#4: Three facilitation tools for your next virtual meeting

In the last few months companies and whole industries across the globe changed their ways of working, having to send all employees back home to work remotely. Companies such as Twitter announced that their employees will be allowed to continue to work from home forever, other companies such as Facebook or Amazon followed by announcing that they will adapt their work from home policies as well.

Within the past couple of months, I joined more webinars, online workshops, remote design sprints and remote meetings than ever before. Different communication and ideation tools were used, some more often than others. I wanted to wait for the publication of this blog post to test and try various tools to see what is of most value for myself but also the teams I am working with. Here are three tools which I used additionally to Microsoft Teams which made remote meetings in a corporate environment more productive but also more fun and engaging. Further, these are also the tools lots of colleagues reached out to me to get more insights into using them.

1. Google Jamboard

   If you don’t have access to the whiteboard function on Microsoft Teams, Google Jamboard is a great tool when it comes to ideation. You can simply create a board with your Google account, then you share the link with your colleagues. Make sure that when generating a share link to select ‘edit’ and not only ‘view. Believe me, it will only happen once to you in a workshop with over 40 people asking for editing rights. It’s easy to use since folks don’t need to sign in with their account to get access to the shared link. Usually I like to ask an energizer question in the beginning, so participants get familiar with the tool before using it – dropping in the post-it notes, changing colors, etc. You can drop in images at the beginning of a session asking ‘Drop in a picture which reflects your energy level’. There are more sophisticated virtual whiteboards out there such as Miro or Mural but if you only need the basic functions of placing post-its on a board, then go for the Jamboard. Furthermore, you can be creative and upvote ideas with e.g. drawing a circle on the post-it note. I used this tool with colleagues across various teams and hierarchy levels and the feedback was extremely positive.

2. Slido or Mentimeter

   Wordclouds are my go-to tool for getting quick feedback from a big group. Slido and Mentimeter are great tools if you would like to do quick wordcloud or a survey to check the sentiment of the group you‘re working with. In addition, I experienced that quizzes, polls or having the possibility to ask questions upfront really spices up the usual meeting cadence and rhythm and makes your workshop or meeting more interactive. Furthermore, it gives everyone in the call the possibility to participate and therefore creates an inclusive environment. However, if you’re working with a smaller group, you could also use the Google Jamboard and create a wordcloud or survey with post-it notes.

3. EasyRetro

   As the name already suggests, this tool is dedicated to retro sessions. When running a retro remotely you can use tools such as EasyRetro which allow you to upvote the cards of others. I already wrote about the three questions which are typically asked in retro sessions in my first blog post which you can find here. EasyRetro gives you the possibility to make it easy for everyone to quickly reflect on the last project or quarter in a fun and easy way (nomen est omen, right?).

These were my favorite tools within the past couple of months when it comes to online collaboration sessions. Let me know what tools you started or stopped using and drop me a line for any questions or comments.