In our last blog, we looked at some team building and activities to foster connections that can be used in hybrid event formats. Continuing with the effective activities for hybrid events theme, we’ll be offering some more suggestions. This time, they’re surrounding ideation, decision-making, and concluding your hybrid event in a way that underlines and promotes further learning.
Getting Everyone to Share Ideas
- Individual and Groups Rounds
When your event is bringing together a smaller group of people (like a dispersed team or department), you’ll want to have a structure that allows people to share their ideas and individual input AND group feedback sessions. Organizing a brainstorming session into rounds so each person can have their say and then move into a structured group discussion is the simplest way to achieve this. That said, there are many different patterns or structures that can work. The point here is to bridge the technology and distance gap and make sure everyone’s included.
- From Small to Large
If your event is much larger in size, you simply need to tweak things a little bit. First, you’ll want to have people broken up into smaller groups. These smaller groups can be based on some sort of cohort parameter if relevant. Second, the smaller groups will share and brainstorm ideas. Third, the group feedback session will bring together the shared ideas and propositions from the smaller groups. Once shared, Q&A as well as polling features can be used to have structured group feedback with actionable takeaways.
- Structured Conversations and Templates
Just because ideation activities are supposed to illicit creativity, doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for structure! If people participating in these types of exercises are in different places and possibly don’t know each other all too well, having a conversation template can be very helpful. Since the conversation prompts are designed beforehand, you can even make use of a shared digital whiteboard or other ideation tools where the questions or activity instructions are displayed and people respond directly.
Making Effective Decisions
- Clarity is Key
When there’s the option to, keep things clear and keep them simple. Using a thumbs up or thumbs down option in hybrid settings is very effective in lots of ways. It can be used to get a sense of whether the crowd is moving towards agreement or whether further conversation is needed. Using this type of feature where/when you can, allows you to make room for things requiring more discussion and save time in situations where there’s already agreement and consensus.
- Hybrid Polls
Similar to a thumbs up/thumbs down option, use polling and voting features when you need group input but there are multiple options to consider. If there are three topics up for conversation, do a quick vote to prioritize their order. If multiple solutions have been brought up, use a poll to see which is resonating most with people and explore those further. Furthermore, all this group feedback is already housed as data and can be gone back to or shared in further communications, reports, newsletters, etc.
- How? Now. Wow! Matrix
To make sure people don’t simply vote for what’s easiest or most familiar to them, there’s an awesome exercise that can be done via a shared whiteboard tool or even a GoogleDoc. There’s a ranking activity that allows the group to brainstorm, plan, and organize ideas collaboratively. The how-now-wow matrix (made popular by Gamestorming) sorts and ranks ideas based on originality and implementation.
Ideas that fall into the…
- How? quadrant are forward-looking but difficult to implement (not yet doable but future goals possibly).
- Now quadrant are unoriginal ideas but are easy to implement and therefore quick wins.
- Wow! quadrant represent new ideas that are easily doable and actionable with the goal of the exercise being to get as many ideas that fall into this category as possible
Before Signing Off
- Single Source of Truth
Given that you don’t want the insight and output from all these activities to get lost or go to waste, you’ll want a convenient single source of truth. This can be as simple as having a streamlined shared document that is added to throughout the event with insights, links, workshop/decision outcomes, etc. This activity can even be more creative and collaborative where participants have access to an event progress board where they can post comments or notes with their thoughts and reflections. Once the event has concluded, share the resource with everyone!
- Conclusion Collage
If your hybrid event has been workshop or decision-oriented, why not finish things off in a way that’s both fun and reflective for participants? Ask everyone to represent the key insights from the event or how they’re feeling about the decision(s) made and the next steps with pictures. This exercise may help people reflect and provide feedback in a way they might not have been able to express in words just yet. The pictures themselves may even highlight potential patterns or overlaps worthy of further consideration or examination.
- (Just Before) Closing Time
It’s important to underline what’s been learned at your hybrid event BUT it’s also important to promote further learning and action. At the end of your hybrid event, have people reflect on what worked and didn’t work and other relevant questions. The feedback should be collected and analyzed so organizers are made aware of things there might not have been time to bring up organically but that would make for a better event in the future.
These are just some examples of activities that can be adapted and included in your hybrid event for better engagement and collaboration. Contact Baldwin Audio/Visual Solutions today to learn more about our hybrid event solutions.