{"id":47081,"date":"2021-03-04T14:00:44","date_gmt":"2021-03-04T13:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-gb\/industry\/blog\/?p=47081"},"modified":"2021-03-25T11:03:53","modified_gmt":"2021-03-25T10:03:53","slug":"how-to-build-innovation-inclusively-and-remotely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-gb\/industry\/blog\/cross-industry\/2021\/03\/04\/how-to-build-innovation-inclusively-and-remotely\/","title":{"rendered":"How to encourage creative thinking inclusively and remotely in the new world of work"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our workplace culture has changed in the last year. We\u2019ve moved from physical to virtual, and in the future, we\u2019ll be seeing a more hybrid approach. Organisations have rapidly adopted and leveraged digital tools. Team meetings, one-to-ones, town halls, and even after-work socials have moved to virtual. This has also meant brainstorming meetings, ideation and design activities have \u00a0too. Yet often, these creative thinking sessions stereotypically are based on \u2018being in the room\u2019 harnessing the energy from that to create ideas.<\/p>\n

But how do you run these sessions remotely while creating that same energy? How can you maximise productivity and return on investment of time and resources? Virtual meetings tend to require more thought and planning to enable and drive business results in an engaging and inclusive way.<\/p>\n

We consider some of the underlying assumptions around working in the same physical space to map to a fully virtual way of working model for remote creative thinking sessions.<\/p>\n

\"Graphic<\/p>\n

Moving on from traditional creative thinking sessions\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It\u2019s a general assumption that the investment of time (including travel), focus and energy is offset by generating innovative ideas. This leads to workshops and agendas which are coarse-grained, to maximise the investment in time people have set aside to contribute.<\/p>\n

Being somewhere physically can lend itself more naturally to creating serendipitous moments and the feeling of connectedness. Yet, when organised correctly, these moments can be designed into a virtual event.<\/p>\n

And when you factor in those other ideas such as travel, and focus, hosting a virtual event can improve those. A major benefit of virtual events is that there is reduced cost and no travel time \u2013 there may even be a reduced carbon footprint. This increased flexibility can result in increased attendance, allowing people to carve out the time and get themselves in the right headspace.<\/p>\n

Now we have the digital tools to support virtual ways of working, it makes sense that people\u2019s expectations have changed, and they\u2019re more likely to expect virtual events in the future. A virtual event has the potential to be just as good as, or even more successful than a physical event.<\/p>\n

What makes a good facilitator for a creative thinking session?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It\u2019s important to remember that often ideation session attendees are diverse and in a lot of cases do not have close and pre-established working relationships. This means you need a good facilitator to help drive the session.<\/p>\n

They will ensure that everyone is briefed on ground rules, agenda, objectives and required tools. Ongoing active facilitation manages the energy and focus of the group. When all are in the same physical location the facilitator can read visual cues. This needs to be done differently for virtual ideation sessions. Visible or declared accessibility needs can also be more explicit and actively catered for. We\u2019ll go into some depth about how to manage these in the virtual environment.<\/p>\n

\"Graphic<\/p>\n

How to flip from physical <\/strong>creative thinking sessions <\/strong>to virtual effectively<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Examine your assumptions<\/a><\/h3>\n