Ideation Across 3 Timezones

War Stories from a strategic design firm

Remote teams are increasingly becoming the norm in the workplace, with 57% of knowledge workers in the US reporting that they spend some part of their time working remotely [1]. Remote product development teams are no exception, whether they be contributors working from home, a different regional office, or across international borders.

At UXReactor, we have teams and clients located on opposite ends of the globe, so we’re no stranger to the pains of remote collaboration. Working primarily in design, the next-level challenge that we face is remote co-ideation for product design.

Having done this day in and day out for the last 4 years, we’ve found ways to not only make this more efficient but also work to our advantage. Our most recent ideation session with multidisciplinary teams took place across 3 time zones with over 20 subject matter experts (SMEs), including the CTO, Engineering head, Product Managers, and more, AND it was a huge success.

We’re here to share some of our hard-earned tips and best practices to have an awesome product ideation session.

Things to do before the session

Do research & socialize it

Doing formative research — research done before design begins, which gives insights that are foundational in nature — is crucial in setting up goals and direction for any product. It will make sure you are solving the right problems and help you understand the users’ behavior and mental models.

Just as important as the research itself is socializing these insights with the session participants ahead of time to ensure everybody is speaking the same language in the session. It also keeps everyone aligned on the intents and product strategy, so they resonate better with product decisions.

Invite the right stakeholders

Invite stakeholders who can provide user/business insights or have the ability to influence the final outcome of the product. This may include stakeholders such as Chief Technology Officer, Vice President of Product, Product Managers, and Development Leads.

Set the agenda

Rather than simply listing down the topics you need to cover, create agendas based on each of the outcomes you need to drive. For example, introduce the persona you’re designing for the participants at the beginning of the session so they can empathize with what the user goes through. Further breaking down the session based on the key eXperiences for the persona helps identify eXperience-centric problems and solutions.

Things to do during the session

Choose a facilitator & set guardrails

For any meeting to be successful, there needs to be an assigned facilitator who can steer the discussion towards solid outcomes. For a design ideation, the facilitator should preferably be from the design team as they can share the same ideals, processes, and intents as the design team.
The biggest challenge for any discussion is when participants go off on tangents. The best way to prevent this is to set clear expectations for the goal of the meeting and to define which topics should and should not be the focus of discussion.

Utilize the concept of a “parking lot”

When conversations go off on tangents, communicate to participants that the topic is important but may not be relevant for the current meeting. Add this topic to the list of things that are ‘parked’ to be discussed outside this meeting, and then continue on with the agenda.

Sketch it out

The success of these sessions largely depends on how well discussions are translated into understanding by the rest of the team. Visually communicating thoughts via whiteboard sketches is an effective way to ensure all participants are on the same page. You can use digital media like whiteboard on Zoom, Paper, Cisco Webex Whiteboard, etc. to do this.

Things to do after the session

Reflect back on the session

At the end of each session, reflect on the outcomes of the session, particularly around what went well and what can be improved moving forward. At UXReactor, we use a reflection framework which uses statements that address:

• “I like…” (what went well)
• “I wish…” (what could have been better)
• “What if…” (what we can change next time)

Do homework

After the session, get the design team to formalize all the finalized ideas so the data is captured down to the last detail and ready for the next stage of the design process.

Go the extra mile

Go beyond just the meeting outcomes and make sure everybody felt heard and valued in the discussion. Also, be aware of the various time zones of the participants in the meeting. This will help you to be more sensitive to any delays or overshoots in the schedule.

Takeaways

1. Prepare properly and get stakeholders on board ahead of time
2. Have a plan for the topics you want to cover
3. Designate a facilitator to ensure your outcomes are met
4. Prepare for tangent discussions
5. Visualize concepts discussed for a shared understanding
6. Reflect on the successes and challenges of the session for improved future sessions
7. Document the agreements and action items to continue the momentum from your session
8. Accommodate for your team

Interested in running your own multi-location ideation session? Drop me an email (hello@uxreactor.com) to get a checklist of activities to prep for the session!

Thanks to Prasad Kantamneni for contributing as a co-author!

About the firm

UXReactor is a full-service strategic eXperience consulting and design firm that helps teams and organizations of all maturity plan, research, ideate, measure and deliver useful, usable, and desirable products.

We also believe that great design doesn’t have to be time-consuming and expensive. Our UXDNinja initiative provides agile research and design services to help you improve the efficacy and desirability of your products rapidly and at low cost.