File under a sign of the times: last week, Zoom video conferencing overtook Tik Tok as the most downloaded app. In the wake of the coronavirus, the advertising community writ large is confronting the new normal of online meetings and workshops. With this shift, comes a need to adapt to online platforms, and often that means negotiating a few bumps in the road along the way.
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Prepare your schedule by the minute (with some padding).
When creating the schedule for the workshop, calculate and split your time with specificity. Considering and accounting for every part of the exercise. For example, instructions, Q&A, splitting in groups, execution of the activity, discussion, etc. Important: Add 5 to 10 min of padding for each activity.
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Don’t multitask.
If the size of your team allows for this, assign responsibilities to your peers so you can focus on guiding the group. Important roles are time-tracking, managing Zoom (or video platform) and note-taking. At Verdes, we like to organize and make sense of the information at the same time as the people participating.This can be more challenging to do online. One workaround is to have someone organizing the participants’ input so it is ready by the time discussion comes.
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Rely on digital whiteboards for individual participation and break-out groups for open discussion.
Digital whiteboards, like Mural or Miro, are perfect to keep the workshop dynamic. They work especially well for exercises where individuals have to share their ideas in writing since these platforms have sticky-note-like features that are intuitive to use. When you need the group’s verbal participation, smaller groups tend to work better. Zoom's breakout group feature is a handy way to divide and conquer. Also, keep your breakout groups to no larger than four people.
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Avoid asking open questions to the whole group.
Because video conferences don’t allow for non-verbal cues, participants don’t know if someone else in the room wants to talk. They may stay quiet in fear of interrupting their peers. That’s why opening a question to a large group of people usually results in dreadful silence. You will have more success if you direct questions to individuals or give everyone an assigned turn to give their opinion or feedback.
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Introduce new tools in advance.
Assume no one has used any of the digital tools you are relying on for your workshop and create a brief one-pager with instructions for your participants. Add visual references to your detailed instructions to help people navigate these platforms better. If possible, create an ice-breaker exercise where participants have to use the features of the tools you will be using in the workshop. This will help you get a lot of how-to questions out of the way.
Bonus Tip: Have a plan B.
The ideal workshop goes smoothly, on time and according to your plan. But you need a backup plan. Go back to your plan and prioritize the exercises you developed. Create a moment in your schedule to check the time and decide to keep going with the planned flow of the workshop, or if you cancel any activities or breaks in order to finish the prioritized exercises. This plan will be easy to execute if you’ve made all decisions in advance.
