Workshops in times of home office: Getting Remote Meetings Right

Somehow this year is starting no differently from the way the last one ended - despite all my confidence for the turn of the year. Shops and leisure facilities are closed, kids are being taught at a distance and many 'knowledge workers' are again or still working from home. 

So what to do if you don't want to fall into - at least perceived - stagnation? If instead you want to advance topics such as product offerings, processes, models of collaboration and innovation?

The answer is: Courage to hold remote meetings and workshops! Most of us have gained experience with them in the last few months, and most of them have been very good. At the beginning of the year, I would like to encourage you to tackle large or critical issues in the form of remote meetings and workshops - even if this requires the collaboration of many different colleagues.

Believe me, it works if you consider just a few rules. Of course, the same good practices should be applied as in face-to-face workshops: 

  • every meeting needs a clear goal and a pre-communicated agenda, 
  • the right but only the necessary participants should be invited, 
  • there is a beginning (check-in, so that everyone can arrive and feel comfortable), 
  • a middle part, where the actual work takes place and 
  • an end with next steps and a check-out (each person gets to speak again).


But what do you actually have to pay special attention to in a remote workshop so that it is as fruitful as in presence?

The most important enabler, I think everyone agrees, is the technology. The video tool with screen-share functionality should work. Audio and image quality must be good, whereby the audio is of course still more important than the image. However, if the bandwidth allows for, it is a question of politeness to activate your own video and show yourself. You may, no you should, also ask the other participants to activate their camera. The quality of the workshop is directly related to the proximity that the participants can establish with each other.

In my view, just as essential as the video tool itself is the use of a digital whiteboard such as Mural, Miro or Stormboard allowing for high quality collaboration among the workshop participants. Looking back at my last year, I have not conducted a single workshop without such a digital whiteboard. And the best part is, it works even with very low bandwidth. That means all remote participants open the whiteboard in their browser and next to it they also have their video tool open. If the bandwidth for the video signal is not sufficient, dialing in via audio alone is enough to participate in the workshop, since everything that is being worked on can be seen by everyone on the digital whiteboard. Another advantage of working with a digital whiteboard is that the documentation is already available to everyone during the meeting and immediately afterwards.

For a remote workshop, one or two facilitators are essential. At least one person must feel responsible for preparing the workspace on the digital whiteboard, leading through the agenda, taking care of time-boxing and ensuring that the contributions of all participants are given space and attention. Of course, this is also important in a face-to-face meeting, but people are much more likely to be overlooked or overheard in remote meetings.

Detailed planning is also very critical to a successful remote workshop. This includes 

  • moving work to the time before the workshop to make the meeting efficient and of a reasonable length, 
  • scheduling breakout sessions to allow for collaboration and not to exceed the time frame (here it is very helpful if the video tool used already includes this feature such as Zoom),
  • allowing time for collecting the working results of the breakout sessions,
  • postponing work until after the workshop and rather plan a second appointment to evaluate the follow-up work together.

From my experience it can be said that remote workshops are more exhausting than face-to-face ones. Therefore, I recommend planning half-day events of no more than 4 hours and offering sufficient breaks.

It goes without saying that the larger the number of participants, the more rigorous the moderation should be. Also, if the number of participants is greater than 12, two moderators should share the work. Theoretically, with the right moderation format, there are hardly any limits to the number of participants.

In a nutshell: if you don't want to wait until home office is over and you are wondering which topics you can tackle right now, then my answer is: all of them! Whether it's a joint analysis of customer processes, an idea generation on any topic, a product or service design, a new model of cooperation, you can tackle it. It will also be successful with remote workshops!

This text first appeared in my newsletter 'Innovation on Wednesday'. It is published every other Wednesday. For subscription click here


Further reading and watching:

Why the camera should definitely be switched on in video meetings (Weshalb die Kamera in Video Meetings unbedingt angeschaltet gehört) by Anne Koschik - Handelsblatt

When Remote Workshops Fail by Therese Fessenden – Nielson Norman Group

Why New Work and Remote Teams need (even) more trust (Warum New Work und Remote Teams (noch) mehr Vertrauen brauchen) by Antje Heimsoeth – Upload Magazin

Book: “The Definitive Guide to Facilitating Remote Workshops” by Mark Tippin, Jim Kalbach and David Chin


Andrea SchmittInnovationstrainerinAm Mittelpfad 24aD 65520 Bad Camberg+49 64 34-905 997+49 175 5196446
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