How to run ideation workshops virtually / remotely
I’ve facilitated several ideation sessions with cross-functional teams. Participants usually experience a mix of emotions: excitement and openness, but also discomfort with ambiguity and uncertainty of the design process. Being a designer, the latter is not something I usually feel.
Recently, I ran an ideation session remotely. As it began to sink in that I would have to keep the team engaged on a video call for three long hours, I began to experience the discomfort: ten participant faces on the video call looking utterly confused and me feeling extremely nervous in the moment trying to pick up the pieces and move the pace along. Gah! To avoid that scenario, here are a few things I did:
1/ I kept tech tools to a minimum
Define your needs, and choose the tools accordingly. My three needs were: communication, collaboration, a facilitation partner. I used Zoom for communication [our “room” for the session], Mural for collaboration [our “post-it wall”], and Google Slides for presentation [our “facilitator” in the absence of physical proximity].
I made sure that the all participants could access my Google Slides which contained all relevant links. It served as the anchor for the entire session: something that would help me guide the session and something participants could refer to.
2/ I over-prepared
Practice with a dry run
I usually do practice run for presentations, but not for workshops. But for this remote workshop, I asked a kind team member if I could try it out with her. I prepared my slides and began. It helped me see where possible lulls and disengaging moments could occur during the session. It helped me pre-build out my Mural Boards. It helped me see that if I made the group work in teams, we could save time. It helped me kill my darlings: all the ideas that would have been amazing in a physical space, but we just wouldn’t have time for over a virtual session, or would get really messy in a virtual session.
Prepare your Mural boards in advance
Imagine asking your remote team to dot vote with different color dots and each of them choose a different shape, size and shade of color. Before you know it, your virtual post-it wall is a mess. Here’s some ideas for setting up Murals:
- Create scrap boards for teams / participants to scribble on — keep these mostly open white space.
- Create a Master board where participants will come together to discuss ideas and create themes. For this one, be more organized: designate space for each ideation prompt; pre-make the dots for voting [pro-tip: right before you ask your team to vote, select all the dots and “bring them to the front” so they don’t hide behind the newly created post-its!]
3/ I set the stage
- Acknowledge the remote factor: call out from the beginning that the session might seem choppier, more difficult, and longer because the team is remote.
- Create structure: Visually outline what the participants can expect, especially as you get into the actual ideation.
4/ I was strict with time
I told my participants that I would be like an exam instructor or school teacher with timing. I knew I was taking a risk, that the participants might feel rushed and uncomfortable, but it paid off:
“Time keeping has been super nice, organized. It is creating a good sense of progress and accomplishment,” one participant said.
“Time has been flying, it is well organized,” said another — and this one had joined via phone, without a screen to look at!
Strict timing eliminated potential moments of confusion and feeling lost. It kept up the pace, which was especially important because we were doing this virtually.
5/ I scheduled reflection points instead of breaks
On the morning of the session, I got on the phone with my kind team member and said: “uh oh, I forgot to schedule breaks!” She gently reminded me how hard it is to wrangle people back into a room with these long sessions, even when everyone is co-located. This was a great a-ha for me.
So, I told participants that they could take bio-breaks/breaks as needed, and scheduled a reflection point instead. About half way along the session, I asked: How are you feeling? What did you find surprising? What is not going so well?
Not only did I gather great critical feedback to improve the next session, this allowed us to have breathing room, and we didn’t have to waste time waiting for participants to come back to their seats.
6/ I divided the group into teams with Zoom Breakout rooms
I created smaller teams that participants would be working with for most of the session. This allowed for several discussions to be going on simultaneously and saved us time. Zoom’s break-out rooms work perfectly for this scenario, here’s how ours went:
- Introduce the ideation prompt
- Send teams into break out rooms for ideation and first round of discussion
- Come back to the whole group, and one member from each team shares (instead of each participant)
Zoom allowed me as the host to jump between break out rooms and see how everyone was doing. Here, I could check-in and ask if folks needed more time for something. But at the same time, I was lenient with how time was being spent within teams. Again, I made it clear from the beginning: as long as each time has 2–3 ideas pasted on the Master mural board to share by the end of their break-out room session, it didn’t matter much how they got there.
Post-workshop thoughts / Next time I would…
- Create team leads: even though it was easy for me to hop around and join teams, virtually this doesn’t work as well. I was not able to engage in conversations and take in the content. Next time I will create team leads who will be facilitating and guiding the team conversations, and taking notes. That way team leads can catch up and fill in each other with the missed sections.
- Take more control of the Master Mural to be even more engaged: I had asked each team to paste their top 2–3 ideas into the designated space on the Master mural board for each prompt. Because I was driving so much, I wasn’t able to really listen in. Next time, I would take full control of the master and create post-its for them as they talked me through their ideas. This would allow me to engage deeper and really listen to the ideas.
- Encourage team members to make note of their thoughts as others are sharing: I noticed that team members would use emojis next to post-its as participants were sharing ideas. This allowed them to keep track of what they liked and wanted to remember. Next time, I would share this as a tool/idea for participants to use.
- Make it clear where/how to reach me: There were moments along the session where participants fell off the call and had to re-join their break-out room or had a question. I had assumed that since we were already on Zoom, that’s how folks would reach me, but I was wrong. I had people reaching me on WhatsApp, email and on the Zoom chat. It was too many channels. Next time I would pick one and tell the team to use that one only.
Thank you for reading. Have you run a remote ideation session? I would love to hear what worked well for you!
I am Mansi Gupta, founder of Unconform Studio, a design and strategy shop focused on women and systems level change. We write about design, impact, gender equity, unlearning patriarchy and more. Don’t forget to subscribe to us for more Unconforming Stories.
