Running remote design workshops

The FanDuel UX & Design team is distributed across offices in both the US and Scotland, and many aspects of our work take place remotely, as a team we are primarily office based. While we are fortunate enough as a company to have the ability to work remotely if and when we need to, more often than not we’re in the office working alongside our team, however the recent change in global circumstances regarding COVID-19 has led to us becoming fully remote. This has brought with it a number of challenges to deal with, not only as a team, but as a company.

One of the recent challenges I’ve encountered was having to reorganise a design workshop I had scheduled with the UX & Design team, and adapting it to be run remotely. A design workshop is a great way of generating many possible solutions for a given design problem. However, my experience as a facilitator has been running design workshops and sprints in person, so the opportunity to run one remotely presented an interesting challenge. Below I want to outline some tips around how teams can run remote workshops more effectively.

Structure your workshop

To ensure your remote workshop is equal parts and engaging to everyone involved, be sure to have a structure in place so participants can see how their time will be used. This should also help the facilitator keep track of time as well as the flow of the workshop in terms of what’s up next. The structure of the workshop itself largely depends on who is going to be involved, as well as what you’re looking to get out of it.

In the case of this particular workshop, I knew it was only going to be other members of the UX & Design team participating in ideation around a particular feature, so was able to add and remove activities as necessary. The agenda of our workshop looked like this, with each section broken down further into specific activities:

• Workshop goals
• Icebreaker
• Building an understanding
• Current offering
• Competitors
• Framing the problem
• Brainstorm
• Sketching
• Presenting solutions
• Next steps

HMW statement activity

Preparation is key

One of the biggest enablers for a remote workshop is to have a space that replaces the walls, whiteboards, and all other equipment we typically use in person. In this case we used Miro, which is built for teams collaborating on a large online canvas, and has a huge number of tools and options extremely well suited to running a workshop remotely.

• On a single canvas or board, create different sections for each activity you’re planning on doing throughout the session. It helps to have these sections ordered chronologically, and you can also include timeframes for each activity, as well as blocked out sections for breaks.
• Each activity should be clearly labelled and any descriptions, objectives, or goals should be defined somewhere nearby. As facilitator ideally you should be walking participants through each activity, however in case anyone misses or forgets anything, it’s important they have somewhere to refer back to.
• It also helps to add sections or spaces for rough work outside of each space for individual activities to run ice breakers, paste in images, or play around with Miro’s toolset
• For some activities, you may require participants to write or draw outside of Miro. So be sure to outline any additional requirements or materials needed well in advance of starting the workshop.

Finished sketches were added to our Miro board

Facilitation and your methods

As facilitator of an online workshop, it’s your job to ensure everything runs smoothly. From explaining each activity, ensuring accurate timings, to reading social cues and ensuring everyone has the chance to speak up and participate, it’s no small feat. However, there are a number of things you can do to make your job a little easier. For instance, try to enforce basic remote-first working etiquette: muting all notifications, closing Slack and email, turning on your camera and video function. Although we didn’t have a choice in this case, try to use the ‘1 remote, all remote’ rule, and finally be sure to take breaks! Keeping people’s attention for long periods of time is tough, but made all the tougher by the constant attention needed to participate in a workshop remotely, so ensure you give people frequent breaks to grab a coffee or stretch their legs.

In summary

Running an effective remote workshop can’t be nailed down to one perfect solution. Ultimately this will differ depending on the type of workshop, what you’re looking to get out of it, and who’s involved. But our tips to help in setting one up are structure your workshop accordingly with clear and distinct sections and activities, be sure to plan everything in advance from your overall structure to the online space you plan to use preparation is key, and finally be ready to adapt your methods and facilitation techniques accordingly.

Good luck!