Week 76 — Reflections on Virtual Facilitation
This week I wanted to share with you the experience of conducting virtual facilitation during a pandemic aka 100% virtual. The opening paragraph of my weeknotes is where I often share brief updates about my own life and non-work related items. This past week has been especially busy with virtual facilitation of two half day workshops, the associated follow-up work plus a number of important meetings one after another. However, this week I want to do a deep dive into the two half day workshops and share the lessons learned for the readers of this blog. In this break-down, I am going to include step by step what we did, share the associated templates and give overall lessons learned that can be used by other facilitators who will be running their own virtual workshops.
Virtual Facilitation During COVID — A Tale of Being Human
Note: All templates are linked at the bottom of this blog post! I’ve removed identifying information for the sake of being able to share the templates.
Before I jump into the workshop itself, I want to start by providing some background and context. The project is to support the creation of a machine readable regulatory impact analysis statement (RIAS). It’s a project I have posted about in past weeknotes, so you may already be familiar with it. For those who aren’t, the project is looking at how to make the RIAS more accessible for analysis and research including assessing whether a machine readable version would be useful.
We did not have enough information to understand how regulators use the RIAS in their day to day analysis. Therefore, it would be impossible to design and develop a data product which met their needs when we did not know what those needs were. We decided the best way forward was to understand more about how regulators conduct analysis so we could assess what their needs were and how the RIAS could evolve to meet those needs.
Step 0: Understand the Basics
What: Two half day workshops with regulators to understand the problem, steps they take to do regulatory analysis, their pain points and how we might flip those pain points into solutions.
How: We decided to use a mix of plenary and breakout sessions to work through problem statement development (5 whys, 5 “w’s”), journey mapping and pain to gain.
Objective: Understand how regulators conduct analysis (and if that intersects with the RIAS), uncover the pain points and give insight into opportunities to improve the RIAS in line with user needs.
What did I learn: I drew upon experiences facilitating in person sessions to develop a virtual workshop. There isn’t a 1 to 1 translation between in person and virtual. A lot of adaptation was necessary so set aside the time to think through participant experience because what works in person won’t always work virtually.
Step 1: Facilitation Plan
With the basics out of the way, it was time to develop a facilitation plan. With COVID in play, I knew it had to be 100% virtual.
The facilitation plan came together much like a regular facilitation plan would for an in person workshop. What combination of exercises and discussion questions would help us achieve our workshop objectives?
The complicating factor was the virtual only nature of the workshop. Extra thinking had to go into how to create a positive experience in a virtual environment, additional thinking into additional roles needed and additional narration for co-facilitators so they knew where to be and what to do at any given moment without easy access to ask questions.
The facilitation plan reflects these considerations. Here is a brief breakdown of things we had to consider/add:
- Plenary and Breakout: We set-up an invite for plenary in Outlook which clearly stated “9:30AM Start — Plenary Room for Workshop” including an MS Teams link. We sent separate Outlook invites which clearly stated “Breakout Room for Workshop” with a different link and clear instructions to only use it when directed by the facilitator.
- Workshop time: We opted for a Monday morning at 9:30AM and held the session over two hours. Anything longer would be too tough on participants. Starting any earlier would risk those who have kids from missing the start of the workshop.
- Team Roles/Responsibilities: We assigned several roles during the workshop including lead facilitator, co-facilitator, dedicated notetaker, “live” notetaker and producer. The live notetaker was responsible for taking notes which were visible to the participants. The producer was responsible for handling all technical problems + making sure everything was working as intended during the workshop.
- Grouping Participants: We pre-organized groups so we could send out invites to breakout rooms. We mixed groups up so people who know each other did not end up in the same group.
- Back Channel Chat: We organized a “back channel” chat with the facilitators, notetakers and producer which was used to share key documents (e.g. templates, facilitation plan, notes) plus act as a way for us to communicate in real time during the workshop itself. This provided an essential communication channel for us to manage time, adjust our facilitation plan and dig deeper into issues that caught our attention. This was essential for communication across the entire team.
Step 2: Templates
With the facilitation plan completed, we knew we had to adjust our approach to capturing input. We couldn’t use flip charts, post-it notes or other staples of facilitation. Instead, we had to create templates to capture input which could be screen shared over MS Teams.
- Problem Statement: Using the facilitation guide, we created templates which captured the problem statement exercises + key questions in a sharable format (fillable PDF). This was an intentional decision as it accomplished a few things: 1) it provided a template for normal and live notetaking and 2) it gave a visual reminder to participants of what the key questions for each exercise were. In a virtual setting, you won’t have the time to always remind participants of what you are answering/discussing and you don’t have the benefit of a piece of paper up on a wall to remind them.
- Journey Mapping: In normal times, we would complete journey mapping by capturing a user journey on a big piece of paper with post-it notes. Instead we used Excel and captured the steps in the journey in real time with the help of the live notetaker. We were trying to extract “pain points” during this exercise so we had a second notetaker who was only capturing pain points. At the end of the exercise, this notetaker would send us the pain points so we could carry the discussion with the group on pain points in real time.
- Pain to Gain Brainstorming: Once the journey mapping was complete, the notetaker shared in the back channel the pain points. Once shared, the pain points were shared with the workshop participants in real time to begin the pain to gain brainstorming exercise. We pre-built the pain to gain brainstorming template with this in mind. We knew we needed to capture pain points from journey mapping and instantly transition to pain to gain brainstorming so the template was built to facilitate this.
- Workshop Deck: To provide initial context and background, we opted to introduce the workshop with a deck. An important touch were two slides providing participants an overview of the features of Microsoft Teams for those unfamiliar as well as how to get technical support. While we can’t provide coffee and candy, we can ensure a smoother experience using what might be unfamiliar technology for some participants.
Step 3: Dry Runs
With all our templates built and our facilitation plan completed, we ran a number of dry runs with the entire team to ensure everyone was on the same page and understood what they needed to do throughout the workshop.
The earlier dry runs were more informal including walking through the facilitation plan, explaining exercises and discussions on whether there were better ways to get the input we needed for this workshop to succeed. The later dry runs (especially the full technical dry run) were more formal where we pulled up the templates, discussed what each person would be doing and when and tested out the MS Teams rooms, chat functions, slides etc.
These dry runs helped to identify areas where co-facilitators were less clear on what they needed to be doing or the questions they needed to ask. This led to iterations of the facilitation plan which had more detail and made the experience for the facilitators a lot easier.
Step 4: Workshop and Facilitation
Facilitating a 100% virtual workshop using techniques and exercises normally done in person is an adventure in itself. Here are a few observations:
Getting Everyone to Participate: To get participation from everyone, I used an age old technique of calling on specific participants to comment. I would say something like “Jim, does Susan’s point resonate with you? What do you think?” This technique is extremely effective in a virtual setting to ensure everyone is paying attention and that the conversation is not dominated by the loudest voice in the room.
Time Management: Rather than attempt to manage time myself, there was a specific person assigned to do time management. In our back channel chat, this person gave precise times when exercises needed to finish (e.g. journey mapping needs to finish by 10:30)
Adjusting on the Fly: The best laid plans will never go according to plan. Be ready to adjust. Our back channel offered real time feedback on how the workshop was going and allowed us to adjust in real time to either extend conversations or open up new threads of conversation.
Importance of the Producer: The producer role is essential. They make sure the technology is working, no one gets lost in transition from plenary to breakout and back, and they help participants if any technology issues come up. You can’t do a virtual workshop without one.
Be Present: A virtual environment doesn’t mean you get to slack as a facilitator. Turn your camera on for the entire workshop so people can see you and form a connection. Control the conversation and create space for everyone to participate. Draw out the conversation while actively listening. It can be tough to not get distracted by other things going on especially in a virtual environment where there is less accountability (e.g. people can’t physically see you). Forming a connection is tougher in a virtual environment but being present goes a long way.
Step 5: After Care
After the workshop, it was time to reflect on the experience, plot out next steps and do analysis.
Debrief and check-ins: Immediately after the workshop and a few more times after, it was necessary to get reflections from facilitators and the client on how the workshop went. This is an important step as we express how we are feeling, what could be improved and what the next steps are. You may not have the luxury of a debrief in the room right after (like in an actual boardroom) so intentionally book time to do this or else it might not happen.
Analysis and Reporting: In a virtual environment you can often secure more time than in a virtual setting which means you get a lot more data to work with. In a virtual environment, you will be facing an artificial constraint imposed by the limitation of attention spans over video. With that in mind, your ability to draw conclusions after a workshop will be tougher with less data and notes to work with. For this reason, we distributed tasks (note taker and live note taker) to people other than the facilitator because active listening paid off during the analysis and reporting stage.
Links to Templates
Final Reflections
Running a virtual workshop is not impossible. It takes a lot of planning and preparation to create a unique and fulfilling experience which meets the objectives of your workshop.
My biggest lesson learned is that it takes a team to pull something like this off. Don’t go into a virtual workshop as the sole and lone facilitator because it won’t work. As a facilitator you need to be focused on creating a rocking participant experience. If you have to take notes, help with technical issues or any number of other distractions you won’t fulfill your role as a facilitator which is to be an empathic and resourceful creator of space for others to flourish and share. And if you aren’t creating the space for people to share and contribute then you are not doing your job as a facilitator.
Scott
