Do You Have the Right Processes to Make Remote Design Thinking Work?

Human beings behave differently when they’re around other people than when they’re alone. We even behave differently in different social contexts: Bright and gregarious with friends, introverted and uncertain around coworkers, demanding and obnoxious at home with our families, boisterous and reckless at a football stadium. We quickly learn a set of shared social norms when we’re physically immersed in an environment.

However, we haven’t developed or learned the norms when it comes to interacting via a rectangular video feed of our upper body.

Being in a remote meeting removes these subconscious means of communication. It’s as if you’re in two places at once: The part in the frame may be at the office while the part outside the frame is lounging around at home.

Here are some of the things that have worked for us at Upwork to cross this chasm.

The right processes

1. Aim for a fully remote session

It’s best if everyone is remote otherwise we fall into the trap of paying more attention to co-located team members. However, if you can’t manage it, empower one of the remote folks to let you know if you’re not adhering to the following remote meeting etiquette:

• No side conversations in the room. As soon as a side conversation starts, they should feel empowered to say, “It’s difficult to follow you, please speak one at a time.”
• No inside or location-specific jokes. There’s nothing that alienates remote team members as much as an inside joke that everyone in the room gets, but folks remotely don’t. It happens, but when it does, repeat the joke and explain it to the remote team members.
• No whiteboarding or turning your laptop screen around to show each other stuff. Instead, everyone should dial into the same video conference and use it to share something on their screen.

I know this probably sounds awkward, but unless you’re mindful of the disadvantages of being remote, you won’t be able to get the best input from your distributed team members.

2. Overly structured communication and strong facilitation are key

All design sessions benefit from strong facilitation, but in a remote setting, this is even more important. It takes me 30-45 minutes to plan a three-hour remote session. Each 10-minute segment is structured, whether participants are working alone on a problem, collaborating in pairs, or sharing insights with the group.

Icebreakers are very important. Not only do they create a sense of empathy within the group, but they can also serve as a practice round for using the remote collaboration tools. For instance, I use icebreakers to create a lineup of who goes after whom, and we use that lineup for any subsequent improv games as well.

And yes, remote improv games are totally fun (but sometimes a little awkward at first). My favorites are word at a time and “Yes, and…” The cultural contrasts make for some amusing and sometimes nonsensical stories, and everyone has a good laugh.

3. Focus on engagement

It’s very, very easy to be disengaged as a participant in a remote design-thinking session. When you’re in a room with others, social pressure keeps you off your email. However, when you’re on your laptop and email is only a tab away, it’s very tempting to let your attention drift away from the design session and lose yourself in email instead.

Here are some ways to ensure participants stay engaged:

• No one person should speak for more than two minutes at a time.
• Each person should have a task to do. People should be either creating or giving feedback at any given point in time.
• I’m a fan of “breakout groups” of two. You create alone; you give or get feedback in pairs. Breakout groups of four will automatically arrange themselves into two actively engaged, verbal participants and two who are checked out because they feel their ideas aren’t being heard.
• Breaks! Take lots and lots of breaks.
• Find ways to include the folks who speak the least. One way is to create a round-robin structure so that everyone gets two minutes to share their thoughts. Another is to call on participants to share instead of asking for volunteers. Or you can implement a “raise-your-hand” protocol so that anyone can show his or her interest in speaking next.

4. Find ways to include our physical sensory organs

That’s right: Physical. Sensory. These aren’t words you would associate with “remote.” But even though the camera captures only a small part of us, being physically aware of our entire body helps us stay present and be creative. Some ways I ensure we stay physical:

• Every break includes a stretch or a virtual high five. I have a set of yoga stretches that I keep going through. To encourage others to do the same, share a picture of the stretch and do it yourself within view of the camera.
• Music makes solo thinking time less awkward. We play music whenever participants are working on tasks alone.
• Drawing on paper is still the best way to get a lot of ideas out of our heads and into the open. I ask participants to have a Sharpie or marker (rather than a pen or pencil) and a few sheets of paper on their desk. They can draw on these, then take pictures and upload to the shared whiteboard or document.

5. Set clear expectations

Here’s my generic calendar invite for distributed team meetings:

Thanks for joining us for this Design Thinking session. We have a lot to cover and very little time. Read the prep notes below to ensure that this session goes smoothly.

• Plan to attend remotely. No one should be sharing a room. If you must come into the office, please find a small conference room or private booth to take the call.
• Keep some paper and a Sharpie or thick marker near you because you’ll have to draw at some point. You should also have your phone nearby so you can take and upload pictures of your drawings. No pens or pencils.
• Have a snack available, especially if the meeting overlaps with a regular mealtime. We will take breaks, but you may not have time to cook an entire meal.
• Ensure you can access these docs (with links to any non-traditional tools). If you have any access issues, please resolve them before the meeting with me or IT.
• Video is mandatory. Ensure you have good internet and lighting so that we can see you.
• Have fun! We’re going to do things we don’t normally do in our day-to-day tasks. It’ll be your job to have fun, and my job to ensure we’re productive.

While video meetings may not be quite as natural as in-person interactions for us yet, they can still be effective and fun with the right process in place. Try some of these techniques in your next remote meeting.

Laila von Alvensleben has inspired a lot of our processes at Upwork, and I would be remiss if I didn’t thank her for her continuing advice and incredible thesis on remote design thinking.

A version of this article originally appeared on Medium.

The post Do You Have the Right Processes to Make Remote Design Thinking Work? appeared first on Upwork Blog.

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