Adapting in-person workshops for our remote world
By: Matt Brown
Tags: Workshop, Zoom, User Experience, Facilitation, Remote

I love facilitating workshops. I think an all-day chunk of time away from your desk where you can really dig into a hairy challenge is typically the best way to embrace true collaboration, reach consensus, and solve big problems.

Previously, one of my most frequent challenges when working with new clients was convincing them that the time investment of a workshop was worth it. Specifically, many organizations have team members that work in disparate offices, and they were resistant to spending the money to get them all in one place for a day-long workshop. “Can’t we conduct this remotely?” they’d ask. “Well, yes,” I’d concede, “but the magic that comes from being in one room together just can’t be captured on a Zoom call.”

And then boom. Pandemic. And boy, have I changed my tune. Suddenly, I’m having frequent calls where I’m reassuring clients that, yes indeed, we can absolutely facilitate this workshop 100% remotely, and deliver the exact same results. And I’m scrambling to adapt some of our workshop formats to remote versions.

Luckily, I’ve had a lot of experience in this area. As the manager of a fully remote team at a fully remote company, we had decades of combined experience conducting workshops remotely, both for clients, as well as internally. I also have experience guiding the process of converting an in-person workshop to a remote format. This can be tricky, but with enough care and consideration, it can be done. Not only do you not have to sacrifice quality, but, contrary to my prior assertions, it can sometimes be done to even greater effect.

Below, I share some of the steps I typically employ:

1. See if there’s an easy online parallel.

Don’t reinvent the wheel. You’re not the only one in the world running online workshops, especially right now, and for a lot of the common workshop exercises (sticky note brainstorming, affinity mapping, dot voting, etc.), there are already tools and templates that exist to provide a pretty good experience. (I recommend checking out Groupmap, Miro, and Stormboard for a start.)

Oftentimes, however, there simply isn’t a single tool to replicate the intricate process you’ve perfected over years of in-person facilitation. In these cases, I remind workshop designers…

2. Don’t overcomplicate things.

There’s a common temptation — one I’ve certainly fallen prey to — to link together multiple online tools to simulate a particularly complex in-person process. This Frankenstein approach is not only disjointed, but it also doubles and triples down on the worst and most failure-prone aspect of remote workshop facilitation: teaching newbies to use the tools. Brainstorming is a delicate process, and one that requires a good deal of care and gentleness. Creative thinking — as well as sharing the outputs of that creative thinking — does not come naturally to everyone.

There’s a reason why facilitators fall back on dreaded icebreaker exercises: they allow attendees to practice getting outside of their comfort zones in a low-stakes manner. Skilled facilitators nurture and ride that momentum throughout the day to ensure all participants feel comfortable getting their best thinking into the mix. When you have to pause a Groupmap brainstorm in the middle to teach attendees how to do the subsequent step on Miro, however, you have just killed the momentum and halted the creative juices.

Instead of taking the Swiss Army Knife approach of using as many tools as possible, I urge you to…

3. Get back to goals.

Remind yourself what the ultimate goals of the day are. What do you absolutely need to accomplish in order to avoid stakeholders deeming the day a failure? Get it down to the bare essentials, and write them down so you don’t forget. Then, work backwards from there.

Take a blank slate, blue sky perspective. What can you do, that can be easily done using simple online tools, to get to that goal? Always prioritize an easier process over one that will require more explanation or is more prone to technical glitches. (This is a rule that I constantly need to remind myself of). Remember, your job is to foster a comfortable environment for people to do their best thinking, and cumbersome processes are antithetical to that end.

If you’re new to the world of remote facilitation, you may find yourself coming up empty. In that case…

4. Phone a friend.

There are lots of smart people that have devoted their careers to finding and testing all sorts of workshop activities and methodologies. I’m certain that this moment in time will result in an influx of new articles and publications on remote methods (and please link to any that you’re aware of below).

In the meantime, I’ll recommend a couple favorites. My well-worn copy of Gamestorming has a permanent spot on my shelf, but their resources are also freely available online. Also, the folks at Google Ventures who brought you Sprint have recently graced us with their guide to facilitating the whole process remotely. Even if you’re not doing a full sprint, this resource is chalk full of great activities that can be repurposed or done in isolation.

Finally, when you do find your brilliant remote workshop solution…

5. Share the wealth

We’re quite literally all in this together. Post what worked for you. Share the horror stories of what didn’t work. Hopefully, I’ll be back to negotiating for in-person workshops before too long, but in the meantime, let’s help each other out. Stay safe out (in) there!