Remote Workshop Readiness

Things to consider before diving into your workshop to make sure it's as successful as can be

14 Sep 2023

The Scott Logic practitioner's guides are designed to be small practical guides for IT professionals. We draw on our collective experience to tackle topics that we don't feel are addressed elsewhere. Our hope is that these little 'value adds' will help you just as much as they have helped us.

This guide is made available under the permissive Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license

Introduction

One of the hardest things in software engineering isn't technology, it's people! Whether we're soliciting requirements from stakeholders or performing an incident post-mortem, effectively engaging with the people we work with, and for, is vital.

Workshops are an important engagement tool, allowing people to work together as a team. If run effectively, they can rapidly surface ideas, requirements or concerns, with collaboration resulting in a better quality output than you'd likely achieve through talking to each person individually.

Well, that's the theory.

Unfortunately, workshops aren't always easy. There are a whole host of ways they can go wrong (many of which we'll cover in this guide). And more often than not, once a workshop is heading in the wrong direction, it's downhill from thereon.

And there is now an even greater challenge, many software professionals are remote- or hybrid-working. These days we rarely have the luxury of bringing everyone together in the same location, and probably never will again (until VR finally becomes a thing ... yikes!). We all know how uncomfortable virtual meetings can be, the technology glitches, home-working distractions and quite simply, the lack of genuine human interaction. These all significantly undermine the togetherness that makes workshops ... work.

For better, or for worse, remote workshops are here to stay, and it is our job to try and make them effective. In this guide we'll cover the challenges we've found and provide practical solutions that will hopefully put you on the right path.

This Guide

This guide has been split into three different sections, 'Before the workshop', 'During the workshop' and 'After the workshop' as there are distinct activities related to each of these your workshop timeline. The intention is that this guide can be used as and when you need it rather than attempting to read the whole thing at once.

'Before the workshop' is about planning and things to consider that aren't always obvious yet experience has shown to be crucial steps when it comes to arranging an online workshop. In some ways this is the most important part of the process as the work that goes in prior to the workshop can set you up for hitting your workshop goals. Conversely, skipping these considerations can leave you frustrated and bogged down in workshop chaos.

The 'During the workshop' section contains lots of tips about how to "bring the energy" and drive the most engagement from your attendees that you can. Creating the right atmosphere can make a huge difference to the content and feedback that your workshop will generate.

'After the workshop' will help you make sure that you know what you need to do with all the information that you have just gathered from the excellent workshop you just ran.

Before the workshop

Team Distribution

Working together in the same location makes it easier to keep everyone highly engaged and accountable but as we all know, in the new normal, this isn't a regular occurance. When you have a distributed team, you have to work harder to keep them focused on the task at hand instead of the million little distractions the Internet, and home life, has to offer.

Ahead of the workshop, consider your team's distribution:

Where is everyone?

Is everyone in the same place?
Is mostly everyone in the same place?
Are some people together in one office and some together in another?
Is everyone remote?
What about time zones?

Make sure you know the answer to all of these questions and you have considered how this is going to impact your format of choice or whether it needs to be adapted. Ahead of time, it's good to make sure everyone will have equal ability to participate. Check that they have access to any tools they need to do so eg: screens, cameras and mics wherever they happen to be joining from.

Hybrid Considerations

With many people in our industry working a mix of remote and from the office there are some times when it'll be necessary to run workshops hybrid style - with some attendees in an office in person and some remoting in. If you are doing this the most important consideration is is everyone going to have an equal experience on the call?

When there are people face-to-face in the room, the temptation may be to have easier conversations with them, perhaps even side chats that those in the call can't pick up on. Similarly, if you are using an online tool to facilitate the meeting, ensure that those people in the room can see and interact with the tool just as well as those online.

Is everyone going to be able to contribute equally?
Can everyone be seen and heard equally? Do you have a good enough camera in the room to pick up everyone's faces?
Can the participants in the room interact with a tool as well as those from elsewhere? Consider suggesting they bring laptops so they can see an online board and interact with it.
Is the meeting room kitted out well enough? Do you have a speakerphone that can hear and be heard by everyone in the room?
Plan in advance how you want everyone to interact. If you are using a physical whiteboard or digital smart board, can people in the room and elsewhere add things to it?

Numbers

The number of participants you have should play a key part in informing the format of the workshop you choose. Not all workshops are suitable for very small groups just as not all workshops can run successfully with a very large number of participants. Different structures and requirements will be needed depending on the size of the group

For large groups (over 15 participants) have you considered:
- Splitting the group into smaller groups and running the same workshop more than once
- Time considerations - You may think your format takes 30 mins, and it probably does if you have a group of 4 people. Consider the amount of digital post-its which are generated and the amount of conversation that takes place if you have 20 people! 30 x 5 is suddenly quite a large number. It doesn't always translate so directly but it is worth noting that larger groups will equal more time on the call.
- Does everyone joining definitely need to be there? (think in reference to your goal). Remember it's a workshop not a presentation, the more is not always the merrier when people have tasks to do and things to discuss.
- The larger the group, the higher the formality barrier for individual contribution. This can be down to intimidation of speaking in a large group as it automatically creates a more formal environment. Willingness to share random thoughts and ideas that haven't been properly thought through will also go down with this increase in formality.
Are breakout rooms and sub-groups required at points throughout the workshop?
- To help focus and generate conversation, breakout rooms for two to three people can be beneficial.
- Remember to keep these groups as small as possible, if the number goes above three they will require a moderator to keep the conversation moving which means more facilitators and is more time consuming when it comes to planning and organising.

Agendas

We have all been included in workshops and meetings where several participants have no real understanding of the purpose or goal, the facilitators also get lost and go off on tangents and can steer the discussion off-track. What follows can be a dysfunctional time sink and is one of the reasons that meetings in general have a bad reputation.

An agenda is a great tool to help avoid aimless workshops that waste everyone's time. It'll help your team set clear expectations of what needs to happen before, during, and after the meeting.

It's advised to document:

A public agenda for participants
- An effective agenda is a plan you share with your meeting participants. This can be simple bullet points and a high level schedule of how the workshop will run and when different activities will take place.
A private agenda for hosts
- Consider having a more detailed agenda with cues, prompts and links for those who are running the workshop to help keep things running smoothly
- The more complex your workshop the more important your private agenda is for facilitators to keep things on track, especially when it comes to breakout rooms and multiple activities running in parallel.

Tooling

There are hundreds of available online tools for every kind of workshop. Choosing the right one can feel daunting. Here are some points to consider to help you decide whether you have the best online tool for your workshop.

Is there a tool that the participants already know or are familiar with? This will help you avoid onboarding time.
In general the simpler the better, consider what is the simplest tool that will allow you to achieve your desired outcomes from the workshop? Does the tool you have selected have more features than you require? If so, consider something more paired back to avoid participants getting lost in the interface.
There is such a thing as too simple however. Consider what would happen if you used a word doc or a spreadsheet as the backdrop to your workshop, what associations does thinking about these apps bring to your mind? This would create a completely different atmosphere and output and could make things less free flowing. Digital post-its, stickers or whiteboards can help create a more creative environment for idea generation.
Do we have a company account with the tool, are there any security considerations about where the information is being stored or used?
Many tools have several features that are most likely not required for your workshop. Consider assigning homework so that participants can spend some time using the tool prior to your workshop and make sure that you let them know what functionality that they need to know about so that they don't get lost.

Roles - The Facilitator

Let's take a moment to look at possibly the most important part of your online workshop, the facilitator! What do you need to do and what you definitely should not be doing:

Rule number one for any facilitator, they should not be taking part in the activities! Read that again as many times as you need to. If you are arranging a workshop that you need to contribute to, that's ok, you just need to find someone else to be the facilitator. Do not attempt to contribute to and facilitate the same workshop. Here's some high level issues that can create:
- Dropping the ball on timekeeping whilst you are distracted by activities.
- Steering the workshop to suit your own ideas and thoughts whilst steamrolling over the other participants.
- Ending up confirming your own thoughts and biases without proper input from the rest of the group.
Timebox, timebox, timebox! If you only bring one thing to the workshop as a facilitator this should be it. Keep things moving! Without timeboxing your whole time slot can be wasted on a topic that is not valuable or does not create a useful output.
- It can be difficult to interrupt people who are deep in conversation, try setting a physical alarm whether that's part of the tooling you're using or even if you need to grab your mobile phone. Make sure everyone can hear it and let them know it's time to move on. If the conversation is valuable, put a note in your parking lot which we will discuss later in the document.
Create energy and atmosphere. As the facilitator you are responsible for the pace and tone of the workshop and making sure everyone has an equal chance to contribute to the outcomes.

Other Roles

Clearly all workshops need a facilitator but have you considered whether it might be helpful to allocate some other roles to help manage your workshop?

Having assistance during the workshop can be a great help. When you have colleagues helping you take notes, screenshots, or keeping time, it allows you to focus on adequately explaining what happens next. This way, you are not juggling too many aspects at once, which makes for a smoother experience.

Co-facilitator- someone to lean on and manage certain tasks where you can take a break
Chat moderator - someone to keep an eye on the chat and prompt you if questions are being raised to prevent you from having to keep one eye on things
The Decider - someone to decide actions and next steps, could be the facilitator or the key stakeholder on the call. Make sure it's established who this person is.

Onboarding email

Your onboarding email is a place to let people know what to expect from your workshop and clearly state your intent. This is where you can use the Agenda you have prepared so that people can see the goals and structure of your workshop.

A chance to let people know in advance of any tools they may have not used before
Etiquette - mention if you would not like to have the email forwarded to other people so that if you have a carefully selected group it is not disrupted.
Interaction preferences - find the hand in teams going up when you're speaking distracting and prefer if people don't use it? Let them know some of your preferences here
Goal of the workshop- a good place to make this clear
Remember to include links to any other relevant documentation or information that participants might need

During the workshop

Generating Energy & Atmosphere

Remote workshops often lack the buzz of people being in the same room. As a facilitator you need to bring more energy than you would in-person in order to keep people energised and motivated.

Consider your tone and facial expressions, what attitude are you bringing to the group and is it the one that you want?
Are there any ways you can make the workshop more exciting?
- Sometimes using physical props, even remotely, can help to break up the monotony. Ask participants to use pen and paper to write things down and show them to the camera. Mixing the physical with the digital can be a good way to build energy and momentum in your workshop.
- Ask people to sketch or draw ideas, getting creative can help us use different parts of the brain and prevent fatigue.
- Music and sound can also be a way to bring the digital into the physical and create a feeling of shared experience.
Check in with your participants. If you're running a longer workshop, make sure you've scheduled time slots for breaks, reflection, grabbing a coffee or a comfort break. A good way to check in can be to use chat and ask the participants to vote on whether they need a break or would like to continue.
Set your intention and make your goals clear. There's nothing worse for draining energy than being on a call that is meandering on without clear intention. Help keep people focused on the goal either verbally or use a visual cue in your tool to help steer people back to the point.
If you have achieved the outputs that you need, don't be afraid to call time on your workshop. The length of time your activities run for is not the measure of success, gathering the right information or helping people to learn something new is your success measure. Dragging things out for the sake of filling a time slot will inevitably create a flat atmosphere.

Icebreakers

Although these quirky activities can be considered 'cheesy' at times, icebreakers are really useful tools to help create a conversational environment and make people feel more relaxed, remember: formality is a barrier to naturally flowing conversation. To counter potential mixed feelings about icebreakers in the group, make sure you keep them short enough that no one feels annoyed or like they are wasting time but long enough that every member of the workshop has had a chance to say something. If you have a group of 10 or more, you may want to consider breakout rooms for your icebreaker.

There are an infinite number of different activities that can be used as an icebreaker and I won't attempt to capture them all here. Simply have a google and see what inspires you. Here are some things to bear in mind when selecting the right activity for your group.

The goal of an icebreaker is to make people feel more comfortable, will your selected activity achieve this for your participants?
If there are people on the call who don't know each other that well, will your icebreaker help them get to know each other better?
Have a backup plan. Some activities will not go over well with some participants. Make sure you have some simple questions that you can use if your icebreaker turns out that it's not going to work for your group.

Collaboration and Engagement

Did you know, one in three people has claimed to feel drowsy or even fallen asleep during online meetings? Make sure you put together a varied program for your workshop with different types of activities to keep people's brains engaged. Include interactive activities and challenges to get people working together. Here are some things to consider when it comes to collaboration and engagement.

Create regular opportunities for participation, and make sure people know when and how to participate.
Breakout into small groups, which makes it easier for less confident people to contribute, and provides more opportunities for informal interaction and personal connection.
Include a live Q&A. To boost engagement, let participants choose which questions get answered.
Introducing gamification. This adds a fun, unexpected element, and really boosts engagement. Some examples of gamification include:
- Problem-solving challenges
- Competitions
- Voting
- Digital leaderboards
- Consider incentivising asking and answering questions with scoring or points for the most digital post-its that have been contributed to the board.

Keep it moving

Tangents aren't always a bad thing but they can distract from the goal of your workshop. As we have discussed at various points in the guide, make sure that you keep your eyes on the prize and are focused on your desired output. Telling people to be quiet or to move on can be intimidating, uncomfortable and spoil that feeling of psychological safety that you have just worked so hard to create. Here are some tips and tricks you can use to keep your workshop moving along without upsetting yourself or anyone else.

Create a parking lot. A parking lot is a space where you can capture interesting thoughts, ideas or actions that may not be entirely relevant to the exact content or goal of your workshop. By capturing these ideas or conversations with a quick note, you and the team can choose to return to them at a later time or on a different call. This will help people to feel validated and make sure that they feel heard whilst also keeping your workshop on track. Make sure your parking lot is somewhere visible to the group so that it feels tangible and they can see that their thoughts or concerns have been captured.
Alarms and timers are your friend. As we mentioned earlier in the guide under the facilitator role, timeboxing is one of the most crucial elements of running an online workshop. If the tool you are using has a built in timer, make use of it at every opportunity you can. If it doesn't consider setting alarms elsewhere, either on your phone or maybe even an egg timer.
Be up front about time management. Let your group know what amount of time is going to be allocated to specific tasks or conversations. This is good information to include in your agenda at the beginning of the meeting but you can reinforce it as you go by mentioning the proposed time box for each section as they begin.

After the Workshop

Once the workshop is complete, make sure any insights gathered are shared with the right people in a timely manner. Remember they probably don't need a blow-by-blow of every activity that took place, this should only be key learnings or actions.

Summarise your workshop whilst you are on the call. This can make sure you have verified your understanding of any insights or actions with the participants. If an additional meeting is required for this to discuss and assign actions make sure to set one up.
A call is always the best way to share your workshop insights with key stakeholders as they may want to ask questions or dig deeper into certain areas so take the time to set something up rather than just sharing text based information.
Make sure any actions that were generated in the workshop have an owner and that there is a way to follow up or track what's happening with the actions.
Have a bulleted list of insights and include this in your insights meeting invite to help you remember what you need to cover. This will also give the people you're sharing the feedback with more time to consider the topics.

Gather feedback on the workshop

A great way to improve your workshopping skills is to gather direct feedback from your participants once the workshop is complete. Some ways to do this include:

Using a very quick poll with one or two key questions you're interested in learning about.
Ask them to respond to an email with something they liked about the workshop and something that they didn't like about the workshop.

To Summarise

Remember that people's time is precious and that we can all suffer from meeting fatigue at times so always keep that in mind as a guiding light for any workshops and meetings you create. Keep to the point and have a clear goal in mind, bring lots of energy and enthusiasm to keep your group motivated. Don't worry if you make a mistake or run a workshop that just doesn't... work! It will happen and that's ok. Keep experimenting and trying out new things. Don't throw in the towel on your quest to become an excellent facilitator. This is a time for key learnings and growth. Seek guidance from one of the many veteran workshop facilitators here at Scott Logic or look for tips online to help you learn about different workshop formats. Running workshops online can be a challenge but it's a challenge that's worth embracing and hopefully even enjoying as you hone your facilitation skills.