Online Facilitation

What is Online Facilitation?

When a design sprint needs to be conducted online due to unforseen circumstance or while working with remote team members, you (or someone) needs to be in charge of running and executing the design sprint.

Rules

It is important to set the ground rules before starting the session and set behaviour expectations. Some rules for online sessions are:

• Video must always be on
• Participants to be on mute
• Raise hands to ask questions
• Use the chatbox to interact with each other

Things to keep in mind while running online sessions:

• Preferred group size is around 12 people for a very interactive session
• A team size of 4 is ideal for executing teamwork. This ensures competition within the teams and makes it easy to track progress

• Enable interaction at least every 5 minutes. A few examples to boost the interaction:

  • Ask a question and ask people to raise their hands in a digital way
  • Ask quick yes/no questions that people can reply to
  • Ask a question and let everyone reply using the chatbox
  • Actively call out people and ask for their input
  • Create a poll
• Use virtual break-out rooms for teamwork. As a facilitator, visit every break-out room while the teams are working on their task
• Have 1.5 hour sessions spread out over multiple days. Don’t go over 3 hours for an online session
• Use online collaboration tools for templates like Miro or Mural
• Apply visual facilitation by writing on a digital whiteboard
• Don’t forget to share your screen so everyone can see what is being captured
• Use a second screen to see the chatbox and the participants. This will help monitor the energy levels
• Have a war room ready to conduct the entire workshop
• Keep taking pictures and documenting all the work throughout the session
• Optional: send the participants a physical package in advance of the meeting

Why is it important to have a war room?

• To have an actual space where a group of people can work on the sprint
• A place to co-design and collaborate
• A place to validate assumptions
• You can browse through a screen and see what is going on within your sprint
• You can interact immediately with what you see
• You can invite others into your room for feedback and input
• It is easy to document the process. All the information is displayed in one place

How to set up such a room?

• Use an online collaboration tool to set this up. Things to keep in mind while choosing the tool:

  • Can add your own templates
  • The use of post-its needs to be possible
  • People are able to work in the tool simultaneously and see what the other person is doing
  • Select a tool that does not need to be downloaded nor required to create a personal account

• Create different corners on the walls for the various stages of the sprint

• Create a good flow so it is easier for people to digest what they see

• Ensure you are not replacing a war room with a default folder structure somewhere on a shared drive