Workshop charisma: Reimagining workshops in virtual times
My go-to icebreaker response to “Tell us something unique about yourself” is “I used to be a Zumba® instructor”. My favorite part about teaching Zumba was hearing afterwards that participants had so much fun, they forgot they were working out!
This is the type of feeling I strive to create when facilitating workshops — I like to think of it as workshop charisma. But does that energy translate through the screen in virtual workshops?
Still got that workshop charisma?
You may have been there before yourself, leaving a workshop in a charmed state of mind, oozing with enthusiasm from new ideas and new connections. In the days of in-person facilitation, I thrived on the energy and controlled chaos created from a room full of people sharing ideas across walls loaded with sticky notes and flip charts.
Once the COVID-19 pandemic halted the concept of crowded rooms full of people, my team had to reassess our approach. And I admit, I had doubts.
- Could we sustain engagement with participants through our computer screens for a full-day, much less, a multi-day virtual workshop?
- Was it still possible to create that energy that makes it feel so fun that we forget we’re actually doing work?
For many of us, working with remote teams and experiencing Zoom fatigue are going to carry over into our post-COVID ways of working. So, I thought I’d share some specific techniques our team applied to transform our typical in-person workshop experience into a virtual one.
Workshop participants are human too
Given my role leading the CX service design team, I tend to approach this new challenge by first wanting to understand potential pain points for our target “customers”. In our case, workshop participants were teammates and internal stakeholders across the business. Our participants were likely having similar doubts and struggles with the new virtual work environment as we were.
How could we be intentional about designing an experience that would address and alleviate some of these doubts?
Think of a recent request you received to attend a virtual workshop, or any virtual meeting that blocked off a few hours of your day. What thoughts ran through your head? If you’re like me, it might have gone something like this:
- I don’t have time for this! I’ll multi-task while they’re droning on with slides.
- I’m tired of being in meetings all day, this is going to be exhausting.
- I’m double booked at that time, so I’ll reply “Tentative” and plan to tune in and out.
Reimagining workshop design in virtual times
Keeping these sentiments in mind, my team spent extra time thinking through ways to design a virtual workshop experience. One that not only helped convince participants to attend, but also encouraged their active participation.
These are four things we did to engage participants and keep that workshop charisma alive:
1. Spend More Time Planning
2. Balance Structure and Flexibility
3. Over-Communicate with a Human Touch
4. Send Swag with Purpose
1. Spend More Time Planning
It’s easy to lose participants’ attention with empty pauses or delays between activity transitions. Synchronized facilitation and hand-offs don’t just happen by luck; they happen by intentional design and advanced planning.
For that reason, we spent double the amount of time than usual to iterate on our plan for a virtual workshop. This involved testing the various tool functionality we might need, ensuring our grand ideas translated to the practical constraints of virtual workshop facilitation. From broadcasting messages in Zoom breakout rooms to setting timers in Miro boards, we needed to straddle multiple screens and functionality while simultaneously carrying on with the verbal orchestration of the workshop experience.
Whatever timeline your team usually allows for planning in-person workshops, I suggest doubling that in order to get everything straight for the virtual workshop experience to run smoothly. When technology and transitions flow effortlessly — thanks to the extra prep work — you have a better chance at holding participants attention.
2. Balance Structure and Flexibility
Even with adequate advanced planning, the type of workshops we host aren’t meant to be rigid. We rely on a certain level of loosening the reins to get participants into an expansive and empathetic mindset. Having the collective group’s sustained engagement is what generates the benefits of bringing together diverse perspectives in a collaborative workshop format. Active participation can be tricky to achieve virtually. Ideally, we want to limit scattered attention and reduce participants popping in and out of the workshop.
This is where a detailed behind-the-scenes, or “run the show”, agenda comes in handy. My team created a facilitators-view-only agenda to get aligned on the detailed structure and reveal opportunities for detours along the way. We notated activities as being well suited for “camera on / off”, offering a balance of participants being “on” and visibly present versus being “off” video. We also purposely varied activity types — full-group, small-group, and individual work sessions. Finally, we reserved time for taking frequent breaks of varying lengths — whether a 5-minute stretch break or a full lunch-hour break.
While some of these are also best practices for in-person workshops, their impact is even more magnified with the fleeting attention of virtual participants. It is a delicate balance to provide enough structure to keep participants moving in the same direction, while still allowing for enough flexibility that their minds can meander and channel their inner creative thinking. I think you’ll find it’s worth the effort to build up the workshop charisma.
3. Over-Communicate with a Human Touch
At in-person workshops, facilitators can more easily read the room and take action on signals of participation fading. Last summer I remember Gordon Baty, who leads UX at Delta Dental of CA, mentioning how he missed ad-hoc facilitator huddles in the corner of the room, discreetly whispering about how to revive the energy or clear up confusion about activity instructions.
In our virtual workshops, my team intentionally over-communicated to keep participants engaged and to re-emphasize (i.e. repeat) important information. When introducing activities, we communicated directions to participants multiple times and in multiple ways: giving verbal instructions, doing a brief demo, including written instructions in the Miro board or Zoom chat, and providing guidance by dropping into the Zoom break-out rooms. By over-communicating the instructions, we might increase the chances of participants following along.
Having a space for intra-facilitator communication, a virtual “facilitators huddle”, was also an important communication tool. We chatted via WhatsApp on our phones to do real-time troubleshooting and coordination, separate from our laptops where the workshop was happening.
We all know how easily it is to get distracted or be drawn to multi-task. And being limited by the two-dimensional computer screen, it’s more difficult for facilitators to sense when participants’ attention is slipping. Try to utilize over-communication tactics and see if it helps pull participants’ attention back to the workshop.
4. Send Swag with Purpose
One way to get someone’s attention is with free stuff! Think back to the in-person workshop scene of tables sprinkled with sticky notes, pipe cleaners, and other interactive fidget things. We wanted to recreate this by sending participants a workshop kit in the mail to generate excitement in advance of the virtual workshop.
Due pandemic related shipping delays, we had to limit our original kit idea down to sending just one item. We looked for something purposeful that could tie into workshop objectives, as well as be used to engage participants throughout the workshop. Some examples of what we’ve sent workshop participants include a mini whiteboard with markers, a journal with creative prompts, and a children’s book that inspires the power of imagination.
Above all, the mini whiteboard continues to be the most popular and effective way to engage participants virtually. A mini whiteboard enables a mode of participation that is common to in-person workshops, only in a more manageable size for our makeshift home offices. Participants used the whiteboard to respond visually to “This or That” and “Magic Wand” icebreakers. They drew their facial expressions to hold up to the camera for a mood-meter type check-in. Having warmed up their drawing skills, they later used the whiteboards to sketch storyboards and wireframes — often the primary objective of the workshop.
Just like my Zumba classes, this is when your workshop participants have so much fun they forget they’re doing work!
Making it work for now
One year ago this month, in April 2020, my team hosted our inaugural virtual workshop with around 20 participants across five days. We didn’t get everything right and it was messy at times. But for the most part, we called it a success.
A year later, we continue hosting workshops sitting in front of our screens instead of standing elbow to elbow crowded around flip charts, but I can feel the virtual energy. Although I crave the in-person workshop experience, we’re still finding new virtual ways to leave our participants with that “this didn’t feel like work” feeling.
Have you found ways to create workshop charisma in your virtual workshops? We would love to hear your tips and tricks as we continue to evolve our approach.
