Remote Impact Mapping Workshop in Soisy

Published in

Avanscoperta - We Are Learners

9 min readApr 10, 2020

A case-study

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to design and facilitate a fully-remote Impact Mapping workshop with the Soisy team.

Two days of workshop in fully remote mode and without post-its, sharpies and whiteboards… How did it go? It went really well indeed!

So how did it all start?

Soisy is a platform for marketplace lending which enables private investors to finance purchases through e-commerce or partner shops. Therefore, it is both a method for installed payments for e-commerce and online buyers and a portfolio of investments for investors.

The Soisy team got in touch with me once they had finished working toward defining their Vision and Objectives for the coming months. My involvement was aimed at defining their product roadmap by using Impact Mapping, the collaborative technique for strategic planning invented by Gojko Adzic.

The goal for Soisy was to create a strong connection between the objectives and the actions needed to reach those objectives. How to do this? By envisioning a way of working aimed at helping the team to take strategic decisions focused on the impact to generate rather than on the things to do (Keynote — Impact Mapping — Gojko Adzic).

As usual, we started organising the activities by deciding which people we wanted to involve in order to co-create impacts and roadmaps. The idea was to get as much insight as possible from the different points of view available (web developers, product owners, sales people, support, etc).

However, Soisy’s team is located in 13 different cities, and has been working as a fully distributed team for the past five years.

It’s true that they always find the time to meet and work together from one same place, but it’s also true that organising a physical meeting for such a distributed team is a great investment (of money and time). So we asked ourselves: “Will it be possible to achieve the same results if were to organise a remote version of the workshop?”, and so we tried.

Then the Coronavirus emergency started, so our plan to go remote was timely indeed.

Preparation and Tools

The design and preparation of a workshop are key activities for the successful delivery of a workshop, and they are even more important if you’re doing a remote workshop.

The live workshop would have involved 8 people and a full 8-hour a day schedule. We kept the same time-frame when designing its remote version.

Each one was able to be part of the workshop from his/her workstation, so we saved some time and we didn’t have to adapt the timings to the commute. Also we could make a better use of that time we saved by using it for the breaks throughout the two days: standing up, walking a bit and removing your eyes from the screen are even more important than usual on a remote scenario.

In a regular workshop, activities are organised in a way so that people have to move, such as standing up, putting post-its on the wall, form groups, etc. This greatly helps the brain to absorb new information (cfr. 6 Brain-Science Principles that Trump Traditional Teaching and Training from Training from the back of the room — Sharon L. Bowman).

When you’re remote, moving is a bit more difficult. That’s why using the breaks in a well-thought way becomes fundamental.

Also, having wireless earphones and microphone can help. These allow you to move around and walk whilst talking and interacting with others.

Having the right tools for a virtual workshop is of great importance.

Good earphones and noise-canceling microphone enhance the quality of the conversation as they eliminate the background noises.

Since we cannot rely on non-verbal communication, the ability to listen well and communicate smoothly is very important.

Having a stable internet connection is also key, and for the same reasons: a good internet connection will enable the participants to have the webcam on. To be able to see each other’s face adds great value to the workshop.

By having the webcam open, the workshop will be more human, and the exchanges will be more valuable. A smile, a surprised or puzzled face can tell more than a thousand words.

Also, if everyone can see each other, the facilitator will be helped too: by observing people, s/he will have a better understanding of what’s going on during the workshop, keeping the sessions more controlled, and without having to constantly ask for explicit feedback.

We chose Zoom as a video conference tool as it has the following features:

a great interface where you can see the participants’ faces and work on other applications at the same time
the option to record the video conference
the possibility to create separate rooms for breaking the group into smaller groups of work.

It’s also important to have some back-ups, such as Google Meet and Slack, in order to cope with the unforeseen tech issues (it did actually happen to us for a short period of time during the workshop).

The main tool used during the workshop has been Miro, and works great when it comes to replacing physical whiteboards and post-its.

Thanks to Miro, we reached the same results in terms of using different co-creation and visualisation approaches, the same approaches used in the live workshop. In some cases, Miro went even further.

Prior to the workshop, I used Miro to prepare all the boards the team should have used in the divergence and convergence phases. In these phases, the team explores the options available and the impact that connects an objective to be achieved to the actions needed to achieve that objective.

The activity that took up most of my time as a facilitator has been designing the boards prior to the workshop.

One of my main responsibilities as a facilitator is to keep people engaged and focused, and this usually happens with a physical whiteboard and post-its; by doing this, you give a shape to what’s going on, you make it visible.
For the remote workshop, I had to prepare beforehand all those boards that might have been handy, and I had to anticipate all the possible scenarios the best I could.

Doing the workshop

Throughout the workshop, we had to stick to some rules which are indeed quite easy to follow for those who are already used to working remote.

each participant was participating from his/her workstation with earphones and microphone
having more than one person from the same workstation would compromise the good quality of the overall communication as this would inevitably create some asymmetry in the information available to all the others
webcam must be switched on at all times (unless you have connection issues)
it’s key to speak one at the time, and who’s not talking needs to switch off the microphone.
Even though this looks trivial and it’s actually just a matter of good manners, two or more overlapping voices in a video conference setting will have a very bad impact on the overall conversation.
Also, if you set the “one at the time” rule, you’ll avoid parallel conversations (something that always happens in live workshops) and everyone will be more focused on the main conversation.
(If your team just can’t follow this rule, Zoom and Google Meet can help out: the facilitator can “mute” the microphone of the participants if needed).

Thanks to Miro, all the key moments of a workshop (thinking about stuff on one’s own, post-its writing, dot voting, putting things in order, matrixes, etc) were replicated in a very similar way (when not identical) to a live workshop.

As said, Zoom also has the function of creating “virtual rooms” for group work, so we could to that too.

Thanks to the digital tools we used, we had a number of brand-new options:

being able to quickly copy and paste some pieces of content to be used in different ways
being able to create complex content (more complex than what could fit in a post-it)
being able to work on one same document all together and at the same time
last but not least, Miro allows you to leave comments on some areas of the board. This became useful once we had to gather feedback on the various bits of content.

Feedback

«Being remote worked really well, maybe even better than being in the same room; it was organised with the precision and flexibility needed for this type of activity. I’m also less tired than after doing the live workshops (where I normally have to take a train at 5am).»
«It was very much to the point, and sometimes even more effective than the live one. The breaks were just fine, I thought I would have been more tired, but actually the live ones are more tiring sometimes.»
«I really enjoyed it. Being remote works well for this type of workshop. I have to admit I have a special setup at home: I live on my own, I have two monitors, etc. But generally speaking, the organisation of the workshop worked very well: I had everyone’s faces on one screen, Miro on the other, no issues with the air in the room being stiff, the temperature being too hot, not having enough light… I really enjoyed it!»

Conclusions and Lessons Learned

Here are my takeaways after this experience, something I will implement in my next remote workshops.

Being remote allows us to manage time differently. For example, we can plan for shorter and more frequent breaks to allow people to move, grab a bite and take a break from the screen. We might even do the workshop in four half days instead of two full days.
All this said, let’s not forget the concept of “flow” of the workshop as this needs to be balanced between fragmentation and the need for continuity.
We’re in the remote workshop whilst sitting at our regular workstation.
It’s important to manage our agenda and not fall into a common trap of our subconscious: “I am at my workstation, let me quickly check my emails during the break”. Breaks are actually very important during the workshop and they shouldn’t be used to go back to your regular work.
Always have something to eat and drink within easy reach. Use the breaks to move and stretch a bit. These little tricks will help you not getting tired in front of the screen.
Being able to use the tool of choice (Miro in this case) is going to be very helpful. A recommendation: get familiar with the tool before the session by doing some check-in/icebreaking activities that will help everyone get used to its main functions (such as creating post-it, using the boards, moving post-its, etc).
As part of the design of the workshop, keep in mind that providing written instructions on what activities will be carried out during the workshop is very important and it can be very helpful for the participants. In this way they won’t get lost throughout the workshop and always stay in the loop (not to mention: these instructions will be very handy when you’re doing your next workshop 🙂).
If not all the participants can have the webcam on at all times, check in with them every now and then to make sure they’re all connected and engaged.

To wrap it up, I can say it’s been a positive and useful experience where the team could get aligned, talk and decide on their next steps. It’s somehow reassuring to know that we can rely on technological tools to keep working in these difficult times.

I also have to say the Soisy team was already quite ready for this type of activity. The workshop was indeed made easier and more natural by the fact that the team is used to work with tools, approaches and methodologies remote-first. It’s also true that you only gain experience by doing things. 😉

Some of the advantages of doing a remote workshops are:

a better use of timings and a saving on commuting and transport
the participants have more freedom in how to manage their personal space (e.g. there won’t be rooms poorly ventilated, or too hot — or too cold — for some of them)
the content will be already available in the future
you can record the video conference (audio and video)
In any case, the human touch and experience of being in a same room cannot be bargained and, in same cases, they still remain essential (such as in LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® or EventStorming).

This time around we had a great experience with a remote workshop as it can be both useful and productive.

In the future we’ll asses what’s the best format to pick, on a case-by-case basis.