We put the call out to find out, what are your biggest headaches when it comes to virtual facilitation. Here’s what you said:

How to start the session

• Boring. No wow at the start. They lack the chat and participation.

• In the first 10 to 20 minutes of live workshops my aim is to build rapport with each and every participant, verbally engaging everyone and getting a response from all. I want to establish a connection. This can be really easy, or very difficult, may take 1 minute or 30, may require loads of humour and energy, or seriousness and listening, but no matter, we don’t move on with the program until we have gelled. This I have not found possible to replicate virtually. I find I need to be much trusting that people are on board and just move the program forward. I’ve made my opening 10 minutes of content (after a simple icebreaker) more of a show, aiming to model the level of energy and enthusiasm for the topic required. Going to small breakouts after that so everyone can speak is the key. Looking forward to Virtually Possible!

Time and energy

• Sticking with the time limit (usually 90 mins) but still be able to get through enough content/activities for interaction, engagement and a decent amount of learning. Time zooms on Zoom!

• I think one of the biggest challenges is keeping myself engaged from a facilitator perspective, especially after a long session (like 4-5 hours).

• In f2f, we used to do a lot of group work and have the time and opportunity to do peer feedback and review. There seems to be far less time to do that virtually. Help! Thanks :)

How to tell if your participants are actually participating

• Main struggle : receiving the same amount of enthusiasm or participation from participants online = inertia vibes.

• My biggest online facilitation challenge: Gauging engagement.

• It’s tricky to do break out sessions, or see everyone at once, maintaining engagement and feedback from everyone has been challenging

• Techniques for keeping the interaction going between people, as well or better than I can do in a room of people. - Silent participants - not enough interaction.

• One pain point for me is how to get people with poor technological skills (or poor mindset) engaged. In a one hour session, for some people, even make an annotation in a Zoom whiteboard or put a posit in Mural requires a lot of effort. Even having a virtual producer helping them privately or sending information before the meeting seems not to work. When they need to start to use the tools some get blocked losing a lot of time and energy. Ideas are more than welcome!

• Getting engagement or responses from participants (even for simple things like annotation, putting answers in chat boxes, etc). Some groups are great; some are very quiet!

• I find the uplift of being face to face and getting to “participate” (that can be all forms like networking, chatting, laughing at the presenter, clapping) and incidential comments get lost in online. People want to be involved and love talking about themselves. Online presenters don’t often provide scope for this and it can be risky in terms fo feeling forced, or unsafe for attendees because they haven’t had any warming up.

• Getting feedback on how people are feeling about the content or in general. Creating that energy.

• As a learner, it’s a pain not to have that magical moment of creativity just by looking at the body language of someone across the table. More painful for me as a facilitator when I sense that even one is starting to virtually tune out

Other

• How is the CONTENT relevant to every participant?

• You have 90 minute session without any pre-session work completed how can you make that 90-minute session impactful? And that 90-minute session is a standalone session no follow up.

• I think one challenge is that in order to be respectful, we're putting ourselves on mute, so it's harder for the meeting facilitator to engage and vice versa.

Video: 5 easy online energizers to keep the attention: Brought to you by Joeri, The Magic Sauce.

Audio: How to structure a 60 minute virtual workshop that delights your participants: Brought to you by Leanne Hughes

Here are some key philosophies I cover in this episode:

• Having a mindset that online facilitation is a learning curve and that it's okay to be uncomfortable.

• What is the purpose of your webinar, why does it drive you and why is it important to share?

• If you are sharing it live, what is the purpose of sharing it live? Marcus John Henry Brown on his YouTube channel (shared below) said that a LOT can be done pre-recorded.

• Myth: It takes a lot of work to get engagement. Consider this: You can be lazy and still get engagement.

• Consider the audience requirement - short workshops in knowledge sharing session instead of full facilitated session

• Begin with the 'end' in mind. Think about what your participant will think, feel, know say, do or think differently. What is the purpose of you and them being together in the call?

• 20-20-20: 20 minutes of content, 20 minutes of reflection time, 20 minutes of sharing in breakout rooms / 20:10:20:10 is actually better - 20 content, 10 reflection, 20 breakout, 10 sharing all together.

• Before you give them the content and the answer, give them the question first.

#behindthescenes

Joeri and I are collaborating together for the first time. Check out how we’re working behind the scenes!

Here’s our Week 1 chat:

Here’s our Week 2 chat:

Here’s our Week 3 chat