Virtual Facilitation: making the online engaging
In the last few months we’ve been thrown into the virtual world like never before.
Many of us have quickly redesigned meetings, workshops, programs, conferences and events for the online space, that previously would have seemed impossible to host virtually.
It’s shown us how remote work and collaboration can be highly engaging and productive, and save us time and expenses in travel. As restrictions ease, we are seeing enduring changes to the way we work. Even national Cabinet continues to meet virtually post-COVID.
Particularly in the early days of the crisis, there was high energy for experimentation in new ways to collaborate and engage online. We've also seen failures of technology and processes which failed to engage or deliver the intended results. It’s been frustrating and messy at times.
Many lessons are emerging suggesting how the virtual space can be used productively, and in some ways has advantages over face to face meetings.
I thought I’d share 10 lessons that are top of mind from experiences both facilitating and participating in virtual collaboration over recent months.
I’d love to hear your learnings and reflections on what’s most important in the online space.
1. Acknowledging Country in a virtual space
As with face to face meetings, it’s important to continue to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which meetings take place in a genuine and meaningful way. In doing this we pay deep respect to the Elders past, present and emerging, the longest continuing culture and their sovereignty that has never been ceded. There are a few ways to do this online.
As host, acknowledge and name the land you are on and share something significant about that history.
Perhaps change your virtual background or share on zoom a picture of that land you are acknowledging, or a map representing all the language, tribal or nation groups of the Indigenous peoples of Australia.
Ask participants to acknowledge the land they are on. They can do this in a few ways: by reflecting in silence for moment, by writing this in the chat, or if you’re using zoom ask them to change their name to include an acknowledgement of the land they are on, and also perhaps temporarily share a picture as virtual background (this requires advanced notification or time to find an image) that shows this land.
Reconciliation Australia provides more advice on this.
2. Leading with connection
We are in a time of significant disruption, ambiguity and uncertainty. Many emotions are heightened. As a facilitator, it’s helpful to not assume that participants will turn up immediately ready to engage wholeheartedly in the agenda. Often we need to be seen, heard, have our experience noticed and acknowledged before they are ready to engage.
It is helpful to provide a space for people to connect with themselves and each other, to acknowledge the range of emotions and experiences, and to be present and centre ourselves together for the meeting ahead. Allowing a space for connection builds psychological safety and trust in teams.
This is even more critical in the online space, where it’s much more difficult to sense the emotional mood of others, and what might be brought into the conversation.
This can be done in a few ways
Facilitate a check-in to allow participants to voice what is present for them. This can be as simple as: What are you feeling? What are you noticing? What are you most grateful for today? What are you most curious about? What would make this meeting meaningful? What do you need to be fully present in this meeting? Use breakout rooms, depending on the number of participants.
If you’re in a very large group you can also use a polling function (eg polleverywhere), to name three emotions that you’re experiencing now and gain a general sense of how people are showing up. This has the benefit of being anonymous. Otherwise a chat waterfall can also be used where participants type a check-in into the chat.
Facilitate a guided mindfulness or embodiment practice to allow people to be fully present and aware of their thoughts and emotions, noticing and naming (inwardly) what is present for them. Naming our emotions provides some space from the experience, and this space gives us a moment of presence to chose what we want to bring into the meeting and how we want to show up now.
3. Holding facilitator presence virtually
In order to hold groups through this disruptive time, we need to be able to hold the range of emotions within ourselves. Consider how you prepare for the meeting in a way that enables you to be fully present and ‘unhooked’ from your own emotional experience. It can be a brief pause between meetings, a centering practice. Or perhaps you need to prepare more deeply – taking time to reconnect through nature, meditate, journal, run. Whatever you find helpful to recognise and process what is present for you, so you are ready to hold space for others.
During meetings there are a few practices to stay fully present, open and connected:
Maintain your presence by regulating your pace, projection, pitch. If you lose presence, slow down your pace of delivery and speak intentionally, looking into the camera to draw attention of participants back in. Use silence purposefully.
Listen even more deeply, for what’s being said and what’s present but unsaid. In the virtual world, allow more space than you think is needed for the unspoken to emerge. Avoid rushing participants through a meeting.
Turn up the dial on warmth and empathy. Be genuine and expressive, feel a sense of connectedness to all the participants, allow emotions to be present and move through you and the group. Speak to what you notice in yourself and in the group.
Notice your own posture and presence. If you’re facilitating something that you’d usually stand for, stand in the virtual space too.
Notice your own triggers – when your own anxiety and emotions might be heightened in unhelpful ways, for example when technology doesn't run smoothly. Find ways to regulate this rather than allowing stress to take over.
4. Preparing an engaging space
Consider what preparation you need to do to ensure that the online meeting is an alive and engaging space. Think critically about the agenda, and strip it back to what is most essential. While it can be tempting to fill an agenda with content, racing through agenda items is stressful for participants trying to engage in the online space.
Set expectations at the outset with a clear purpose and an agenda that can be shared visually. Frame each item for discussion and check off or mark in bold agenda items as you move through the meeting so it's easy to follow.
It’s a lost opportunity to use a zoom call to simply share information, without engaging interested participants in the topic. Information can be shared through a pre-record, background reading etc. Death-by-powerpoint (screenshare) is difficult enough IRL, it’s almost impossible to follow on Zoom for any length of time. If you must use slides, keep them visual with minimal text, and keep the pace and energy alive.
Consider what can be shared before the session, and how you’ll structure the session so it draws on this in a highly participative way.
This could include
Use an electronic whiteboard (eg Mural), and get groups brainstorming and working on live issues
Use an online tool to harvest questions or themes and prioritise these; perhaps workshopping answers with participants (eg Slido, Pollanywhere, mentimeter)
Working with a co-facilitator to synthesise themes from these tools or the chat and bring these into the plenary
Purposefully use energises such as these to create connectedness and keep the space warm and alive.
5. Numbers are important
What is the nature of the conversation? Do you need to be able to remain connected to every participant? For example, is there sensitive or contentious discussion anticipated where you want to be able to see responses and allow space for everyone to engage? If so, suggest limiting the number of people to those which fit on one zoom window – ie about 25 people. If this is not possible, consider including involving more than one facilitator so you can both be present with all participants.
Consider how participants will be able to engage with the topic and bring their voices into the meeting. If you’re working with larger groups, especially groups that don’t know each other, consider how you can build this in early in the meeting, eg moving to a breakout rooms, crowd sourcing questions or theme through an online poll etc.
6. Keeping instructions clear and simple
When engaging virtual groups in an activity, keep instructions simple, clear, unambiguous. Check for understanding before you break participants. It’s much easier to course-correct face to face. Virtually, you don’t want to send participants to break out rooms for 15 minutes and find out when they’re back that they weren’t sure what they were doing, or they focused on the wrong question or had a completely different discussion.
Give instructions in more than one way: verbally, copy it into the chat, send a blast to breakout rooms, add to the name of the breakout room, write a slide and screen share with the instructions, send it to a participant whatsapp group or other parallel channels.
If it’s a more complicated activity you’re asking people to do in breakout rooms, consider room hosts or facilitators that are pre-briefed, to hold the conversation and keep it to task.
7. Making longer meetings, programs, conferences, engagements ‘eventful’
While we know a lot of care and attention is put into creating spaces and communities face to face, we can also do this virtually. Some ways to do this
Establish a virtual holding container where participants can meet asynchronously, share information and begin the discussion early and continue throughout. Perhaps a Slack channel, or a howspace, or a whatsapp if it’s a smaller group.
Send a care package to all participants to open at the beginning of a conference/ workshop/ program. Include things that will be helpful during the program, eg healthy snacks, herbal tea, a personalised workbook, a stress ball, something to enhance the online experience or that you can use in an icebreaker/experiential learning activity.
Informal (optional) spaces, eg open the zoom room half an hour before to have a coffee together before we start, happy hour drinks together, a semi-structured fun games and icebreakers session, share your superpower speed networking in breakout rooms etc
8. Using technology purposefully
While technology can really enhance engagement and extend virtual collaboration, there is also a cost to the use of technology. It can be stressful for participants not familiar with the tools, it takes time to set up and establish, and Zoom fatigue has been widely written about.
While there can be a temptation to leverage a host of tools, keep the technology simple and focus on engaging participants in the purpose of the discussion. People don't do their best work under high levels of stress, so make the use of technology as fun and engaging as possible. Consider the least amount of technology that’s required to deliver your purpose.
And before you begin, consider whether a meeting on zoom is even necessary to achieve your purpose!
9. Working with a co-facilitator
If you are using more than one platform, if you have more than 25 participants, if the session is longer than about 3 hours, or if the discussion is contentious or difficult you may want to consider working with a co-facilitator. This way you can share the responsibility for facilitating the process and engaging participants, capturing the content (eg synthesising ideas on a whiteboard for participants to see, synthesising chat themes), and managing the various platforms and technology (eg setting up breakout groups, setting up the online polls etc).
Put some time in to preparing by running through the session and establishing roles and how you will work together. The participants should as much as possible experience the facilitation team as a connected whole, with seamless flow between the facilitators. As much as possible make sure you’ve sorted out the process and roles before the meeting rather than talking through these in front of participants.
10. Giving attention to equity and inclusion
Give consideration to the particular needs of the participants attending. Who might this be difficult for? How can you make it an accessible, safe and inclusive space? Who could be left out by this request? What is the technological capacity of participants? What is your Plan B if the technology you want to use is not possible for all participants? This resource is particularly helpful in thinking through how to make the space inclusive.
What virtual facilitation lessons are emerging for you?
If you'd like to talk through an upcoming online meeting or collaboration, please get in touch.
