You’re leading a remote ideation session. How can you make sure everyone is heard?

Sometimes the best tool for a remote ideation session is a simple PowerPoint. During one project, I created a collaborative deck for my team in advance of an important meeting. We placed one topic on each slide. Every team member selected a different font color and added their thoughts to the slides ahead of the meeting. This can serve as a collaborative meeting agenda, a reference for progress check-ins, and a way to make sure that all team members are heard, including those who prefer to have a little more quiet time to think about their ideas before sharing.

Para manter a atenção durante um discurso, comece com uma introdução envolvente, varie o tom de voz e ritmo, estabeleça contato direto com o time, e incorpore elementos visuais e interativos. Mantenha-se interessante, adapte-se à audiência e reforce as mensagens-chave, é importante conhecer o time que está gerindo para que consiga manter uma interação de forma relevante e abordando o assunto com referências que sejam de interesse de cada um, use a criatividade envolvendo o tema com exemplos de séries, filmes, músicas ou até situações cômicas cotidianas.

In my experience, choosing the right tools for a remote ideation session is a crucial step because it determines the quality of the process. They help facilitate the process and make it more productive. Those tools help teams collaborate more effectively, generate more ideas, and ultimately come up with better solutions. Keeping in mind the importance of choosing the right tools, I usually use a list of criteria to choose the best ones for my sessions. Here are the ones; team size, ease of use, security and privacy, builtin video conference and chat features, simultaneous contribution feature, and, of course, file sharing and integration to the company platforms.

In my opinion, to drive a fruitful session in a remote setting, it's essential to lay a strong foundation of clarity and inclusivity. Setting clear goals and boundaries ensures everyone understands the session's purpose, scope, and desired outcomes. This eliminates confusion and fosters a focused environment. Equally important are ground rules that encourage participation without immediate judgment. By empowering team members to confidently share their ideas, regardless of how unconventional they may seem, It unlocks the full potential of collaborative creativity. Every single unorthodox thought, each seemingly bizarre concept, holds the potential to ignite a breakthrough. Hence,"no judgment to any idea" needs to be underlined in rules.

Remember that this is not the time to facilitate or dismiss different ideas. We're just warming up. Some participants may not feel comfortable with the proposed activity. Try to be attentive and welcome everyone.

Create a climate of conversation and encourage participation through opinion boards. Ask who is for, against an idea or who has a different opinion. The votes and their justifications open the space for participation and discussion by all participants.

Eu concordo com o conceito da ideação remota. Mas discordo com a premissa de que a participação deve ser compulsória. O gestor tem que incentivar, valorizar a participação. Facilita-la. Dar feedback (inclusive privado). Publicizar resultados e ter constância. Porém, faz parte da gestão conhecer o time e respeitar o momento e o perfil das pessoas. Nem todo mundo precisar dar ideias, at all ou em dada sessão, para contribuir com a equipe. Nem todo mundo tem facilidade de ter e expressar ideias em coletivo, nem todos têm ideias sempre, on demand. Nem todo dia é um dia bom para a pessoa falar. Temos dias bons e ruins como seres humanos. A criatividade não funciona sob coação, mas sob inspiração. O lider deve inspirar.

Leading a remote ideation session requires you to plan and design in a way so that every participant feels heard and valued. Some ways of doing that is for example: 1. Design the session for inclusivity 2. Anonymity tools 3. Structured ideation techniques 4. Voting mechanism 5. Breakout sessions 6. Facilitate to encourage participation 7. Follow-up