solutions they’d volunteered on Monday, it put them in the right frame of mind for a bit of fun Voltage Control calls Crazy 8s. 

During the Crazy 8s exercise, we gave everyone on the team eight minutes to explore eight new ideas quickly. We instructed them to fold a paper in half three times, so they had eight squares to sketch in. We then allocated 1 minute per square for participants to unlock latent ideas and try different versions of an idea.

Once the eight minutes were up, we let participants spend the rest of the day sketching one or two solutions they felt had the most promise. Although each person was together in the same Zoom room, they worked alone. It’s a somewhat controversial opinion, but the Voltage Control team doesn’t believe group brainstorms work, and we’re not the only one. Instead of forcing consensus, we gave each person time to develop solutions on their own.

Day 3: Decide

Our third day commenced with a group review of Tuesday’s independent sketching. The team used small dots to identify parts of sketches they liked. Then, the team was led through each of the sketches, and key ideas were called out. A second “heat mapping” exercise was conducted, where smaller dots were placed on the ideas with  high potential. After these rounds of speed critiquing and straw poll voting, an R&D Manager — who’d been selected as the group’s decider — used three “super vote” dots to determine  the winning solutions. 

Each participant then imagined their ideal user flow in six steps. The group compared the flows and voted on them. Once again, the R&D Manager was the final decision maker, deciding which of the flows matched the chosen solutions. Next, the team collaborated on the storyboard using the solutions and user flows as a framework. To wrap the day, Voltage Control assigned everyone the roles they’d perform during prototyping on Thursday.

Day 4: Prototyping

Our virtual prototyping session heavily leveraged a combination of digital design tools, including Sketch, Craft, and InVision. By collaborating in Google Docs, the distributed team could track jobs on a Kanban board and easily share assets between one another.

Day 5: Test

On the final day of this Design Sprint, the cross-functional team gathered once more on Zoom to observe the remote, real-time interviews of five actual consumers. Using a Voltage Control-created scorecard, the stakeholders quickly assessed the consumers’ responses. 

These consumer insights gave the team potential next steps they could explore in the weeks and months that followed the Design Sprint. When asked about this and three other Design Sprints he attended, one Product Scientist commented they “were incredibly effective at stress testing ideas for safety, sustainability, and other factors. They were also a useful way to explore opportunities to see if what competitors were doing was right for us.”

The Champion had a similar take and said, “We sometimes learned we needed to pivot and not invest a ton of time. Some groups arrived at a seemingly right idea that just needed more vetting, while others had uncovered multiple pathways they could take at the end of the week. Across the board, we exited and applied larger qualitative research with a larger consumer group.”

The Outcome

Voltage Control conducted eight other design sprints in collaboration with the Champion, which concluded with similar positive results. While two of the Design Sprints helped the company offer better customer experiences, many Voltage Control facilitated sessions allowed the company to improve their sustainability efforts.

While not everything will be commercialized, Voltage Control helped the company be more nimble through design thinking exercises. The Champion liked how Voltage Control was able to assist her in answering her CEO’s call to be more agile. By building upon the groundwork she’d already laid pre-Covid, the company was able to get to consumer benefits faster and work smarter, not harder. 

“Conducting remote Design Sprints seemed daunting at first, but it really wasn’t,” said the Champion. “The virtual whiteboard served us really well, and all the info captured through Mural worked better than our pre-Covid methods.”

“I also appreciated the structured roles team members had,” she continued. “Previously, we had worked rather very linearly. It was great to bring decision-makers into the week, having prototypers on hand and achieving progressive movement towards daily goals.” The Champion further thought the remote Design Sprints were well-thought-out.

Taking insights and having an actionable output doesn’t often happen  in the CPG space, so the Champion felt doing nine Design Sprints in 2020 created a bit of “muscle memory” for applying repeatable frameworks, then iterating on these processes. She hopes design thinking — and Design Sprints — will become ingrained at the company, allowing organization to shift from a fixed, linear mindset to readily applied tools & methodology. 

The Champion wants teams across the company to have more opportunities to talk to consumers while working with a broader range of peers. Her ultimate goal: to synergistically work together to achieve something great in a short matter of time. She may just see this come to fruition. The Product Scientist, who admits he was a skeptic at first, became an advocate of the Design Sprints. He believes many of his peers are now in favor of them as well.

“I was worried about them being a mess and team members not participating,” said the Scientist. “The learning curve was so steep that first day — having to get comfortable with new tools like Zoom and Mural. We were up and running by that first afternoon though.” 

“By the time we got to Wednesday, we really liked the structure and flow,” he added. “The team was pumped when we did the storyboard and then again when we got consumer feedback. Everyone I collaborated with during my first Design Sprint was enthusiastic at the end and was already chatting about doing another in Europe.”

The Scientist told Voltage Control that since participating, he’s been conducting internal “roadshows” to evangelize the idea of Design Sprints. Due to the travel time and cost, the Scientist said he and his international colleagues don’t get to do much brainstorming in a physical environment. He feels the experiences facilitated by Voltage Control have opened up the possibility to do more of this kind of work, even after the Covid-19 pandemic has subsided. “These [virtual] Design Sprints make brainstorming with a large, global team more accessible,” he concluded.

Being able to transform a skeptic into an evangelist over four Sprints shows the impact Voltage Control’s efforts can have. As a whole, we taught a wide swath of employees how to meet in meaningful ways, despite distance and the pandemic. These fresh approaches to work (and working together) re-invigorated every participant, from marketers to scientists. Regardless of what they’ll face in the years ahead, they’ve now been trained to let no business disturbance interrupt their innovation. 

Do you have an innovation you want to implement, a company problem you need to solve, or a meeting structure that needs improvement?

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 Teaching a global CPG company to innovate like a startup appeared first on Voltage Control.

Design thinking workshops are becoming increasingly popular in corporate environments because they force businesses to humanize their approach to solving design-related problems. By leading a design thinking workshop, brands are better able to empathize with user experience and can focus on making innovation part of a human-centered design process. 

What Are Design Thinking Workshops?

Design-centric thinking is leading the way for ground-breaking brands, while those that do not embrace design thinking struggle to find innovative solutions. Too often, brands take an analytic approach to solving their internal or external issues. With a design-centric focus, brands encourage their team members to collaborate with each other to find innovative ideas and unique solutions. 

Despite its moniker, design thinking workshops are for far more than just design teams, as the design thinking process can be employed to overcome business challenges and develop design-based solutions in all departments. Most commonly, though, design thinking principles will be used in workshops for designers as they seek out potential solutions for design projects.

By putting design first in their approach to problem-solving, brands are able to center empathy and put the needs of real users first. If your business isn’t already on board with design thinking, leading a design thinking workshop can serve as a first step, giving your team the opportunity to learn to foster a user-centric mindset and think with design in mind. 

Goals of Your Design Thinking Workshop

The main goal of a design thinking workshop is for teams to create user-focused solutions for design-related problems. As you consider leading your own design thinking workshop, identify a series of goals and keep those central to your planning process.

Consider workshop goals such as:

• Producing groundbreaking ideas
• Cultivating a community in your workplace through collaboration
• Strengthening problem-solving skills
• Generating innovative ideas
• Empowering creative thinking
• Engaging your team

How to Become a Design Thinking Expert

Leading a design thinking workshop takes an expert in design thinking methodology. By taking the time to study and understand design thinking methodology, you can guide your team to creative solutions and make them into design thinkers in their own right. 

Want to make sure your design thinking workshop is led by an experienced facilitator? Work with the experts at Voltage Control. Our team of professional design thinking facilitators will give your team the tools you need to hold design thinking workshops of your own, or they’ll run them for you.

When learning how to facilitate a design thinking workshop, facilitators should understand these six steps to design thinking:

1. Observing and engaging in behavior: Begin by studying your users’ behavior to understand their needs 
2. Ideation: Next, brainstorm on how to meet user needs via divergent thinking
3. Prototype: Rapid prototyping focuses on testing ideas with real people in real-time to get instantaneous feedback
4. Feedback: With your prototype in the hands of the end-user, assess how and why the product meets or fails to meet their needs.
5. Integration: Implement the feedback to improve the design
6. Application: With your newly improved design, it’s time to move forward with the improved product

4 Secrets to Leading a Successful Design Thinking Workshop

If you’re heading up a design thinking workshop for the first time, it can be overwhelming to navigate all the available resources and design thinking tools while keeping the principles of design thinking top of mind. As a facilitator, your job starts with curating and collecting a series of activities to help stimulate the creativity and problem-solving superpowers of your workshop participants.

Pro Tip: We specifically created the Workshop Design Canvas Control Room App to help anyone planning any kind of workshop ease into the art of preparing to facilitate design thinking meetings. This canvas includes learning science, cognition, and facilitation best practice guardrails to help you ensure your design with objectives and participant needs in mind. 

With the right resources to practice leading a design thinking workshop and ample prep time, you can properly prepare your facilitator toolkit.

As you get ready to lead a design thinking workshop, be sure to prepare by:

1. Identifying workshop objectives 

Your objectives are the clear goals you hope to achieve in your design thinking workshop. Whether you’re trying to troubleshoot your existing design or come up with something entirely new, outlining your aims in the objective is the first step. Center your understanding of your target users and their user experience.

2. Choosing a location 

Your design thinking workshop can take place anywhere, whether it’s held virtually or in a physical location like a conference room. If you’re meeting in person, be sure there is enough physical space for the whole team as well as any equipment you may need.

Since this is a workshop for designers, also consider their needs and preferences when it comes to designing together.

3. Creating a workshop agenda

Your agenda should include all the workshop activities that you plan to use. Be sure to leave adequate time in between each activity for your team to engage with each other without burnout from an activity-heavy schedule, as well as clear opportunities for discussion and questions. The design team should be given plenty of time to work through each stage of the design project, as well as break time to regroup and rebuild energy levels.

4. Gathering workshop materials

If you plan to meet physically, gather all the necessary materials for your design thinking workshop, like whiteboards, paper, pens, and anything else you’ll need to complete the activities. 

Design Thinking Facilitator Frameworks

Leading a design thinking workshop begins with using the right facilitator framework. The correct framework will make it easier for you to visually present your ideas to your team as you keep them engaged with easy-to-follow presentations, visually stimulating graphics, and well-executed design that will encourage your team to produce their best work. 

Templates can be utilized to save time and outline design processes like journey mapping and user testing. For example, using MURAL templates for your facilitation framework will help your team remain productive and engaged throughout the collaborative process.

How to Facilitate a Design Thinking Workshop in 4 Steps

As the facilitator, you will be leading the charge into the design thinking workshop. With all your prep in place, it’s time to lead a masterful session that will set the tone of the workshop, encourage creative problem-solving, and ultimately reach your goals for the product. 

Begin your workshop with the right questions to spark thoughtful dialogue. The art of facilitation lies in having the right facilitator questions in your arsenal that will keep your team focused, energized, and ready to brainstorm. The right questions can get your team excited to be active participants who are more likely to contribute creative ideas.

Pro Tip: Asking questions like, “How are we feeling?” and “Why are we here today?” sets a conversational tone and helps to loosen your team up before the work begins. With the creative juices flowing, your team will be ready to collaborate.

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Step One: Diving Into Design Thinking

While your design team is likely already familiar with the concept of design thinking, some may need a refresher course on the subject, especially if you’re working with a cross-functional team. At the start of the workshop, give a brief discussion about what design thinking is, its various phases, and its benefits. With a crash course in the concept of design thinking, everyone on your team will be on the right page. 

Step Two: Empathize With the Audience

As you lead your team headfirst into design thinking, prioritize the empathize stage of the process. This is the best way to humanize the design process and helps your team focus on what the user needs and how to best achieve that. This step is where design thinking tools and activities come into play. 

If you haven’t already developed user personas, this may be a great opportunity to do so. Rich user personas represent the traits and behavioral patterns of the users of your product.

With popular activities like empathy maps and roleplaying, you can help your team identify with the language, feelings, wants, and needs of the audience. Following each activity, be sure to allow your team to ask questions, connect their work with previous stages, and share their findings. 

Step Three: Zeroing In on the Problem and Identifying Solutions

In this step, it’s time to tighten the focus on the problems in user experience. Participants can create problem statements to help guide them through the rest of the workshop. As your team brainstorms possible solutions, lead them through design thinking activities to help them stoke the fire of creativity and arrive at the most innovative solutions. 

Throughout the discussion, push your team towards collaborating for a single refined solution. Ultimately, they should be able to talk about the journey each user will take to solve the same problem on their own. 

Step Four: Closing the Design Thinking Workshop

After a successful workshop following the design thinking methodology, be sure to thoughtfully close the session by describing the next steps and asking follow-up questions. See how the design team feels about the workshop as well as what they learned, and clearly outline any necessary next steps.

Design thinking workshops are powerful and transformative when facilitated well. With a facilitator well-versed in design thinking, the correct facilitation frameworks, engaging activities, and a team filled with passionate collaborators, you’ll be well on your way to leading a successful design thinking workshop at your company. 

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If you’re ready to level up your facilitation skills, we can help. Discover the certification programs from Voltage Control.

The post The Ultimate Guide to Leading a Design Thinking Workshop 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.

The post Virtual Workshop Tools appeared first on Voltage Control.

If you are thinking about running a hybrid workshop, there’s a lot to consider. The hybrid landscape is a new frontier for event facilitators and attendees alike; therefore, putting on a hybrid workshop will require a different approach and mindset than an in-person or virtual one. It will also require alternative tools and methods to create an equal and engaging experience for all attendees–no matter if they’re in the physical workshop room or Zoom room. 

The priority of any workshop should be to engage participants and help them get the most out of their experience to make a lasting impact. Focusing on connection in a hybrid workshop is even more important as you must create an environment that bridges the two worlds and equally supports in-person and remote attendees. People come first. Everything else trickles down from there. With that being said, the right tools and processes are also essential for a hybrid workshop to exist. 

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Define and navigate a hybrid workplace for your organization + run effective hybrid meetings and events

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Hybrid Workshop Tools & Processes 

The proper tools and processes are a critical component of hybrid workshops–both practically to run an event smoothly and strategically to bring all participants together. A hybrid environment is more complex than an in-person or virtual one; therefore, a hybrid workshop will also be. That’s because you have two different types of attendees to consider: those in the physical room and those dialing in virtually, and you want an equal experience for everyone. Prep will require much more time to adequately organize all attendees and set them up with everything they need to thrive. First, you’ll need to decide on the event platform that will support all of your workshop’s needs:

• Live streaming support
• Integrations that offer the highest production quality
• Networking capabilities that allow easy attendee engagement
• Management capacity to run the event smoothly behind the scenes

Then consider the scene from which you’ll run the event:

• Will you be on a stage with cameras to capture the experience?
• Will you be in an office and operate more like a typical video conferencing call?
• Decide the best scenario that supports the event–from the background to the props that will appear in the frame–then gather the materials you need to bring it to life. 

While tech and hardware are the lifelines that make a hybrid event possible, the biggest challenge with remote or hybrid work of any kind is genuine connection. It’s the essential missing element of in-person connection that cannot be replaced by technology–no matter how innovative. There is no substitute for human interaction. To provide the same fidelity of experience for both in-person and remote attendees, you’ll need a tool that supports collaboration, like the virtual tool MURAL. We personally like MURAL at Voltage Control because it’s a customizable virtual whiteboard that supports interactive and collaborative work with a distributed team. Everyone can work together in one visual space, and you can create your own templates to support your specific needs. It helps to bridge the gap between being apart and working together, no matter where you are. For this reason, it’s a great tool for hybrid workshops.

Pro-tip: Check out our MURAL Cheat Sheet for a quick reference of how to use MURAL.

One method to foster connection with distributed participants is to have everyone join the meeting the same way or work together in the same place. Have everyone join the meeting on their own devices via a video conferencing tool like Zoom. This creates a more even playing field for remote participants; when everyone joins the workshop in the same way, there is a smaller feeling of division. Having everyone use MURAL via their own devices to work together is also an effective way to create connection and community. All participants can see each other’s work in real-time no matter where they are physically. 

Once you have your decided tools and location, you must set up attendees before the workshop begins. Preparing attendees may include:

• In-person walkthroughs to set the scene and ready cameras
• Lighting and other production gear
• Virtual walkthroughs on the virtual event platform to teach remote attendees how to navigate the space

If the workshop requires attendees to have certain materials to participate, please send them out in advance. This will ensure all attendees are on the same page before the workshop begins.

Hybrid Distribution

Hand-in-hand with tools and processes is the distribution of attendees and how they’re configured. There are endless configuration possibilities for a hybrid workshop. Here are a few examples: 

• 2 in-person workshop spaces with 10 attendees in each, 1 facilitator in each; 5 remote attendees
• Facilitators are in person and all attendees are remote
• 1 in-person workshop space with 1 facilitator & 10 attendees; 10 remote attendees

Note that it’s just as important to consider the configuration of facilitators as it is for attendees. You must decide where you’ll need facilitators and how many. For example, as in the second configuration above, you could have three facilitators in the same physical room, all with specific jobs, to backchannel together while the participants are remote. This could be a cool experience to lead and navigate the workshop with co-facilitators in person. All facilitators would be on the same page, and the focus of connection would then be on creating an excellent experience for all remote attendees. 

You can also use the distribution of attendees to your advantage. For example, are people who need to be together already in the same room? In this case, a lot of the leg work is already done to foster connection amongst attendees. The people who need to be connected have the advantage of being physically together. You could even have a facilitator in each room to help the groups navigate the conversation/work. Then it’s about effectively communicating each distributed group’s work to the other groups.

While there are copious permutations, keep in mind that each one is unique and will require different considerations and approaches. We’ll never have an exhaustive list of every possible configuration. The important thing is that you consider:

• How are people distributed?
• How is the environment shaped?
• What issues might arise and how might that benefit you?

Hybrid Workshop Resources

In sum, when planning a hybrid workshop, map out:

1. How your attendees are distributed
2. Where facilitators will be and how many are required
3. How collaboration will flow
4. What tech is required to make it happen
5. How the environment is shaped
6. Your point(s) of engagement

Then, when it’s time to start thinking about the experience. Check out our Workshop Design Templates to help guide you through the process. You can also find more information about running effective hybrid workshops, meetings, and events (including more configurations) in our free Hybrid Work Guide. Interested in talking to us about how you can effectively run a hybrid meeting or event? Let’s chat.

The post Hybrid Workshops appeared first on Voltage Control.

“The facilitator plays the role of a model of authenticity for the group: listening for the depth of decisions that need to be faced, speaking only from experience, preferring remaining silent to giving ‘good advice’ ungrounded in personal experience, rejoicing in the successes of the group.” -John Epps

The best workshops are learning experiences for lasting growth and transformation. They keep all participants engaged, drive key learning objectives and facilitate lasting change. If your workshops fall short, you may need the help of a workshop facilitator to produce better outcomes. It takes a pro-level toolkit and mindset to unearth potential and maintain results.

Workshop facilitation transforms meeting structure and dynamics. A professional meeting moderator has the ability to lead objectively and strategically to produce better outcomes at your company meeting or working session.

Why You Should Hire a Workshop Facilitator

The difference between a truly impactful workshop and a mediocre one is often an expert leader–someone well-versed in bringing people together, navigating conversations, and helping solve complex problems. With a professional workshop facilitator at the helm, you can get the whole group engaged and participating, which leads to more productive meetings. Here are three reasons an outside professional facilitator is an asset to your next workshop.

1. A Non-Biased Leader

A workshop facilitator is a non-biased and neutral figure at your meeting that offers a fresh perspective. Unlike the inevitable biases that exist within your team, a skilled facilitator’s viewpoint is untainted by bias; instead, it is objective. They are removed from office politics and are an outsider to the company status quo. This vantage point allows them to ask critical questions, hold everyone accountable to the truth, and ensure ground rules are enforced. Sometimes this means helping the group embrace harsher realities that are necessary to solving problems and making thoughtful decisions. 

When the workshop facilitator is an unbiased navigator, they are able to guide the group more efficiently and effectively because their own opinions are not in the way. They can see the problem(s) at hand more clearly and are therefore able to address issues quicker and easier. This especially comes in handy when solving complex problems or settling matters of great importance. Sometimes it takes someone removed from the situation–with the other critical skills of a master facilitator–to identify how to best problem solve. 

2. Greater Engagement

Extracting equal engagement from all participants in any workshop is an art form. In short, it can be challenging. And for workshops to be impactful and influence lasting growth, you need the best of all participants. A workshop facilitator has the unique ability to work the room, encouraging all participants to interact. Workshop facilitators are trained to increase engagement and keep team members energized throughout the meeting. They do so by assessing the group’s current engagement level, minimizing distractions, and sticking to the schedule. Many facilitators also practice improv, so they have the skills to adapt to unplanned or unforeseen scenarios. For example, the facilitator will recognize a distraction or decrease in group energy levels and pivot the conversation/flow of the meeting when needed to bring it back to focus. This increases productivity and helps contribute to a more effective team dynamic.

Facilitators are skilled in a variety of engagement strategies and feel confident in leading a group. Also, workshop facilitators aren’t invested in the content of the meeting, which makes room for more opposing opinions. When outside facilitators lead, the team will be more comfortable expressing new ideas.

For example, if you are leading a meeting and your employees know that you have a certain point of view on an issue, they may not speak freely. This doesn’t produce innovation or contribution; it reinforces the company’s current structure and beliefs. When your employees walk in and notice someone else is running the workshop, they will be more excited or curious to see if the meeting pans out differently. This curiosity and excitement can lay the foundation for innovation. Your employees will feel more at ease expressing new thoughts, skills, and solutions when a new approach is presented.

Meetings and work cultures generally take on a routine. People usually know what to expect on a day-to-day basis. They also know how most meetings will go. Depending on your meeting history and feedback, this could either be good or bad. If you’ve heard more negative reviews than positive, it might be time to hire a workshop facilitator.

A workshop facilitator is a fresh new face and personality at the meeting. They can help to break old patterns and create new ones.

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Facilitators know a variety of engagement strategies and feel confident in leading a group. Also, workshop facilitators aren’t invested in the content of the meeting, which makes room for more opposing opinions.

When outside facilitators lead, the team will be more comfortable expressing new ideas.

For example, if you are leading a meeting and your employees know that you have a certain point of view on an issue, they may not speak freely. This doesn’t produce innovation or contribution; it reinforces the company’s current structure and beliefs.

3. Increased Positivity

When differing opinions emerge in a meeting, tensions can arise. Two employees may be very passionate about their stance, leaving you to manage the conversation without damaging any relationships. A workshop facilitator can seamlessly manage these potentially negative interactions by remaining a positive and unbiased presence.

Pro-tip: Refer to our Facilitators Guide to Questions for effective questions to ask to transform negative environments.

Hiring a workshop facilitator can also increase positivity at meetings by creating sharing and brainstorming opportunities. Workshop facilitators bring a toolkit of methodologies and strategies to employ that help teams work well together. They know when to use each method to get the desired results. Some examples include: brainstorming activities that move the group from divergent to convergent thinking to come up with and identify solutions to problems, encouraging active listening to create an inclusive and productive environment, and inspiring and balancing participation among extroverted and introverted personalities so that all voices are heard and understood by the group. The many techniques of a workshop facilitator can successfully get individuals to open up and express their opinions with ease.

Hiring a Workshop Facilitator

Hiring a professional facilitator for your next workshop, large group meeting, complicated meeting, or project kick-off will help your organization grow and solve complex problems quickly and effectively. A facilitator will provide a safe space for team members to contribute their ideas which will strengthen the entire group and overall outcome. Their organizational and problem-solving expertise will allow gatherings to flow smoothly, minimize issues, and extract important information. Workshop facilitators are an asset before, during, and after workshops, as they play an essential role in all parts of the process to ensure lasting results. 

If you’d like to hire a workshop facilitator for your next meeting or training, consider our services at Voltage Control. We offer a range of facilitation and innovation workshops that can help your company to get to the next level of employee engagement, growth, and innovation.

FAQ Section

What is the goal of facilitation in a professional setting?
The primary goal of facilitation is to guide teams through effective workshops that foster collaboration, decision-making, and problem-solving. A successful workshop is led by an expert facilitator who helps the group achieve its objectives while enhancing communication skills and fostering creative thinking.

Why should we hire an external facilitator instead of using an internal team member?
An external facilitator brings an unbiased perspective, free from internal politics or company culture. They have experience in facilitation across various industries and are trained to lead diverse groups. This helps create an environment where participants feel comfortable sharing innovative ideas, leading to more successful sessions.

What facilitation techniques do expert facilitators at Voltage Control use?
Our experienced facilitators use a range of facilitation techniques, including design thinking, brainstorming sessions, and collaborative decision-making strategies. These approaches ensure that both entry-level facilitators and seasoned professionals can guide their teams through complex challenges, fostering effective communication and leadership skills.

How do professional facilitators support leadership development and company growth?
Facilitators play a crucial role in talent development and leadership growth. By guiding team leaders and decision-makers through educational workshops and a series of sessions, they help develop soft skills such as communication and creative problem-solving. This investment in professional development enhances company culture and drives overall growth.

Can internal facilitators lead successful workshops, or is it better to rely on external consultants?
While internal facilitators may have a deep understanding of the company’s culture and goals, external workshop facilitators bring fresh insights and innovative approaches. External consultants are often more effective at identifying blind spots and introducing new facilitation techniques that lead to more impactful outcomes.

What experience level should facilitators have to lead a successful session?
Facilitators with a proven track record, whether internal or external, should possess extensive facilitation skills and experience. At Voltage Control, we offer facilitation training for both entry-level facilitators and those pursuing a facilitation career. An ideal candidate profile for facilitation includes leadership skills, experience in facilitation, and the ability to adapt their facilitation style to the needs of the group.

How do facilitation workshops benefit project managers and team leaders?
Facilitation workshops equip project managers and team leaders with essential leadership and communication skills. These workshops enhance their ability to lead teams, manage projects effectively, and create an environment for collaborative decision-making. This ultimately strengthens the leadership team and drives long-term company growth.

What is the role of facilitation in shaping company culture?
Facilitation is instrumental in shaping company culture by fostering open communication, encouraging creative thinking, and promoting collaboration. Whether led by an internal facilitator or an external consultant, effective facilitation ensures that all voices are heard, leading to stronger team cohesion and improved decision-making over a period of time.

The post 3 Reasons To Hire a Workshop Facilitator appeared first on Voltage Control.

Open Assembly hosts conversations and connections between organizations and people that want to adapt to the changing virtual landscape and thrive using evolving digital tools. The company focuses on community and knowledge sharing that helps culture and business transition to the future of work. 

The team at Open Assembly wanted to refine their vision of open talent standards and certification entity in collaboration with the open talent community. 

“During COVID we were meeting as a group and there was a lot of good energy around what to do to reduce friction and accelerate adoption in the open talent industry. We were doing a lot of talking, and someone proposed that we should run a design sprint so we could put our community into action.” —Catherine McGowin, Managing Director, Open Assembly 

Voltage Control facilitators Douglas Ferguson and John Fitch custom-designed and facilitated a series of workshops, including a three-day Design Sprint to help Open Assembly and 20 leaders from its community engage with one another and build consensus around actionable next steps. 

“Open Assembly had a dream that they might be the right organization to provide solutions to these needs, but they wanted to hear from the community how they thought such a group should be structured and if they would be a good fit to lead it. They also wanted to make sure they fully understood the needs of the community. Not only did they agree that Open Assembly should lead this instead of bothering with organization structure, but the community insisted on focusing on a manifesto and identifying workstreams for getting started.” —Douglas Ferguson, Facilitator, Voltage Control

The Discovery

For the first workshop in the series, facilitator John Fitch led an ideation session during Open Assembly’s weekly community meeting to collect ideas and concerns from the broader group. The generated information was integrated into the following Design Sprint. 

The Design Sprint

Day 1: Alignment 

The Design Sprint started with mapping the problem space. We started by imagining our end result and risks along the way. Then, we worked backward to figure out the steps we needed to get there. At the end of the first day, we had an identified goal as well as a list of questions the group needed to answer during the sprint. 

Identified goal: We are uncovering better ways to engage global talent by helping others do it. We seek to reduce the friction that interferes with the adoption of new work paradigms. While we realize talent supply is equally or even more important than demand, we recognize a need to stimulate more demand first to initiate the flywheel of opportunity. 

Questions:

• How do we address too many different delivery models to align on a single set of standards?
• How do we overcome large organization inertia and bureaucracy?
• What does the group see as the key barriers to adoption that we can collectively address? 

The group then engaged in “Expert Interviews,” where they asked the experts within the core team a series of questions to better understand the problem and potential solutions. Next, the team participated in an activity called “How Might We…” The purpose of this exercise was to encourage the group to get curious and interview a few experts in order to explore possible solutions to their challenge by thinking big rather than getting mired by the painful details of taking a full solution to market. They considered and answered the following prompt:

As allies who believe in the virtues and support the adoption of open talent and innovation models, we believe that we can make more meaningful progress together than apart. How might we come together and organize the open talent marketplace, overcome our most critical challenges, and reduce friction that interferes with the adoption of this new paradigm for work? 

Day 2: Solution Sketches

On the second day, the group did lightning demos of their ideas. The team located and shared analogous inspiration. These demos included competitors, adjacent services, intuitive interfaces, inspiring branding, and compelling content. 

Key takeaways from the demos:

• Ubiquity and ease of use
• Establishing credibility and trust
• Models for standards and maturity 

Each person then participated in a four-step sketch. Anyone can sketch. Most solution sketches are just rectangles and words. This process enabled everyone on the team to become a designer.

The team started by writing down the goal and questions on their paper. Then, they copied their favorite How Might We’s and lightning demos onto their notes. This moment of collection and reflection grounded the team and focused energy while allowing each participant time to process all we had done so far.

Next, the team transitioned from observing and collecting to reacting and generating. They rapidly documented all ideas they had as they reviewed their notes.

Everyone silently responded to prompts to unlock thinking in new ways in an activity called 10×10 Writing. This helped the group to loosen up before committing ideas to paper. 

The team spent the rest of the day sketching one or two solutions that they felt held the most promise. Although they were together in the same room, they worked alone. Instead of a group brainstorm, we gave each person time to develop solutions on their own.

Day 3: Decide

The third and final day of the Design Sprint was centered around deciding on the best-generated idea to move forward with. The team used small dots to identify parts of the sketches they liked. Then, we led the team through each of the sketches posted on the wall and called out key ideas.

Using a technique called Heat Mapping, members of the team worked their way around the room placing smaller dots to create a heat map of things that stood out as ideas with high potential.

The group went through a speed critique and straw poll voting to further narrow down the top ideas. John Winsor, Founder and CEO of Open Assembly, also the project “decider,” used three super vote dots to select the winning solutions. We then combined each of these sketches into a single solution for prototyping. 

Finally we ended with participants discussing needs, prioritizing, and then committing to next steps. 

The Outcome

The Open Assembly team walked away with a working manifesto. They also gained several insights from the Design Sprint:

1. There is already lots of alignment. While there was nuance, everyone was in agreement.
2. Consistent desire to focus on demand and removing barriers, but not to the detriment of the supplier experience.
3. Strong desire to get to specific key barriers that need to be addressed and how the group can address them collectively.
4. Everyone appreciates the work that Open Assembly is doing and has no issue committing to come to the table and support what we are building.

Top priorities the team identified to move forward with:

1. Release draft manifesto into the wild (beta release)
2. Organize work groups
3. Summarize outcome of the three days; secure feedback from the crowd/collective on the manifesto
4. Operating model—roles, processes/governance, success measures, tools
5. Create a dream list of all (individuals or businesses) who should be involved

John Winsor, Founder and CEO of Open Assembly, said their next steps after the Design Sprint were to “begin work on building a trade association focused on setting standards for the industry. The group wanted to see a group formed that could establish standards for the industry around the accreditation of platforms and education of the demand side organizations. The group also expressed the need for greater advocacy and promotion.”

Open Assembly  tested their manifesto prototype with the community in the weeks following the Design Sprint. 

Since the Design Sprint, Open Assembly has created a 501c6 non-profit trade organization called the Center for the Transformation of Work (CTW). 

The Summit

Several months later, Open Assembly engaged with Voltage Control to design and integrate a collaborative exercise into Open Assembly’s Global Summit, a virtual, 2-day community event with over 160 attendees. Voltage Control designed a custom canvas, conducted live scribing during the event, and hosted a final happy hour to engage attendees in conversations about the event content and the mission. 

Open Assembly gained the support of the community as well acquired new tools to integrate into their business moving forward. 

“We have started using Mural in other instances and decided to incorporate the powerful tool and Voltage Control into our first annual global summit event. It was a great interactive experience for all of the attendees. ” —Catherine McGowin, Managing Director, Open Assembly 

Do you have an innovation you want to implement, a company problem you need to solve, or a meeting structure that needs improvement?

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 Open Assembly Established Interactive Community & Nonprofit Trade Organization With a 3-Day Design Sprint appeared first on Voltage Control.

Please join us for the Control the Room 2021, which will be held Feb. 2-4, 2020. You can find out more and buy tickets here.

This is part of the 2020 Control The Room speaker video series.

In February we hosted the second annual facilitator summit, Control The Room, at Austin’s Capital Factory. We launched the summit last year in partnership with MURAL to create a space for facilitators to gather, break down the silos, and learn from one another.

The three-day summit is a rare opportunity to bring together an otherwise unlikely group of highly experienced and skilled professionals across various industries and crafts—from strategy consultants and negotiators to Scrum Masters and design thinkers.

Anyone interested in deepening their knowledge on how to successfully facilitate meaningful meetings and connect with other practitioners is welcome. Together, we dive into diverse methodologies, expand upon perspectives, and learn new insights and strategies that enrich our expertise.

This year we had the pleasure of welcoming 24 speakers, all innovation professionals, who shared their insights and strategies of successful facilitation.

One of those speakers was Jordan Hirsch, the Director of Innovation at Phase2, a Digital Experience agency that helps companies create meaningful experiences, develop and integrate systems, drive business results, and operate at speed and scale.

He presented on how to facilitate the fun in meetings by incorporating improv. Jordan led the room through a “yes and” exercise that demonstrated the value of accepting and responding, and how it translates to the mind of a facilitator to help them respond to the expected and unexpected.

He explained that accepting does not mean always mean agreeing, and that responding is greater than reacting. Jordan demonstrated that improv helps individuals be present and accept and build trust; it is a liberating structure in one’s mind.

Watch Jordan Hirsch’s talk “Facilitating the Fun”:

Read the Transcript

Jordan Hirsch:

All right. Thanks, everybody. The coveted post-break slot. Welcome back to the improv portion of the day. My name is Jordan Hirsch. I’m going to talk about bringing improv into your facilitation work. To get started, this might shock you, but could I get seven volunteers up on stage, please? It’s just the magic number for improv games. That’s how it goes. There’s one, thank you. Anybody else? Two, thank you very much. Three, four, five, six, seven. Oh my God, we did it. Yay. I liked the specificity. I had written in my notes six to eight and then I heard Shannon say seven. I was like, “That’s six to eight.” This is going to work out great. Could you all please do me a favor and just get in a circle? I will remove them. No, maybe the people towards the back. Just take a step backward that way so everybody doesn’t fall off stage.

Jordan Hirsch:

There you go. Now let’s complete the circle. Excellent. Thank you so much. So we’re going to play. There it is. We’re going to play a quick game called the yes circle. Can you guys take as many steps back as bad. There you go. You take one back for me. Oh, beautiful. I love it. You go back. Perfect. Thank you so much. So, the yes circle. Let’s close up the circle once again, the yes circle doesn’t mean to get closer. There you go. The yes circle…

Daniel:

[crosstalk 00:01:34] Was this perfect or are we good?

Jordan Hirsch:

You are. This is it. Thank you for the circle, no. The yes circle has one objective. Your objective is to take someone else’s place in the circle. To do it, there’s only two rules. It is so easy you could not possibly fail. All you have to do is point at someone else in the circle, whose place you want to take.

Jordan Hirsch:

Could you point at someone else in the circle? Beautiful. You are going to make…

Daniel:

If I’m a target, I’m dead.

Jordan Hirsch:

You are going to make eye contact and you’re going to say, yes.

Daniel:

Yes.

Jordan Hirsch:

As soon as you get that yes, you may begin walking towards his place in the circle. Guess what you’re going to do? You’re going to point at someone else in the circle.

Daniel:

Okay.

Jordan Hirsch:

Go for it. And you’re going to say?

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Jordan Hirsch:

Here you go. Now you’re going to point at someone else in the circle. No, no, no.

Speaker 3:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jordan Hirsch:

It’s only two rules.

Daniel:

Yes.

Jordan Hirsch:

There you go.

Speaker 3:

I’ve got it. I’ve got it.

Daniel:

Yes. No, wait, that’s wrong.

Jordan Hirsch:

Yep. That’s alright. Alright, let’s reset real quick. There’s only two rules. You can’t get it wrong. So here, come on over here. Let’s get back into our beautiful circle. So you’re going to point to someone else in the circle.

Speaker 3:

Okay.

Jordan Hirsch:

Go ahead. And you’re going to say?

Speaker 4:

Yes.

Jordan Hirsch:

Now you’re going to point to someone… There you go.

Speaker 5:

Yes.

Speaker 6:

Yes.

Speaker 7:

Yes.

Speaker 8:

Yes.

Daniel:

Yes.

Jordan Hirsch:

Okay. So there’s only two rules. You can’t get it wrong. You guys want to try it one more time. [crosstalk 00:02:55] Okay, great.

Speaker 7:

Oh, watch yourself. You alright?

Jordan Hirsch:

Watch your step. Don’t worry about me. I’m a professional. I fall off stages all the time.

Speaker 7:

[inaudible 00:03:03].

Jordan Hirsch:

Why don’t you go ahead. Point to anyone in the circle.

Speaker 5:

Yes.

Speaker 6:

Yes.

Speaker 7:

Yes.

Speaker 8:

Yes.

Jordan Hirsch:

So there’s only two rules. You can’t get it wrong. Folks, can we please get a big round of applause for our volunteers? And, before you all dissipate, a quick question. First of all, thank you very much. Second of all, why did we do that?

Speaker 7:

Why did we do that?

Jordan Hirsch:

Why did we do that?

Speaker 3:

Because directions are hard to follow.

Jordan Hirsch:

Because directions are hard to follow.

Speaker 3:

And, it creates habit when we don’t give the directions.

Jordan Hirsch:

That’s a good reason. Anybody, what were you starting to say? You said communication.

Speaker 5:

Yeah.

Jordan Hirsch:

What about it?

Speaker 5:

Direct eye contact. Setting a clear purpose.

Daniel:

Assent.

Jordan Hirsch:

Assent, such a Daniel answer. Permission. Yes. Permission is good. We’re leaving… Great answers, all of you, now I’ll give my answer while you get off the stage. Thank you so much. Seriously. All of those answers are correct by the way. We do that, because we can take many lessons from it. My personal favorite thing about that game is that it really nicely illustrates the concept of the importance of building a shared reality.

Jordan Hirsch:

If we are not agreeing on a shared reality, we cannot move forward with things. If you move forward without getting or giving a yes, you are trying to move into a house that’s not for sale. You are violating the shared reality that we have, and shared reality is the basis of that most famous of improv concepts, yes and… Show of hands, I’m sure it’s going to be every hand, who here has heard of Yes and…? Awesome. Could anyone give me a definition? No professional improvisers allowed. Awesome. Thank you so much.

Speaker 9:

Definition is, taking someone’s idea and building on it, rather than dismissing their idea and putting your idea.

Jordan Hirsch:

Very well put. Thank you. Anybody else?

Jordan Hirsch:

Alright. You did… Oh yeah.

Speaker 10:

Accepting a gift and then giving a next one.

Jordan Hirsch:

Accepting a gift and then giving a next one. I love all of these definitions. Thank you. I think they’re both right. I think to me, yes and… is simply about accepting and responding. It is the basis, the fundamental foundation of all successful improvisation. And what does it have to do with facilitation? I believe it is a mindset. It fosters a mindset that is valuable both for you as a facilitator and for the people that you are facilitating. It helps you respond to the unexpected and to the expected, because it gives you a framework within which to work. Now, I think it’s important to back up assertions like that with math. So, please join me as we do some improv math. Yeah. Math. Awesome. Improv math is just like regular math, except I made it up. So, the first equation of improv math is that accepting does not equal agreeing.

Jordan Hirsch:

Oh no. If I say yes and… to a dumb idea, therefore, I too am a dumb person, because I agree with the dumb idea. I don’t think it works exactly like that. It is about accepting information that’s come before and an improv show, if two people were doing a scene on the moon and I entered the scene talking about, “Oh, it’s so nice to be back in Wisconsin.”, I have not agreed on a shared reality with these people. I have broken an agreement that they have set up on stage. In facilitation, yes and… is also about accepting an established reality. It does not mean that you agree with everything everybody says. It means that you accept that the people who are saying these things, actually hold these beliefs. You accept that you are living inside of a shared reality with them. You can accept something even if you don’t agree with it.

Jordan Hirsch:

It’s one of the hardest things about becoming a grownup, but it does happen. It is a fundamental skill. To me, yes and… is the opposite of gaslighting, because it’s really all about honoring a shared reality and that builds psychological safety in groups and I think it’s a sign of respectful leadership. Improv math equation number two, responding is greater than reacting. We heard about this a little bit earlier. The power of response, instead of reaction. To me a response is simply a reaction filtered through a framework. The “and” in yes and… is where you get to be intentional about how you respond to something. Improv helps you practice and hone the skill of responding at the speed of reacting, but it really does take practice. Responding intentionally, I think, is how you want your workshop participants to be working and interacting with each other and it’s probably how you want to be acting yourself when you are facilitating a group.

Jordan Hirsch:

Think about when something goes wrong or when something goes off script in something that you’re facilitating. How do you react to that? By default, when we react instead of responding, I think we give away a moment where we might actually build something new, because it wasn’t in the script. Responding puts you in the driver’s seat. Reacting gives away a lot of your power and improv helps you hone that muscle of responding at the speed of reaction. Improv math equation number three, “Yes minus And” equals

[inaudible 00:08:07]

. Johnny, could you just please say yes every time I point to you.

Johnny:

Yes.

Jordan Hirsch:

Thank you so much. Oh, see he’s got it. Nice day today, isn’t it?

Johnny:

Yes.

Jordan Hirsch:

It’s quiet in here, huh?

Johnny:

Yes.

Jordan Hirsch:

What the fuck, Johnny?

Johnny:

Yes.

Jordan Hirsch:

Alright. Not really scintillating stuff as opposed to, nice day to day, isn’t it? Yes. Our alien overlords have finally flown home.

Jordan Hirsch:

Things are really looking up, not the best improv scene in the world, but there’s a lot more to it. Just agreeing. Just accepting, stopping there is not fulfilling the promise of yes and… accepting and building is the key to doing something really wonderful. And, I know as facilitators we are meant to be neutral parties. So, building does not mean steering. It doesn’t mean telling everybody what to think, what to say, what to do. It means creating and holding space for generative engagement and is, I want to say it’s the more important part. It’s nothing of course without the yes, but I feel like a lot of people who learn about yes and… they stop at the agreement piece and they really miss an opportunity to do something new and interesting. Finally, improv times facilitation equals awesome. You want your participants to be listening to each other to be building on each other’s ideas, to be collaborating creatively and improv works all of those muscles.

Jordan Hirsch:

It is like a workout for your brain and if you’re getting sematic about it also for your body, you are literally practicing new ways of doing these sorts of things. It also helps you as a facilitator. It helps you be present. It helps you be accepting and it helps you to quickly build trust with a group of people. Not to mention brain scans of jazz musicians, while they were improvising, showed an increase in activities in the area of the brain associated with creativity and with language, and a decrease in activity in the areas of the brain associated with self-censorship. Which means, get ready for some facilitator inside baseball here, improv is literally a liberating structure for your brain. Truly, it liberates you from your own self censorship and it activates your creativity. The act of creating and engaging, wakes up the parts of your brain that like to do creating an engaging and it shuts down the critic and that is a great mindset for facilitating or for being facilitated. Could I please get a volunteer one each from each table? Just pick a quick table facilitator and come on up.

Jordan Hirsch:

Yes, good. Cheer each other on. This is going to be great. All right. You guys are awesome. Thank you. Do we have all our tables represented? Okay.

Speaker 12:

Yes.

Jordan Hirsch:

This part’s just for you guys. Huddle around, huddle around, huddle around. Okay, so you are going to go back to your… Talk amongst yourselves. You’re going to go back to your tables and facilitate an improv game. Easy enough. Not that hard. Has anybody ever done a yes and… story before?

Speaker 13:

Oh, yes.

Jordan Hirsch:

Have you? Okay, so a yes and… story is very simple. You’re going to start off a story, I’ll give you the first line. Once upon a time this thing happened, people contribute with one line at a time, to the story. I want to be very clear about this. Instructions are tricky. One line, one sentence, at a time. Every sentence must begin with the words.

Jordan Hirsch:

Yes and… consider how you, as a facilitator, might guide people, if and how, you might guide people if they, perhaps, negate information that came before in the story or if they don’t say yes and… at the beginning, how are you going to handle that? How will you yes and… what they are doing. Any questions? Alright, you’ve got five minutes to go back to your tables, explain and run the activity. Wait. The first line of everybody’s story is, “Once upon a time there was a duck who was afraid of water.” And begin. [crosstalk 00:12:17] What was the last line that this table came up with?

Speaker 7:

“And there was another duck Memorial.”

Jordan Hirsch:

And there was another duck Memorial. What was your last line?

Speaker 14:

“And that’s why we all might drink too much”

Jordan Hirsch:

And that’s why we all might drink too much at the company picnic. What was your last one?

Speaker 15:

“The humans and the duck went on a giant firefighting expedition to Australia.”

Jordan Hirsch:

Yeah, sure. What was your last one?

Speaker 16:

“Yes and he kept paddling.”

Jordan Hirsch:

He kept paddling. Oh, what was your last line?

Speaker 17:

“And the animal activists went to Washington DC, after

Jordan Hirsch:

This is amazing. And your?

Speaker 18:

It was, “Yes and, the business ended up going under and now he’s a homeless duck.”

Jordan Hirsch:

So the clock tells me I don’t have time, unfortunately, to hear from every table, as much as I would like to, but if you could hear it, you all arrived at very, very, very different places and the reason that I pushed you after several tables were like, “Hey, we’re done. We won the exercise, we finished the story.” is that there is often much, much, much more, much more ground to be uncovered, after you think you have scaled the mountain. Yes and… to me, is about once you scale the mountain, Hey, the clouds are partying. Oh, there’s another huge mountain right there, and I really want to see it. I want to see what’s on the other side of it. So what do we learn? This graphic here of these very simplistic things was chosen deliberately, because this is basic foundational stuff.

Jordan Hirsch:

However, it goes against all of our cultural conditioning. We are not conditioned to do this. The yes circle is super hard, so we’re not used to having to wait for permission, and we’re not used to having to give permission. It is learned behavior, which is why we make comedy out of it, because it’s challenging. If time permitted, I would love to know from all of you how you think you might have used this skill in the past or how you might use it in the future of your facilitation work. The clock says, no. Douglas is standing here, so just think about it a little bit on your own. And thank you so much for playing with me.

The post Facilitating the Fun appeared first on Voltage Control.

Please join us for the Control the Room 2021, which will be held Feb. 2-4, 2020. You can find out more and buy tickets here.

This is part of the 2020 Control The Room speaker video series.

In February we hosted the second annual facilitator summit, Control The Room, at Austin’s Capital Factory. We launched the summit last year in partnership with MURAL to create a space for facilitators to gather, break down the silos, and learn from one another.

The three-day summit is a rare opportunity to bring together an otherwise unlikely group of highly experienced and skilled professionals across various industries and crafts—from strategy consultants and negotiators to Scrum Masters and design thinkers.

Anyone interested in deepening their knowledge on how to successfully facilitate meaningful meetings and connect with other practitioners is welcome. Together, we dive into diverse methodologies, expand upon perspectives, and learn new insights and strategies that enrich our expertise.

This year we had the pleasure of welcoming 24 speakers, all innovation professionals, who shared their insights and strategies of successful facilitation.

One of those speakers was Emily Jane Steinberg, a Visual Facilitator and Scribe at Delineate Ink, LLC. Her presentation was entitled: “Beyond Our Blind Spots — Seeing Context in a Changing World.” Her activities and lecture centered on the concept of awareness and how to expand it from a place of tunnel vision to see, identify, and ultimately eliminate our blind spots to more successfully help clients spot theirs.

Watch Emily Jane Steinberg’s talk “Beyond Our Blind Spots — Seeing Context in a Changing World” :

Read the Transcript

Emily Jane Steinberg:

And I’m going to ask you to just look out across the room and find a spot to gaze at, above eye level. It might be a convenient blue dot located on the wall, or perhaps on the screens. And as you gaze at that dot really focus in on it, like a laser. Let the particles of light and information come through you like a channel to that dot and really gaze into it with some intensity. And then find as you’re doing that, then you almost want to start expanding your gaze. And so go ahead and let yourself do that and really begin to expand your awareness out to the periphery, taking in more information throughout the room. And as you do, notice other kinds of information besides visual that are coming in. Sounds, thoughts in your mind, or sensations in your body.

Emily Jane Steinberg:

And just to test how far out your peripheral awareness is going, if you’ve got the room, bring your arms out to your sides and you can wiggle your fingers there at the edges of your vision. Just see how far back you can stretch and still see your fingers. And notice that the ability and the acuity to see at those edges of your periphery, is almost as clear as what’s directly in the center of your field of vision. So you can go ahead and drop your arms down to your sides now. And I invite you to come back and find your seat while maintaining this sense of expanded awareness.

Emily Jane Steinberg:

I have my index cards, just in case I forget what I’m talking about, which is expanded awareness, fittingly. That’s the name of the tool, the exercise that we just tried out, before we found our seats. And expanded awareness is also known as the learning state because when you go into a state like that, where you’re expanding out to your periphery, you have this combination both of total focus and relaxation. It actually creates the conditions to absorb new information and large quantities of information, making it a perfect skill to practice in a day like this where we’re getting a constant stream of new information. And when we shift from that foveal, focused tunnel vision out, that’s naturally what happens. So throughout the day, I invite you to try that out again and again. If you find yourself distracted, overwhelmed with content, fixating on a single point that you’ve heard somebody say, just go ahead and anchor again. These blue dots are going to be up here all day and then expand out from that space.

Emily Jane Steinberg:

Now, in a way we could actually stop right here and spend the next 15 minutes just practicing that. This tool really is that precious. It’s like gold. It’s fundamental and at the center of all the work that I do as a visual facilitator, as a public listener, not to mention as an artist and a meditator. Being able to access and function in that state is just key. But of course we’re not going to stop there. So you’ll see piles of blank paper on all your tables. And so go ahead, take a sheet of paper and I’m going to ask you to draw nine dots on it like this. And once you’ve drawn those dots, what I’d like you to do is connect all of those dots with four straight lines without lifting up your pen in between those lines.

Emily Jane Steinberg:

This is an individual exercise, so no group work at this point yet. Four straight lines continuous to connect those dots and I’ll give you one tip. If you’re trying to figure it out in your head before you start, it’s much easier to actually start by making a mark. You can’t really solve it in your head. Anybody got it, or think they’ve got it? I’ve got one over there, one over here, a few people. And those of you who do have it, have you seen this exercise before? Just to be fair.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Emily Jane Steinberg:

Has somebody got it who hasn’t seen this exercise before?

[crosstalk 00:04:50]

That’s okay. We’ll unpack it together. Someone who did solve it, would you mind coming up here and showing us how you did it? This is funny to write on, but we’re going to just… Come on up. Yeah. I’m going to give you this pen. You’re going to show us what you drew.

Speaker 2:

I got to bring me cheat sheet.

Emily Jane Steinberg:

Yeah. Bring your cheat sheet. I’ve done that before. How did I just figure this out?

Speaker 2:

You have to go outside the…

Emily Jane Steinberg:

So she’s going to draw four connected lines without lifting up her marker.

Speaker 2:

So, I went like this.

Emily Jane Steinberg:

Yeah. Thank you. People see what she did there? So when I drew those lines in the first place, what did you see? What do people see? Sorry. The dots. Yeah, you saw a square, or a box. Why?

Speaker 3:

Negative space.

Emily Jane Steinberg:

[Crosstalk 00:05:52]. Negative space? Because your mind’s filled it in. Exactly. Hearkening back to Solomon talked about this morning, that’s social conditioning. We perceived a box where there wasn’t a box. We were given nine dots and we filled in the boundary around it. Now the reason we do that is because we’re actually taught not to think critically about boxes like this. We’re given rules, we’re taught how to follow them, we internalize them and then the rules disappear. We don’t even realize that they’re there anymore.

Emily Jane Steinberg:

It’s like when you start a new job and the first day of work, you see all of the structure of this new place that you’ve joined. And as the months go by, you get acculturated until you don’t really see any of that box anymore. So as facilitators, it’s our job to think critically about the boxes of our own experience and the boundary conditions that we’ve been given for dealing with them and thinking with them. It’s also our job to think critically on behalf of our clients. We’re often brought in from outside as consultants and facilitators, so outside of their box.

Emily Jane Steinberg:

But if we don’t know how to recognize these invisible boxes, then how can we engage with them on our client’s behalf? Usually we’re hired to help solve some kind of a problem isn’t it? A problem if it’s not well-defined can be an invisible box. It can be a blind spot when it’s not framed well. Habits can be blind spots, urgency creates blind spots, boxes that aren’t really, there are blind spots. And across the globe in business and politics, hidden agendas, motives and alliances can sometimes intentionally create blind spots. So one of the biggest blind spots that exists that we can very easily miss in the day-to-day of our work in our lives is white organizational culture. And that’s why we ended up seeing so many DEI approaches that fall short.

Emily Jane Steinberg:

They’ll touch on hiring and personnel, maybe policy, and that’s it. So you end up with tokenism but not true diversity, equity or inclusion. Or a consultant, one of us maybe is hired to come in and do a sensitivity training in the afternoon one day. And leadership considers, “Okay, check. That issue is handled.” Meanwhile, mission, organizational structure and stakeholder relationships don’t change.

Emily Jane Steinberg:

So there are two main boxes that I want to dive into a little deeper today. And those are institutional and individual boxes. At an institutional level, unexamined and unspoken norms inside an organization, or an entity are these invisible features of white dominant culture. For instance, it’s a very common hiring practice to ask somebody to disclose their previous salaries, right? Who’s had to do that? That reinforces classism. It perpetuates disproportionality and disparity. If we don’t think about that, and we just continue that practice, we’re just reinforcing that disparity. Or we ask for a good cultural fit, but whose culture? We don’t ask that question.

Emily Jane Steinberg:

How many people hesitated to write down in the nine dots, because you wanted to figure it out first. Because perfectionism is a trademark characteristic of white dominant culture. We want to get it right. Mistakes are not something that we’re taught how to do well and then we judge other people and we confuse the mistake with the person and then judge the person who’s made the mistake, another trademark. Now the interesting thing is that a lot of these things you could just say, “Well that’s corporate culture.” Unexamined, yes, corporate culture is playing out white dominant cultural norms. So that’s all on the institutional side.

Emily Jane Steinberg:

Now, on the individual side, of course we’re dealing with individuals inside any agency or organization that we work with. But I also want to pose this in terms of us as individuals doing the work. Because if we don’t work with our own blind spots, then we’re not very well able to help our clients work with theirs. So one simple way, one simple practice to begin, is to start asking ourselves, “What biases do I have? What biases do I carry? What biases have I experienced?” And then stretching to the boundary conditions of what is not maybe yet in our conscious awareness, “What unconscious biases do I carry?” So now I’ve thrown a ton of information at you, maybe challenged some things that you say, “Well how do I just go about business as usual now? This could change a lot.” Where do we begin? By returning to expanded awareness.

Emily Jane Steinberg:

So go back to a dot in this room up above your eye level and put that problem, put that question on the dot. It could be a particular client issue that you’re struggling with right now. It could be something I just said. Put that problem on the dot. Leave it there. Let it really sit there tight and let it be a little claustrophobic and uncomfortable. That’s fine. And then once again, begin to expand out to the periphery of your vision, leaving it be on the dot, as you begin to take in that expanded awareness. And while staying in that expanded awareness now, I want to ask you, where is the problem? And try in vain as you might to discover that from this state of expanded awareness, you actually can’t access that problem. Sure you could leave it. You could get fixated and it’s right there waiting for you, no doubt. But in expanded awareness, you can’t maintain a negative state.

Emily Jane Steinberg:

So knowing that this actually only gets easier with practice, we have to ask ourselves, why would we ever choose to do our work from inside that small box again? And incidentally, but not accidentally, moving into expanded awareness is a shift from deductive and linear thinking to somatic and intuitive awareness, which naturally means it’s also a shift away from white dominant cultural norms. Now, I believe that it’s our job as facilitators to help our clients make these bigger connections. To their stakeholders, to outside realities and to each other.

Emily Jane Steinberg:

I think it was Douglas who mentioned earlier this morning, how isolating it was for him as a CTO. Leaders are often very, very isolated. It’s our job to break down that isolation and help create connections. And remember with the nine dots, the way that they are connected is by going outside the box. These points outside of here are where leverage and strength comes from. They’re also where our stakeholders are. Just like a bridge, if it doesn’t have those cables coming out to somewhere outside of the bridge, it’s not as strong.

Emily Jane Steinberg:

It’s also our job to keep getting out of our own boxes, to cross-pollinate and to leverage our privilege and our experience not only with our clients, but with our peers. So sometimes some of us work individually, sometimes we work in teams. But when we work in teams, is it just for the length of that engagement with that client or is it over a longer period of time? For what purpose? Is there a larger theory of change that drives our work beyond that or are we just trying to actually make our nut for the year? And even more so, even when we do start to break down the silos and the boxes for our clients, if we don’t make connections between them, we can be very effectively helping them, but we’re still going to just be moving from one box to another to another. And I really believe we can do more.

Emily Jane Steinberg:

Now, these internal moves of expansion that we’re practicing, moving into expanded awareness from foveal vision. And moving from seeing these nine dots as a box to seeing them not as a box, are really immediate examples of a shift from an ego-centered, small-minded perspective to an ecosystem awareness. And I believe as facilitators, that is exactly the shift that we ought to be trying to engender both in ourselves and for our clients. And on the organizations that we serve. And when I think of ecosystems, I naturally also start thinking of a web and a network. And the fact is that we can be that web and that network that connects our clients in this larger ecosystem. And the definition of networking that I’ve heard that I like best comes from The Peoples Institute. And they say, “Networking is building a net that works.”

Emily Jane Steinberg:

We often think of it as, “Oh, networking, just one litter away from not working.” Or, “I just got to get that business card handed out.” But no, it’s about actually building relationships based on principle and humane values. And that’s our job. To move between different parts of the ecosystem, different clients, different sectors, different projects, and to begin building those connections and serving as network weavers, as funnelers of resources. Because creating a healthy ecosystem takes all of us. And if we expand our context just a little bit, Toni Cade Bambara said that, “The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible.”

Emily Jane Steinberg:

Now as facilitators, I think we’re social artists. So I have to ask the question, what revolution are we here for? To me, it’s an ecosystem revolution. Expanding our context and our sense of responsibility is critical to our survival. Otherwise, why are we here? Just make a better meeting and then what? To what higher purpose? So as you continue to practice expanded awareness, practice breaking down and transcending these boundary conditions and cultivating this expanded sense of our accountability, responsibility, and frankly, ability. Let’s leverage what we all actually know how to do. Really bring it all. Please consider the next time someone asks you about your work, or you’re about to give that elevator pitch. Don’t just answer the question of who are you, what do you do? But consider answering the question, who’s are you?

The post Beyond Our Blind Spots — Seeing Context in a Changing World appeared first on Voltage Control.

Please join us for the Control the Room 2021, which will be held Feb. 2-4, 2020. You can find out more and buy tickets here.

This is part of the 2020 Control The Room speaker video series.

In February we hosted the second annual facilitator summit, Control The Room, at Austin’s Capital Factory. We launched the summit last year in partnership with MURAL to create a space for facilitators to gather, break down the silos, and learn from one another.

The three-day summit is a rare opportunity to bring together an otherwise unlikely group of highly experienced and skilled professionals across various industries and crafts—from strategy consultants and negotiators to Scrum Masters and design thinkers.

Anyone interested in deepening their knowledge on how to successfully facilitate meaningful meetings and connect with other practitioners is welcome. Together, we dive into diverse methodologies, expand upon perspectives, and learn new insights and strategies that enrich our expertise.

This year we had the pleasure of welcoming 24 speakers, all innovation professionals, who shared their insights and strategies of successful facilitation.

One of those speakers was Johnny Saye,

an Innovation and Design Thinking Coach at Alliance Safety Council.

Johnny shared his facilitator’s guide to energizing groups. Through a series of interactive games and activities, Johnny demonstrated the necessity of lateral thinking to come up with creative solutions to problems, creating better and faster results.

He spoke about three strategies to avoid TLDR and best stimulate a group:

• Play with purpose
• Make it a memory
• Never grow up

Watch Johnny Saye’s talk “I’m an Attention Seeker” :

Read the Transcript

Johnny Saye:

Can you all hear me? Yeah? We’re good? Okay. I have tiny ears, so this thing doesn’t fit me. Thanks for the intro. So, who am I? He gave a little taste of it, but how did I get here? This is intro I usually do. The goal of this is just to show you as many tools that you can use in your workshops to get people energized, back on target, focused, whatever you might need just to get people moving again. Okay? So how did I get here? I was a pro soccer player. I’m a little rounder than I used to be, but that didn’t work out, right? Then I was a journalist. My mom always said I had a face for radio. That didn’t work out either. I was a vodka salesman, got really good at it, lost my taste buds, but did sell a whole bunch of vodka.

Johnny Saye:

It just wasn’t for me. So I stopped that because I actually fell in love with a girl, a Spanish girl in Philadelphia while I was selling vodka door to door. And so I was like, screw it. I’m moving to Spain. So now with the vodka money, I moved to Spain and I’m studying a masters in innovation, right? So I got this Spanish girlfriend, I’m living the dream. I’m by the beach. Didn’t work out either. I did learn Spanish and in fact I was studying a masters in innovation because I had no idea what to do with my life. I could sell vodka and I could kick a soccer ball and pretty much nothing else. So I get to Spain, I’m by the beach, don’t have a girlfriend, don’t have a job. Start working at a design studio. There I learn about design thinking, kind of controlling the chaos that is creativity.

Johnny Saye:

I learned from one of the masters of innovation strategy. He came from [inaudible 00:01:56], which was the number one restaurant in the world. And they used innovative strategies to create their plates. So now I learn from him and another guy and I got really good at design thinking. We built flavors of juices, we built bottles and packaging, we built buildings and marketing campaigns. We did everything in the desert of Spain, right? Except giving me a visa. So I was stuck in Spain with no visa and I got another job to build other types of things with a company called IBM. There I built apps. I built conversations, I built anything that helped IBM make money. Right? That’s what they do there, right? Guys, where are you all? Yeah, no, we had a great time and we came up with a lot of stuff, but unfortunately the visa ran out there, too. Was not making enough money.

Johnny Saye:

So they kicked me out of the country. Where I ended up was here, not here, in Louisiana at Alliance safety council and at Alliance safety council I do innovative strategy for anything, whether it be human resources like employee experience or building new digital products. We use a process for creating and solving problems. [inaudible 00:03:01], just like that. Right? And there’s me. I was a little rounder then, too. So we’re going to get into it. The objective of today, why am I here is to share warmups and energizers and this is all going to be a workshop experience. So this is the most I’m going to talk the whole time. All right? So to start off, why even bother with these creativity, we’ve all seen this it’s kind of complicated. Well it’s worse because in workshops people, they get distracted a lot and they’re adults, but they get distracted all the time.

Johnny Saye:

They did not grow up. They complain about the same things and they get in your way. My little participants get in my way and I need to boss him around, right? So you got to lead them. Because they’re not really great at leading themselves. So this is why the warm ups work, because more comfort, good vibes means better ideas. More energy means more engagement and more positive attitudes mean more positive results, right? So we want to connect their experience through positive memory that makes them more committed, that makes them more dedicated. That means execution phase that we don’t control gets done. Right? So we’re on the clock. I’m going to set the stage. This came from one of my friends at IBM. I’m sure it’s probably a normal practice, but this is my favorite rule breakdown. So these are the rules for the workshop we’re about to do.

Johnny Saye:

You ready? So know the rules. No cell phones, right? We don’t need those. You got your laptop built in. So just leave that to the side. Write down as much as possible. And sometimes you’re going to have to draw. Don’t be a Picasso, but it’s a process that you’re going to have to get used to. Okay, I’m going to be a policemen. Normally I’m nice, I’m hilarious. It’s what my mom tells me, but I’m going to push you all for time. Okay? That ring, I’m not going to propose to anybody, but I need you all to be engaged, right? That’s a hilarious joke. That’s where you laugh. Okay? Don’t miss the bus, right? This is the opportunity for us to learn tools that we can apply to our day to day. Stay engaged, stay involved. Right? So let’s get to action. Last rule. It’s very important. We’re going to be like this giraffe, right?

Johnny Saye:

We’re going to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. Huh? That’s very clever, too. Okay, so let’s get started right now. All right? So everybody stay at your tables. Great job. Give yourself some claps. You all did it. Incredible. Incredible. It’s getting pretty intense. Okay. It’s going to be fun, I promise. All right, so lateral thinking. We all know what lateral thinking is. This is super common over there. A super common illustration, right? Lateral thinking, linear. We walk straight forward. The path is blocked. We don’t know how to get around it. The only way is to go through or over the barrier, right? Lateral thinking is we create more options to get around that barrier by creating more options. Sometimes we get to a better result faster, right? Basic lateral thinking. So let’s test it. Let’s see, I got this over here. Oh man. Not very flexible. Okay, so let’s test it.

Johnny Saye:

All right, so I’m going to give you a little brain burner. I’m bad at counting. So let’s say let’s say Roman numerals, right? Roman numerals. What number is this?

Speaker 2:

Nine.

Johnny Saye:

Nine? Okay, cool. Nine. That’s what I wanted to write? So how… You only have one line. Okay? How can we turn this with one line, one line into a six? One line. It could be like that. You’ll be like [inaudible 00:06:28] you can cut it in half. How could you turn this into a six?

Speaker 2:

Turn it around.

Johnny Saye:

I could turn it around, right? You’ll have one minute. Write it down. Try and test it out real quick. You know what, you have 30 seconds. I’m on the clock. What am I talking about? 30 seconds. Anybody come up with a solution? Let’s see. Show me your solution. She says cut it in half, right, so then we… That’s what… Oh, that’s a clever way, but that’s not what I’m looking for, right? That’s close. What do we do? Yes.

Speaker 2:

[inaudible 00:07:03].

Johnny Saye:

So with one continuous line, I’ve come up with a six right? So the problem with that was I gave you context and I forced you into a box, right? Let me skip this. I forced you into a box. And so we don’t want to get focused and lose the overall perception of the problem, right? That’s a lot of times what we do when we’re designing a solution. Also, it’s best to be open minded. Anything can happen, try different things. That’s why I encourage you all to write it down. If you all had sat and thought about it, you never would have came up with a solution. And last thing, I’m very sneaky. I knew how to write that number down, guys. I just pretended I didn’t. Okay, so one more time. Here’s another example. A man walks into a bar and asked the bartender for a glass of water, right? The bartender pauses and smiles, then he reaches under the bar, just grabs out a big shotgun, shoots right past his face. Woo. The man says thank you and leaves. What happened? Maybe some of you have heard this before, right? What happened? Why did he say thank you? The dude just shot at his head, right?

Speaker 2:

He missed.

Johnny Saye:

He missed, right? That’s what most people say. Thank you for missing. Actually he had the hiccups he came in was asking for a glass of water to solve his hiccups. He scared him so bad the hiccups went away, right? So without the context to the situation, we can’t propose solutions, right? So don’t go around blind trying to solve problems. Get the context first people, let’s do it. Lateral thinking. Don’t think of the direct answer. See of all the opportunities before you dive in. Okay? So I’m going to jump through so we have more time. So idea juice, it’s like WD 40 for your brain. Lincoln said that. Here’s another one that I really like: More energy than a kid on his second liter of Mountain Dew. I don’t know if they still have Mountain Dew, it’s chemical whatever. But Cleopatra said that, so it must be true. Okay, so these are simple hacks for the creative sections of your workshops, right?

Johnny Saye:

These are whenever you get back from lunch and people are just being pretty crappy and don’t want to do anything. They’re just playing on their phones or their ideas are just real low level. Okay? So this is what we’re going to do now. So we’ve got table story. I need each table. So you’ll be number one for your table. Okay? So Emily, what would that make you if she’s number one? Two? Okay, so then we’re going to go all the way around. Okay? So everybody do the same thing at your table. Start with the number one. Get everybody a number around the table. You got five seconds. Good. So this, this table has it ready? One all the way to six, right? So you would be first, raise your hand. You’re first. Okay. Now what she’s going to do as first, she has to write one word down to start a story. One word.

Johnny Saye:

Okay? You have, you’re the last guy, right? You have one word to end the story. Okay? Write it down. Right now you have five seconds. Could be once. It could be, nope. All the other people that aren’t the first person or last person, stay still. If you’re not the first or last stay still. Did you write your word down.

Speaker 2:

I did.

Johnny Saye:

Okay, don’t pass it on. Everybody does the first person and the last person to have a word? Okay? Now what you’re going to do as the first person, you’re going to save your word. Then the rest of the table has to continue the story. But in order to make it a little more complicated, you also have to say your word at the beginning. So now we know where the story starts and we know where it ends. Your job is to connect it. Okay? Does everybody understand? So first person starts with the first word. You have one sentence starting with that word. You have one sentence going all the way around to finished with your sentence that ends with the last word.

Speaker 5:

Sentence or-

Johnny Saye:

Yes. [inaudible 00:10:47]. Says one sentence. Each person says one sentence.

Speaker 5:

I thought it was a word.

Johnny Saye:

I know. I was seeing where you all were going with it. It’s all right guys, we’re jumping to the next exercise just because it’s a lot of people asking questions, okay? All right. So find a partner please. Everybody find a partner right now. Find a partner. Okay. Does everybody have a partner? Awesome. Now get on your feet. Everybody get on your feet. We’re going to play Ninja tiger grandma. Ninja tiger grandma. Has anybody played ninja tiger grandma? Awesome. Okay, so rock, paper, scissors, right? But instead of rock, paper, scissors, we have movements. Okay? So we have a ninja, right? Then we have a tiger, [inaudible 00:11:41], go LSU. Then we have a grandma, right? Okay. So here’s the order of victory. Easy enough. Ninja beats tiger, right? Slices and dices. Grandma, oh, eaten by the tiger. So tiger beats grandma and grandma bores Ninja to death. Okay? So I’m going to count it down. I’m going to say three, two, one.

Johnny Saye:

And you just like in rock, paper, scissors have to pick what you’re going to use. But if you don’t make a sound, you automatically lose. Okay? So you got to make sure you follow your movement with a sound. Okay? We’re going to play one round. Ready? Three, two, one, go. Very good. Very good. All right, everybody back in your seats. Back in your seats. I only have 20 minutes so I’m cramming in way too much in 20 minutes. Okay, so great job. You guys rock. So now you’re still in with your partners, right? Still with your partners? Okay, now you have one hands. Each person grab a piece of paper. Each person grab a piece of paper. Excuse me. Each partners, you need one piece of paper between the two of you. Okay, there we go. All right, so now what you have to do is you have 60 seconds using only one hands per person. You and your partner must construct an airplane, a paper airplane using only one hands and one minute that is two hands total. One hand per person. You must, with one sheet of paper, make a paper airplane.

Johnny Saye:

Oh, you only have 30 seconds. You better hurry up. Three, two, one. Get those hands away from those airplanes. Get them away. Very good. Exactly right. Now we throw them. Great job everybody. So here’s how you can use that game. Quick debrief. That game is just to talk about communication. Collaboration. Can we quiet down for a second everybody? See all the energy we have right here. This is my specialty, right? So all that collaboration, that communication, that’s important for teams to function. That’s kind of the debrief that you would do there. But since we’re going so fast, we don’t have time. Not going to do much of that. All right, so now everybody, each person needs a piece of paper, okay? Each person needs a piece of paper.

Johnny Saye:

Everybody got it? All right, so you all remember that giraffe from earlier? That was chilling on a tree? All right, cool. He’s back. All right, so now I need everybody with their piece of paper stand up on their feet, right? We’re going to make an origami giraffe. Don’t move. Don’t touch your papers yet because you have 45 seconds to make this origami giraffe and you have to put the piece of paper behind your back to do it. Okay? So put the piece of paper behind your back. Everyone. You need to make this giraffe that’s on the screen and you have 45 seconds. Three, two, one, go. You can fold it. You can rip it, you can bend it, you can break it. Do what you must, but make that giraffe and you only have 30 seconds left.

Speaker 3:

[inaudible 00:15:05].

Johnny Saye:

Of course. 10 seconds. We’re going really quick. 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one time. Everybody show your table what you made. Very good. We got a few good ones. All right guys, now we need everybody sitting down for one last exercise. We don’t have much time. So we’ve already done four exercises. We’re trying to cram in more. All right, so now there are cups on your table. Does everybody see the solo cups on your table? You’re going to need a little space for those solo cups. I need you to take them out, spread them out across the table every single cup and put them right side up.

Johnny Saye:

They have them the opposite way so the numbers are facing down. So the numbers are facing down. Okay? You might want to put them close together. This is our minute to win it except it’s going to be in 10 seconds because I’m out of time. All right, so you’ve got the cups on the table, right? Everybody have them? Everybody have them? Now mix them around a little bit. Real quick, mix them around. Mix them around. Mix them around. All right guys. Now here’s what you have to do. On the bottom of the cups are numbers one to 15. You as a team have to go as fast as possible. Stacking those cups from one to 15, okay? You’re going against every other table starting now. One to 15. One to 15. Winners.

Johnny Saye:

Very good. We’ve got three seconds. [inaudible 00:16:57] right now. All right everybody sit down, sit down, sit down. All right, so I crammed in six exercises in 18 minutes. If you want more about those and learn how to do them, when to use them. I just created a YouTube page, allies of innovation. Self-promoting. Has no videos, so don’t go there yet. Go there tomorrow, okay? And they’ll be there, but great job. Success. We did it. Now you all are all masters. Here’s a random picture of me. Summed up, all right. Lessons, play with a purpose. Make it a memory and never grow up. All right, thank you. That was magical.

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