How to engage participants in a virtual workshop in max 5 minutes and make them comfortable to actively participate

I hear much complaints about moderators having problems onboarding participants in workshops.

• In general it takes to long
• It is a frustrating experience
• and moderators have the feeling they are not in control.

And in most cases once you have a hard start things don't get better and participants and customers are left with a feeling that virtual workshops are a waste of time.

Take away from this article: I'm sharing a simple method to onboard participants in 5 minutes and get them engaged in virtual workshops. I used this method more than 150 times since the pandemic started and it always works.

It's about purpose and making participants want to contribute

Readers who are familiar with the Billboard Design Thinking method will guess that there is a simple template you can use for the onboarding task. And obviously it will be placed at the beginning of each workshop poster directly after presenting the workshop goal.

Step one to get your participants wanting to participate is they need do understand the purpose of the workshop and have a clear understanding why they have been invited, what they are asked to do and how they can contribute.

This is best done with presenting the workshop challenge and explaining what results are expected to be delivered after the workshop is completed.

If participants don't take ownership and are not eager to participate it will be hard to ask them to directly engage and contribute.

It's obvious, that if participants are eager to share they will find a way to participate and raise their hand if they can't join the virtual board

Your first exercise "Saying hello" is and invitation to join

The idea of this exercise is to find a simple way to onboard all participants and give them a simple task that will force them to start using the Klaxoon board.

But at the same time we want to find an exercise that won't give them an excuse why not to participate. For example, asking a question where they can argue: "I don't have any thing to contribute". The perfect first task is a simple task nobody can refuse.

Please write your name on a post-it and add your name to the first column so we know who is participating

Three visual examples for the saying hello exercise

Please note that there are always 2-3 columns the first asking for your name and the second asking to share a personal insights or contribution.

• The first example is taken from a sustainability workshop and the personal question is about your sustainability goals for 2021. As a question where people need to share their thoughts and positions.

• The second example is from a workshop about getting buy-in form customers and project teams to apply a human centered approach. The workshop was intended for designers and we asked them to share their design superpower. Again something everybody would want to talk about.

• The third workshop was about revers brain storming and giving an introduction to Klaxoon and we asked participants to share their favorit Klaxoon feature.

If you as moderator ask participants to do something be a leader and show what is expected by doing it your self

People in general are scared of making fools of them self but at the other hand they are proud if they can achieve and solve a task and your job as moderator is to make participant comfortable joining the ideation session.

• Step 1: synchronize the board and click on the sync icon in the top right corner
• Step 2: show the participants they need to click on the Plus button to create a post-it

• Step 3: Show participants how you write your name
• Step 4: Highlight that you need to click the small green send arrow to submit the post-it

• Step 5: Explain that you need to click on the post-it in order to move it
• Step 6: Show how you can move your post-it to the first column

Checking who has joined the board and who is participating

If everything is working well participants will start joining the board. Check you Teams-Call to see how many participants joined the call and insist everybody joins the Klaxoon board. Once you ensured everybody joined the Klaxoon board check who has written a post-it.

As Klaxoon moderator you will find a small menu on the top right-hand corner indicating how many participants joined the board. Click the icon to open the participants list. It is important participants understand they can't hide and will participate in all activities.

• Step 7: Check if all people in the call joined the board
• Step 8: Check if all participants who joined the board wrote their name post-it

This small menu gives you full control because now non of the participants can hide. For those participants who have not joined the board I recommend to call them out by name and offer your help. For example in the image above we can see that seven users joined the board but only six wrote their names. Compare the names to find out who has not yet submitted a name post-it and ask how you can help.

The same is true for participants who are in the call but did not joint the board. Be polite, be direct and offer help.

Hey Joe I see you have not joined the board do you need any help shall I past the URL a second time.

Often participants feel stupid. Everybody managed to join but they are left behind and don't want to ask. Make it easy for them to ask for help and show them how to join and create a post-it until everybody wrote a name card.

If participants don't join within the first few minutes they will probably not contribute at all and you are loosing their attention.

Insisting everybody needs to join and share his/her name

It's important you insist everybody joins the board and writes a name post-it. If you don't insist or participants are refusing explain you need their participation to make the workshop a success.

In general this is no problem and participants are only a little shy in the beginning or still reading their E-Mails or doing something else and embarrassed they where not paying attention when you explained how to participate.

Forcing them to write their name requires their full concentration and usually pulls them into the workshop.

They understand they need to focus and this wont be a: "Just sit and listen and do something else workshop".

Reinforce the ability to participate by asking for a second post-it

When you ask participants to write their name they can concentrate on creating a post-it and once they are comfortable you can ask them to write a post-it where they share something personal and put it in the second column next to their name.

The second column is reserved for something that is relevant to the workshop topic. Sometimes it is the role, a super power, expectations, experiences etc.

Ask for a second post-it with an open ended question where participants share something personal

Ensuring all participants are willing to talk and share their thoughts

Up to now you managed to get all participants to join the Klaxoon board and you also ensured every participant wrote two post-its one with his/her name and one with a personal statement. And you also made them familiar with how to move their post-its to a specific position. The last thing left in order to make the workshop a success is you need to ensure participants get comfortable to talk in the workshop.

Ask participants for a short introduction based on the two post-its they shared. Call them out by name and aske a question related to their post-it

As mentioned above a moderator should always lead and it's polite that you start the round with introducing your self and sharing something personal about your expectations or the workshop topic.

After you are finished change the color of your two post-its to indicate you have completed your introduction and select the first name in the list and ask this person to introduce him/here self.

When people are in a new situation they are really afraid of surprises and failing with unknow challenges. By leading them step by step through the post-it writing scenario and then making it clear that everybody will be called out for an introduction it is easier for participants to cope with the new situation. After all in an in-person workshop a introduction is something common and a normal way to start a workshop and it's no unusual and strange ask for a virtual workshop as well.

• Step 9: Select all name and contribution post-its and give them the same color
• Step 10: Select your two post-its and give an example how to make a good introduction

Why the method always works and where to find templates for your workshop

I think the method always works because you are gradually onboarding new users.

1. You ask them to join the board
2. Then you ask them to write their name on a post-it
3. Next they learn how to move the post-it
4. After that you ask them to write a personal statement
5. Finally you ask them to introduce them self and share some personal thoughts

By the end of this exercise everybody should feel comfortable with using the Klaxoon board and the users have learned the following things:

1. How to write a post-it
2. How to move a post-it
3. How to unmute his/her microphone and speak

Hope this will help you break the ice for your workshop. If done properly you should be finished after 5-10 minutes and ready to work on the workshop topic

Here you can download the "Saying Hello" templates

Join Billboard Design Thinking LinkedIn group to download the free templates and learn more about Billboard Design Thinking approach.

If you are interested in learning how to moderate Design Thinking workshops you can find 540+ page Kindle edition explaining all details on how to moderate Design Thinking workshops.

Billboard Design Thinking Moderator Training