In this article Chris Nodder tackles the challenge of running Design Thinking workshops where participants are working at a distance in COVID times.
"Remote workshops are hard. The artificial environment (unusual tools, low bandwidth) is off-putting. Participants might treat it as a training session or typical video conference, so they don’t give the process their full attention. As a result people’s contribution might not be as well thought through.
If you have an existing team who respect the facilitator, and who see remote work as “business as usual”, then it’s more likely that you can succeed. Online tools aren’t very good at helping a team form an interpersonal bond. The team should at least have met and bonded before they start working remotely.
It’s amazing how much we build our interpersonal relationships by picking up on individuals’ facial, verbal, and body position cues. For instance, in our daily interactions we typically cushion negative comments with positive tone, posture, and facial expressions. A lot of that is reduced or lost with remote work."
So how do we run remote/online workshops successfully?