How to Survive a 4-Day Remote Workshop
So happy and jolly I started to work on creating the Design Sprint workshop. After a couple of days our site manager said a short little sentence which changed the process upside down:
"WE'RE NOT THERE YET."
We asked him: "what do you mean? We’re already working on the implementation... and already had usability tests regarding..."
but he replied: "The team is not yet aligned."
so the challenge accepted and what we were facing at this point was achieving alignment and agreement regarding the implementation of assets in the product.
TIP #1
demand a roadmap.
UX teams need a roadmap. demand it. From your POs, PMs, or stakeholders. Someone should provide that in order to proceed in the right direction. you should know where you’re heading and not only you… the whole company should. Or you might end up working on the wrong thing.
TIP #2
be flexible.
Prepare enough time ahead to be ready and calm in order to change things around. HOW? Just clear your schedule in advance to focus on the workshop preparations by blocking your calendar.
TIP #3
invite participants in advance
you need to send invitations to your participants at least 3 weeks in advance. They’ll need to block their schedules, or you won’t have anyone coming. The covid19 situation made us all much more involved but also with much busier schedules.
We actually ran a poll through Teams in order to know who is gonna join each day!
So as excepted the changes we made added another day to the workshop. Some stuff had to be removed since we declared it’s gonna take 4 days tops.
some row data: the workshop took indeed 4 days, 3 hours each day. We had participants from US, India, Singapore and Israel of course - overall of 22 participants*. The tools we were using are Teams for communication and Miro for the activities *.
TIP #4
choose the right participants
the number of participants and who they are crucial for the success of the workshop. If you know of someone who is not that collaborative fast and easy solution - just don’t invite them. I say, DO. Invite them but do a pre-talk. Set the right setting for them to thrive within this process. They might surprise you.
Collaboration is the key to success here. Regarding the amount - less is more. You do need to have your key stakeholders there, team leaders. Either way, you need to strive for variety. Make sure your participants are under different positions and roles - variety is important and makes the team feel they can contribute and make a difference in the product.
TIP #4.1
end-users are welcome
If possible add your end-users to your session or even a part of it. In our case, it wasn’t possible but I assume you understand the value it can give.
In the end, it is being done for THEM. If they contribute you get happy users which are even more engaged than before.
TIP #5
time constraints. be productive.
Times constraints. I don’t need to tell you how hard it is to come to an endless meeting when everyone’s online… so 3 hours per day is the max amount of hours people can actually survive. If you can have less - do it. More than that is not valuable because people lose it and even leave. Believe me, they do.
TIP #6
play long. longer. just a bit longer.
Be cautiously optimistic regarding the time planned for each activity. Sensitive activities should be planned for a longer time period because people will get emotional about it and might start to argue. It’s always better to plan longer activities and finish earlier than expected.
let’s talk about the tools we used. So Miro was the one for activities and we used Teams for discussions. "Why?" you ask, So Miro does contain an option for discussions built-in but from my experience, the problem occurred when we wanted to create several discussions on the same Miro board. This was not possible. So keep it simple - Miro for activities and Teams for discussions. And this brings me to :
TIP #7
1 major meeting & breakout rooms for each team
send Teams invitations ahead. You’ll gonna need one meeting for all participants where you have all your wide discussions and set up a breakout room for each team. In my case, the Design Sprint was either in major crowd discussion or individual work. Just separate the participants into different work teams so each will have a representative from each role - as much as possible. You don’t wanna end up with a team of 5 developers working together. Just mix and match.
TIP #8
time to get familiar with the tools
So Teams is a tool that we use on a daily basis but Miro isn’t. So my tip for you is - Give your participants time to get to know Miro or any other tool you’re using.
My solution for that was a sweet ice breaker in which they could try and use the simple functionalities of Miro for a few minutes. As you see we had a world map as the background and all they had to do is put a sticky note on any spot on that map. That’s a great start for any session and a calmer landing for newbies.
Setting the goal and agenda is very important for you as a facilitator.
The team knows why they are here and you can always stop any discussion that is not related to the agenda or workshops goal.
TIP #9
heads up to the stakeholders & decision makers.
Give your stakeholders & decision-makers a heads up. They need to be ready and familiar with the activities, their purposes, and what is excepted from them. Moreover, It might convince them to stay for all of the sessions.
every now and then you’ll have a participant that keeps asking questions: that he isn’t sure, and he’s afraid of this and that…
don’t get me wrong it can be really important and valuable but it might interrupt the session’s flow. For this kind of occasion what you need is a Hopes & Fears board. Just tell everybody from the start of each day to put any concerns they have on a sticky note and stick it in the center of this board. By the end of each day, all sticky notes from this day will be reviewed and discussed.
TIP #10
keep enough time for Hopes & Fears activity.
How you ask? This leads me to tip #10.1
TIP #10.1
do not run a workshop on your own. do. not.
That's one of the reasons why I was exhausted! It is much better and safer to have at least 2 facilitators on your team and can be very handy in cases like
“how much time do we need for hopes and fears?”
The co-facilitator can indicate if there are just a few stickies or many of them and assess how much time it will require without breaking the main facilitator’s flow.
All these kinds of issues you cannot notice and react to on your own during the session. I’d say the more participants you invite, the more help you’re gonna need.
TIP #10.2
switch between facilitators during the days.
Don't be a hero. Once you’re convinced to make it a team effort - switch facilitators from day-to-day. It doesn’t need to be the same person leading the whole time. It’s tough! Believe me, I’ve been there. All of you need to be familiar with the whole workshop activities and in case you need to, you can switch between facilitators. If you can, try to sit in the same space, but not too close, so you won’t hear other facilitators in the background. If that's an online session - even simpler.
TIP #11
daily recaps.
Now this one is really important. Create a recap at the beginning of each day with what was accomplished the day before. Remember I said we had 22 participants and I had a little star next to it? That is because people were coming and going during these 4 days as they please. Meaning if someone would join on day 2 without participating the first one he was clueless about what was going on.
During preparations for the workshop, I realized that the Journey Map my team and I created weeks ago was not a complete waste of time and actually was very helpful to me as a facilitator and for the participants as a starting point.
And this leads me to tip no. 12
TIP #12
avoid team's misery but do not lead to a solution.
Help your participants if they struggle with a specific activity or task. You want to avoid their misery but! And there’s a big but! Do not lead them to a solution or a path. These should come from them.
What else?
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Ask for advice when needed
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Ask participants to open their cameras
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Shake up passive participants
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Sometimes silence is needed - to think!
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Learn when to stop a discussion
Don't Forget to Have Fun!
This workshop was conducted by me as phase 2 after a Design Thinking workshop which took place not long before this one. In the DT we achieved an alignment between the stakeholder, defined J2BD and XOs, and action items for the teams to follow.
The next step was an AJ&Smart-based Design Sprint workshop which got me to a lot of thinking and conclusions you see on the right.