Designing Successful Workshops For Digital Tools

6 key points to successful online workshops — Focus on tools or people?

"People are what make companies agile, not approaches, methodologies, or tools." ― Pedro Gaspar Fernandes

As a service designer working in innovation, I organize and take part in many collaborative and mult i disciplinary workshops all around the world. Most of these are generally run in-person. COVID-19 hit, and we had to replace this in-person experience with a digital one. Unfortunately, most of the online sessions I participated in the last 2 months didn't deliver a good enough experience, let alone a great one. Meanwhile, the lockdown saw numerous articles about mastering video conferencing platforms, from the 'best' whiteboard apps, integrating Zoom, Slack, to whatever tool is the trend of the day. Hence I wondered: "Why focus on tools rather than people?" Tools are important, but people shape and influence online collaborations. Should the focus shift to skills, interactions, and activities?

I decided to find out how other designers and online facilitators are coping up with this new way of collaboration. That's why I interviewed former colleagues and friends who work in the digital innovation sector and summarised my findings here while including tips from online articles and webinars.

In-person vs Remote Skills

Colleagues who are ace keynote speakers told me they struggled to get their points and personalities across in online presentations. Seasoned facilitators thought the quality of their workshops suffered when done virtually. I realized that the skills learned in face-to-face situations don't necessarily transfer to online experiences. That's why I suggest to approach this as a new skill, a different attitude, and make sure to be equipped with it. Vloggers, game designers, and TV hosts can teach us a considerable amount.

6 key points to plan for an online session:

Challenges — unique hurdles in the virtual meeting sphere
Advantages — using the virtual space for added productivity
Roles — gathering your team
Preparation — devising your game plan
Time — best practices for scheduling
Structure — keeping your participants engaged

1. Challenges

Remote collaborative sessions are challenging because we aren't used to them. But on the other hand, they don't have to bear the weight of the obstacles of the physical world.

Do you hear me? Do you see me? Am I sharing my screen?

Firstly, it's difficult not to get simultaneous feedback when we are presenting. When we are in the same physical space, we see their expressions and their body language. However, we don't have these clues in an online setting. Inviting participants to use reactions available on the video tools, such as thumb's up or claps emoticons helps the speaker 'read the emotions'. You can also ask your participants to prepare some index cards with drawings on them; a question mark to indicate that they have a question, a smiley face to state that they liked it. You can even create these cards at the beginning of the session as a warm-up activity. I suggest such activities only for smaller groups with video on.

Another challenge is to participate in one call after another, which is also known these days as the Zoom Fatigue. One of the reasons for this is that we see our own selves on the video all the time. Experts say that we spend a lot of time looking at our own video and make sure that we look our best. In order to avoid this, you can hide your self-view. Just don't forget that you are on camera 😉

2. Advantages

Now, it's time to talk about the advantages of online sessions, some of which we take for granted.

Firstly, as mentioned above, no restrictions of physical life. Get creative with it. "Could we make the workshops asynchronous, with a collection of pre-recorded presentations, online polls & probes, interactive fiction, actual homework (think a week-long, rather than hour-long), concluding with live collective editing of Google Docs and Figma comps?" ― Louis-Jean Teitelbaum

You get to know people better. When they turn that camera on, they are inviting you to their lives. You see their families in the background. It might be much more interactive.

You can have the right people for the session. You don't have to fly them over. There is almost no cost. As the person doesn't have to fly back the next day, there is no rush to squeeze everything in one day.

Recording sessions is easy and lets you always revisit things.

3. Roles

There are three distinct parts to an online experience. You either need three people to carry out these roles or switch between three different hats if you're on your own:

The Facilitator
The Manager
The Techie

It's important not to run a one-man show.

\\\ — The Facilitator — ///

The skills of the facilitator become more prominent in an online session than in a physical setting. In-person workshops have the advantage of the collective energy in the room to create the mood for work and bring the participants together. The facilitator of an online session has to do this alone. So the main task is to keep the participants focused and engaged.

An amazing power digital gives us is to mute people. You should start by apologizing and clarifying that you will interrupt and mute people when necessary so that you can respect the allocated time. If a person is taking too long to make their point or two participants are discussing amongst themselves, just mute and move on. Especially in cultures where people are too nice to interrupt each other, the facilitator can use this neat trick to make sure that everyone stays on topic and on time.

Another superpower the facilitator needs to have is to deal with today's issues. What happens when technology fails? The video might be not working well or the connection might be laggy. The facilitator should be flexible and skilled enough to run the same session on a regular call with no screen sharing nor video.

\\\ — The Manager — ///

Like a manager on a movie set, this role constitutes the backbone of the session. Although the manager can pass on some of the tasks to the facilitator, they are generally responsible for making sure participants aren't falling behind with the exercises, the urgent questions are getting answered by the facilitator, and everyone is having equal time to talk.

One of the most important tasks is note-taking. The writing ability of your manager is crucial. If you want to run a faster session, let your participants exchange ideas while the manager synthesizes the key points in the discussion. Rendering the notes visible to everyone during the session creates a shared understanding of what is discussed and decided, eliminating the risk of lost-in-translation errors and time wasted thereafter. Moreover, it reduces the time you will spend after the session documenting the outcome.

\\\ — The Techie — ///

The name gives it away. The techie is responsible for all technology-related tasks.

Their role is to make sure participants have the necessary. Even better, they send out short videos or explanations on how to open and use the tools the participant needs. For example: explaining the best workspace set up if the participant has one or two screens, how to use a mobile device as a secondary screen, how to join the meeting, how to use Direct Messaging.

During the session, the techie deals with all the technology-related issues both on the organizer's team and the participants' side. It's important that they interact separately with the individual who's having the issue without disturbing the entire group. If you're running relatively large sessions, you can display the techie's name on the screen so that participants know who to contact when an issue arises.

4. Preparation

Preparation is everything when it comes to online sessions! Once you've gathered your team, it's time to devise a game plan.

It's essential to be specific and clear about the objectives and the expected outcome. Decide on the participants, their roles, and the activities for the session. Don't be afraid to get creative. You don't have the boundaries of the physical world anymore. Of course, the time you will allocate for the session will impact the activities.

You should allocate time to run rehearsals no matter how quick. Going once through the session lets every team member know when and to what they need to pay attention: "You cannot 'play it by ear' and 'read the room' if everyone's on mute and there is literally no room." ― Lalao Rakotoniaina

5. Time

Time is important. I was surprised at how punctual people are when attending an online meeting. But given how much easier it is to switch tasks at your desk than travel to a meeting from somewhere else, perhaps I shouldn't have been. Planning times and setting expectations carefully will show an Organiser respects that.

Designers I talked to suggested deciding on the activities first, then work out how much time you can dedicate to each. It's generally a good idea not to confine people to their computers for an entire day, not even for half-a-day. You can schedule a short session and keep a fast pace. When there is time pressure, it keeps people engaged and on-topic.

Think about the best duration for your session. You don't have to cram everything down into one call. You are not flying people in from other locations, so why not have multiple sessions throughout the week?

Another good practice is to have multiple sessions on the same day. For example, you can start with a one-hour session in the morning, pause for a few hours, then another one-hour session in the afternoon. During the pause, participants can work on the activities individually and share the outcome during the afternoon call. This provides flexibility. They get to do the exercises at their own pace and on their own time.

6. Structure

The structure of your session depends on how big the group is, the time zones, their work roles, and the allocated time.

Start the session with an ice-breaker or a warm-up. This helps participants shift their focus from their previous tasks to the present. Take into consideration whether the participants already know each other. You can think about involving their context into the conversation. In one session, participants from all around the world were asked to present themselves by showing the view from their windows. You could see the Himalayas, Notre Dame de Paris, the Grand Bazaar in the background. In another workshop, they wrote their names on virtual post-its and placed them on a quadrant. It's a great exercise for large groups. It lets everyone discover the tool while waiting for the rest to dial in and prevents them from feeling bored.

Micro-breaks are also essential. Is your session after lunchtime? Then, start with some squats or jumping jacks. Introduce some quick games when participants are starting to lose interest, such as pausing for 2 minutes of silence or stretching activities, or just call it a day and schedule another time to finish the session.

Is the video necessary for your session? In some cases, it's instrumental to see the participants, but in others, it might be just distracting. It's important to prioritize discussions and exchanges between the participants especially when time is of the essence. Spend more time driving conversations than explaining the tools. I would like to challenge you and see audio-only sessions. How would such a session where you don't have to be stuck onto your screen look like? Can we organize walking sessions and get better outcomes?

Invite participants to do the first set of activities beforehand and use their creations as an input to the session. This provides a participative foundation for a collaborative build.

To make sure that they are actively listening to one another, ask them to write down the similarities in what's presented to what they've produced.

When it's their turn to speak, instead of repeating the same points, invite them to brush over these similarities quickly, and present only the divergent bits.

Work on the flow of activities, make fluid transitions like yoga. It's easier to follow and stay committed if there is an obvious linkage between the activities.

Extra tip

A tip I learned from a webinar with Radically is to use the chat to have a fluid conversation. Ask all participants to type "me" in the chat. This gives the order of who will speak next. It works better than the person speaking nominating the next person. In the latter, it always takes more time, and it gets more complicated to remember who has already spoken and who hasn't. We tried it a few weeks ago at our company stand-up and it worked like a charm.

Most countries started to lift the lockdown and our employers are inviting us back to "work". But COVID-19 showed everyone that work is not a place, it's an activity, and given the right conditions we can deliver our best no matter where we are. It also let us see firsthand some possible advantages of remote collaboration such as working from home, higher productivity, and inviting more diversity into the meeting place.

I am hoping that this article will inspire you to create more engaging online sessions where you don't put your entire focus only on the tools.

Do you have other tricks up your sleeve? Please share them with us in the comments below.