The future of the workshop is remote
A best-practice guide for how to run more effective digital workshops.
“Yes, I understand that it’s expensive to bring everyone together. But the value of a design sprint is as much in co-locating the entire team in one place to build alignment and familiarity with one another as it is in the creating a solution to a particular problem.”
I’ve made this pitch dozens of times to senior leaders while trying to sell in the design sprint to a project or a company. And, all things considered, I still feel this way today: Face-to-face meetings/workshops generate more ideas on average than those done over teleconference, and those ideas are more original and inventive when crafted in the same physical space. People are more likely to pay attention and participate in face-to-face meetings, and as a facilitator, having everyone in the same place is exponentially easier to manage and move forward.
However, as companies expand globally, and as teleconference and digital meeting tools become more powerful and collaborative, the high travel costs associated with bringing people together for multiple days becomes a tougher and tougher pill to swallow for executives. And the data backs this up: 58% of people surveyed reported that they are traveling less for business purposes than they were in the previous year.
While the face-to-face workshop may never be completely matched, today’s modern technologies have made it possible to replicate a similar experience online.
Done right, remote workshops (design sprints or otherwise) are far more scaleable and exponentially cheaper to run. According to research done by Forrester, digital collaboration tool Mural saved companies more than 70% on travel to in-person workshops over the past year, totaling over $16M. Remote workshops, and the tools that support them, also make it far easier to procure the right talent to participate in your workshop, no longer beholden to selecting from individuals who are in your (or a nearby) office due to cost concerns.
Below you will find a list of best practices that I’ve personally seen have great success in a remote environment. It’s not always easy (in fact, it’s almost never easy), but it is can be just as effective…and that’s ultimately what matters.
Video, Video, Video
Let’s face it: Some (most? all?) people don’t like showing their face on conference calls…Too bad. This is perhaps the most critical feature of the remote sprint.
Whether it’s Google Hangouts or Skype for Business, every participant should be expected to show their face for the entirety of the sprint day. If you want to wear your pajamas, that’s cool! If you want to wear a collared shirt up top and athletic shorts (or less…) down below, that’s cool too! For the facilitator, video conferencing makes reading non-verbal cues exponentially easier, a very important facet of the process for the person tasked with making sure that the experience meets the expectations of those involved. And for the workshop participants, research shows that simply seeing the face of the person you’re speaking with immediately increases your trust in that person. With everyone calling in via video, you can quick build a sense of camaraderie and team unity that is absent in a simple phone call.
Replicate the In-Room Experience Online with a Digital Whiteboarding Tool
Digital whiteboard tools allow you to create a workshop-like experience online and easily accessible to all participants, no matter where in the world they live or work. The two major competitors in the spare are Miro and Mural, and (at least in my opinion), they offer a very similar suite of tools, with neither a clear winner. I encourage you to play around in both, and see which tracks to your needs better.
These tools should offer you just about everything you need to run a successful workshop: participants can create and write on sticky notes, create mind maps and process flow diagrams, and even sketch possible solutions. They can also upload articles, pictures, and videos (if you’re doing lightning demoes) and share past artifacts (this is especially helpful when you’re working through the mapping exercise and talking about current state pain points).
What We Do
- Pre-build a templatized Sprint/Workshop Board, replete with pre-defined space for all your exercises/activities: Use arrows to visually display the flow of the day, setting the expectation for participants as to how what they’re working on now fits into the broader narrative of the day.
- Curate and pre-load some “best in class” examples to build inspiration: As a workshop participant, I always love the idea of coming into a board that’s already partially filled out. It feels like progress, even if that’s nothing more than a mirage! As a facilitator, I’ve also seen a lot of success in pre-loading some “out of the box” examples that both start to build inspiration when the time comes for solution generation and, more broadly, clearly demonstrates to participants that nothing is or will be off limits. Dream big, think big, and be your most inventive selves!
Introduce the Tools Ahead of Time, and Provide Plenty of Time to Play With Them Before the Start of the Sprint
Whether you use Miro or Mural or some way cooler tool that I’ve never heard of to run your workshops, it’s important that participants don’t enter into the experience totally cold, having never touched the tool before. From needing to create an account to not knowing how to access the board to not knowing the basic navigations and/or commands, these are the type of preventable things that can very easily derail any momentum that you’d built coming in, and put you on a bumpy road as you kick off your workshop.
However, rest assured: there are myriad ways to mitigate this, and make sure that everyone in the group starts on equal footing.
What We Do
- Pre-Recorded Explainer Video: In advance of the workshop, put together a 5-minute explainer video of the main tools that you plan to use during the workshop. I’ve typically used Google Hangouts or Skype for video, and Miro (formerly Realtime Board) or Mural for the centralized “digital whiteboard” space. These tools are not super complicated, but they do take some getting used to it. As such, a quick explainer video (what it’s for, how to navigate to it, and the top 5 or so buttons or tools within it they’ll need) is a must!
- Devoted Time at the Outset of the Workshop: In addition to the pre-recorded video, we also build 15 or so minutes into our Day 1 schedule specifically devoted to workshop participants playing around with the tool. Add a sticky, write something funny, tag your name to an idea, create a dot and color it red for voting, etc. Giving people some time to play in the sandbox and ask questions before they’re expected to fully engage with it is rarely thought about, but critical to success.
- Craft an Intro Activity that Compels Participants to Use the Tools: Maybe it’s asking people to create a sticky note, write their name, and place in on a world map showing where they grew up. Or perhaps you ask all the participants to upload a link or an image to the product that they just can’t do without, and write a little blurb as to what makes it so special. However it fits bets for you, using the introductory activity as a means to building familiarity with the tools while simultaneously building familiarity among team members is a huge (and relatively simply) win.
Whether In-Room or Remote, the Same Norms Apply!
During in-person workshops, there are two rules that never change. First, no devices — or, if in a worst case scenario, step out if you need to answer a quick call or respond to an urgent email. Second, no other meetings — the workshop is specifically scheduled to provide you with times in the morning and late afternoon (i.e., I typically start workshops at 10am and end by 4pm), and bouncing in and out of the workshop creates an adverse creative environment for not just you, but for all participants.
These rules are strikingly easy to enforce when you’re in the room together, but much harder in a remote environment. This is for a number of reasons. Obviously, a remote workshop means that people are inherently required to use their computers, and as such, enforcement of that norm goes out the window. Second, and more subtle, I’ve seen time and time again that for a remote participant, it feels less inappropriate to “step out” to take another conference call than it would if you had to physically leave the space.
What We Do:
- Log out or close your email: At the outset of every workshop, I will share my screen with the team and literally show myself logging out of my email account. Although enforcement of this is essentially impossible (outside of making everyone virtually “pinky promise”), the “show don’t tell” mentality is important, and quite frankly will guilt people into following along.
- No Other Meetings! This one’s pretty straightforward. Just as you would in a face-to-face workshop, you can’t just walk out in the middle of an exercise or activity. This not only puts yourself at a disadvantage, but it hamstrings the team’s ability to leverage that individual’s expertise. As such, I always emphasize (and emphasize, and emphasize…) the importance of dedicating yourself to the workshop experience. Couching this in the language of “impacting the team” have proven especially effective.
Establish Across-the-board Parity Between In-Room and Remote, and Pay Particular Attention to the Little Things
Think about all the things that go into making a design sprint or workshop really great. Sure, the facilitator knows their stuff; activities are time-boxed in a way that drives progress; and needless conversation is cut off when it veers towards the absurd.
But now think about all the little things that, as a participant, you maybe never even considered: coffee is always available when you want it. Meals are always there right when you feel that first twang of hunger, and healthy snacks are always around in case you need a quick pick me up after a particularly tough sketching session. These types of small, yet critical, details are relatively painless to provide for an in-room experience, but harder to replicate remotely. Despite this, they remain an essential component of creating a successful experience.
Anything that happens in-room should be replicated for the remote environment. Period. The goal here, just as it is for your traditional face-to-face meeting, is to eliminate all the logistical headaches and hassles that take participants away from actually participating, and instead provide nothing but mental fatigue and frustration.
What We Do
- Pre-Sprint Care Package: Here’s an easy, high-touch win that is sure to inspire. Approximately a week before the sprint is scheduled to take place, send a “care package” to each of your remote participants. Within this care package are all the things that they’ll need to have a successful experience. This includes practical things like square and rectangular post-it notes and sharpies, as well more fun supplies, such as almonds, dried fruit (the dried Mangoes from Trader Joe’s have been particularly well appreciated by previous participants), and a small bag of ground coffee (or k-cups or Nespresso pods depending..). This simple act immediately makes the person feel like a member of the team, demonstrates your unbending willingness to do whatever you can to ensure that they have a great experience, and is extremely easy to create and send. It’s a win-win.
- Breakfast + Lunch Orders: Sure, solving complex organizational problems is great. But having breakfast and lunch catered for you is even better! (Just kidding, sort of…). This is another feature of the in-room workshop experience that, albeit a bit involved, is easily replicable to the remote experience. About a week before the workshop, send out a quick survey to your participants asking them to list their three or so favorite types of breakfast and lunch fare, and asking if they have any dietary restrictions. Then, in the days leading up to the workshop, place individual orders for your participants based on their likes/dislikes in advance, to be delivered at the appropriate times of our workshop days (i.e., if your workshop starts at 10am, deliver breakfast at 915/930am, and lunch around noon or 1pm depending on your agenda).
Quite Simply: Make it Fun!
Workshops in general are exhausting. Being expected to be constantly “on” for multiple hours at a time is no small task, and the difficulty of this is multiplied in a remote environment. Face-to-face meetings create the opportunity for participants to feed off of one another’s energy, and for the facilitator to use that to ensure that spirits remain high. That becomes a much greater challenge when all of your participants are isolated in a small conference room or home office alone.
To remedy this, lighten the mood. Yes, it’s important that you get to a solution, and you will. But more importantly, especially to start, you need to ensure that everyone feels like they’re a part of a single, unified team, despite being potentially thousands of miles away from one other. You can use humorous explainer videos and GIFs (as you see below), or test out some of that material that you’ve been workshopping at the local comedy clubs. Either way, it’s critical to the success of your engagement that you operate as one unified team.
Your team is likely a little (or a lot…) uncomfortable with this remote set up coming in to Day 1. It’s on you to use every tool at your disposal to clear the air and build up the team.
Running remote workshops is really hard, and everything above will admittedly take a fair amount of effort on your or your team’s part. However, the move towards more remote environments is not going away; in fact, it’s only picking up momentum. Moreover, it’s actually an incredible opportunity. No longer handicapped by people’s availability to travel, and the high cost of airfare/hotel/etc., remote workshops have immense power in propagating collaboration across divisions, across teams, and across the world.
If the size of that opportunity doesn’t spark joy, I’m not sure what else could!
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