Virtual Fireworks

How do we create ‘sparks’ in our remote collaboration?

I’m constantly experimenting and researching to find answers to that potent question. And it’s a great passion of mine to share my learnings along the way as to how we create a space for engaging remote work … which creates sparks.

As more and more organizations embrace the practice of building remote teams, it is becoming the new normal for organizations all over the globe. In my own work with clients I focus on the importance of exploring the tools and processes that are available and focus on how to encourage the team to collaborate in ways that truly lead to changes in their work environments.

The shift to a virtual environment requires a team to look at how they will ensure inclusion of all employees — regardless of location — and also the details as to what specific methods and tools will be used to get the work done. An essential question to ask, as a team is looking at their remote work patterns is, “How can we harvest the wisdom of the crowd when we are in remote collaboration with our colleagues?”

It is important to recognize that while each team expects different benefits from the creation of an online environment, the key to success is to make sure the collaboration is centered on the main ideas of creating a progressive team focused on autonomy, scheduling flexibility, discovering new ways to collaborate and embracing global opportunities with clients, as well as in finding the best people to contribute to the team. In my experience, you must increase the feeling of togetherness on your remote team by creating a productive and enjoyable virtual workspace.

Virtual is a Mindset not a place

Working in the remote world is not just doing what you do in a face to face environment and transferring those practices to online tools. Rather it’s a mindset shift that’s needed. It takes an open mind and a sense of creativity to re-imagine how the team will function — actually a shift in all critical aspects of the organization in order to truly ensure success. It may take time to move to a remote-first mindset, and it needs to be intentionally planned and implemented.

The first step should be to determine what stage your team is at in regards to remote skill set and mindset.

• Stage 1: Novices with limited exposure to online tools, and view F2F as the ideal for collaboration
• Stage 2: Curios and ready to look at new tools, possess limited online collaboration skills, and still see F2F as optimal
• Stage 3: Experimenting with new technologies, emergent virtual competencies and shifted to a remote first mindset

Once you understand where your team is at in it’s growth towards a remote mindset, you can determine where you want the team to be and what the path is to get there.

Creating Collaborative Bandwidth

Several years ago I read an article by Rachel Smith on enabling several channels to our work online. She calls it collaborative bandwidth and it’s a concept I refer to in my own work again and again.

“Collaborative bandwidth is defined as the number of channels available to support collaborative group work and the capacity of those channels to enable communication in the service of that work.” Rachel Smith, Director of Digital Facilitation, Grove Consultants

I find this notion of intentionally building a solid capacity, a bandwidth for the way your remote team works together to be essential as you are thriving towards creating sparks in your remote collaboration. As you are looking at which channels your team need to have in place, you can reflect on what your needs are in terms of:

• Video conferencing
• Visualizing (mind-mapping, whiteboard etc.)
• Project communication
• Post-it boards
• Space for remote co-creation
• Tracking progress/tasks lists
• Social interaction

It’s beyond ‘same time and place’

To find success with your remote team, you must craft a new way to think about everything…create a natural humanness in the virtual context, be conscious of remote limitations, be aware of what attention span and focus we have when it comes to having team discussions via video conference. We need to strive to find new ways to not only manage processes, but also facilitate the dialog before, during and after our video meetings.

This all needs to be done with the understanding that the remote work collaboration and especially our meetings goes beyond “same time and place”. It’s more than our typical F2F synchronous (aka same time and same place) go-to way of working together. The asynchronous (anytime) collaboration process needs to be part of the day to day work of all of the team. Again, it’s a mindset. Looking at how remote meetings are structured and run, as well as what tools are guiding the online collaboration, are all part of the critical path to conversion to a remote mindset.

Facilitating remote meeting and guiding the virtual collaboration processes are a big part of ensuring success.

Ideas to create ‘sparks’

Prior to a meeting (asynchronous) :

• Share introductions: Introduce the meeting facilitator, the topics, the challenge ahead e.g. Be creative — maybe record a quick handheld video explaining the topic, send slides, articles, or reports for folks to digest ahead of the meeting.
• Start the dialog: Gather people’s questions, reflections — show meeting participants they their opinions are essential and create a level of comfort in participating in the dialog. And indirectly set the expectation that commitment to meeting partipation is a natural given.
• Create space for collaboration: Select visual boards such as Padlet or Mural where team members can see the input from colleagues and get inspired or comment.
• Co-create the agenda: Provide a method for participants to contribute to the agenda e.g. using Trello or prioritize agenda points through voting function (be creative and create a method for virtual dot voting).

During a meeting (synchronous):

• Turn on Video! Hold meeting using video conferencing (zoom is my absolute favorite or try the circular meeting format of circles.
• Use brainstorming tools such as virtual whiteboards and post-its so that participation is required.
• Smaller groups. Have breakout groups so participants get a chance to share ideas, create plans and dig deeper for solutions in the safe space of fewer colleagues.
• What’s next. Be clear on actions to move forward and how communication will be shared.
• Take turns. Rotate the meeting facilitator to up-skill all team members virtual facilitation abilities. Learn from colleagues different work styles and way of communicating.

I challenge you to think out of the box in terms of how you are engaging with each other in your virtual team.

The possibilities and opportunities that come from remote collaboration are ever-changing and endless. Embracing the remote-first mindset will allow companies to create a more global culture that contributes positive impacts for employees, teams, corporations and the environment. I really enjoy working with teams to help them discover those magical sparks that can create fireworks in their remote work together and allow them to embrace a remote mindset.

Remember to…

• Use a suite of online tools to enable collaboration as a part of every workday
• Discuss and build your team’s collaboration agreement outlining methods and procedures for how you want to work together and what kind of behavior you aim for with each other.
• Create overlapping co-working timeslots where team members, no matter their current time zone are able to work together and meet (either as a group or one-on-one). Try out Sococo for this.
• Creatively socialize to intentionally build that human connection which doesn’t always come naturally in the remote workplace.