by Lisa | Jun 15, 2021 | Business, Community, Education, Event Planning, Facilitation, Leadership, Productivity
Do you need to create an avenue for people to interact, pool resources, and work in partnership within your industry? Does your organization need to improve its professional development and problem-solving capabilities? Then, a Community of Practice might be the solution to these challenges.
Are you struggling with a lack of professional development or problem-solving skills within your organization? Or maybe there is little to no cohesiveness and interaction among key professionals within your industry?
If so, a community of Practice (CoP) just might be what you need to consider as an effective solution for these challenges.
What is a Community of Practice?
A Community of Practice is best defined as a group of people who share common interests or concerns, i.e., they take part in ongoing interactions with objectives focusing on a set of problems, a specific industry, or a discipline.
Why create a Community of Practice?
Although CoPs were first developed to facilitate the exchange of information and knowledge, they have evolved to be more than that. A CoP provides an environment where professionals can share best practices and generate new answers, theories and learning.
CoPs are now used as an effective tool to improve clinical and public health practices. But they are not only useful in the health industry. They are also helpful in several industries, including business, child welfare, and education.
So, what are the purposes of a Community of Practice?
- To promote the standardization of practices for professionals.
- To initiate and manage a body of knowledge for members to draw on.
- To innovate and create new ideas, knowledge and practices.
The Benefits of a Community of Practice
Increased Collaboration
A Community of Practice (CoP) connects people and creates an avenue for people to interact, pool resources, and work in partnership. By organizing collaboration, a variety of people get to work and interact with each other. Without a CoP, these relationships may not have occurred otherwise.
Exchange of Information and Knowledge
A CoP provides the context for people to communicate, share information and knowledge. It does this by creating an avenue for people to interact and share insights and stories improving awareness and comprehension around a body of thought.
Innovate and create new ideas/knowledge
A Community of Practice (CoP) allows people to share experiences and create new ideas/knowledge. These valuable interactions generate learning pathways and develop new concepts and innovations.
Professional Development
CoPs encourage peer learning groups, educational workshops, and learning communities which helps professional development. This also helps to increase productivity and performance.
Rapid Problem-Solving
Communities of Practices provide a centralized place for communication and valuable information for solving organizational problems. CoPs foster expertise and rapid problem-solving skills within people.
Conclusion
A Community of Practices can be an excellent strategy for building a more open organization. It is also an effective way to get advanced solutions to complex problems.
Communities of practice foster learning by connecting people and encouraging collaboration. This, in turn, creates a platform for creative problem-solving and innovation.
Do you need help creating and facilitating your Community of Practice? Reach out to us at See in Colors for meeting design & facilitation.
by Lisa | May 11, 2021 | Event Planning, Facilitation, Leadership, Tech Hosting, Technology
Know the correct terms for virtual meetings to keep your virtual meetings and workshops current with the changing times. It’s important to understand these virtual meeting terms before planning and hosting your next virtual meeting or workshop.
Are you keeping up with the ever changing virtual event workspace?
How up-to-date is your virtual vocabulary?
If you host or attend virtual events, understanding the meaning of specific terms will improve the value-add that you and participants experience from virtual meetings and workshops.
Types of Virtual Events
Virtual events are online gatherings (formal or non-formal) in a virtual environment. Virtual events are used to deliver an entirely online experience for participants that are not physically together. Learn the terms for the various types of virtual meetings, such as hybrid meetings, so that you know what meeting type will best suit your participants.
- Virtual Meetings: Virtual meetings are meetings hosted online. They are hosted on online meeting platforms like Zoom and Meet or in a custom virtual world.
- Video Conference: Video conferences are much like in-person conferences, except they are online. They are built around a live agenda with sessions, breakout, and keynotes.
- Teleconferencing: An online meeting that uses telecom services like phone services and instant messaging. Teleconferencing allows participants to discuss a project, share documents, and ask/answer questions in real-time.
- Webinar: A transmission of a presentation (audio only or audio-visual), either live or pre-recorded. Webinars can access multiple viewers/listeners at the same time. Webinars usually have a level of audience interaction using Q/A, chat, and polling.
- Webcast: Like a webinar, a webcast is also a transmission of a presentation. However, no level of audience engagement is allowed.
- Hybrid Meeting/Event: Hybrid event is a combination of both a physical and virtual gathering. It is a physical gathering of people with a virtual event running for people that are not present.
- Virtual Trade Show: Virtual trade shows replicate a physical trade show. Participants can watch live/on-demand presentations from different vendors and contact them through web chats.
Virtual Meeting Glossary Terms
When it comes to planning and hosting virtual meetings and events, knowing these virtual meeting glossary terms is key in your event’s success.
Virtual Event Technical Terms
- Bandwidth: It is a measurement of how much data is delivered for an internet connection over time. Bandwidth is measured in bits and bytes or megabits per second (Mbps). The higher your bandwidth, the better your video and audio quality.
- Green Screen: A green screen is a background used to create virtual sets. With a green screen, you can replace your background with any virtual backdrop of your choice.
- Green Screen Studio: Green screen studios are filming locations with engineers that specialized in adding graphics into your videos. These studios can help you stimulate virtual background during your virtual event.
- Cloud Recording: Cloud recording lets you record and store a large volume of data without physical restraint. Cloud storage is expandable, and your data is well-protected.
- Live Streams: Live meetings/events are real-time meetings or events that can’t be replayed after the event is over.
- On-Demand: On-demand sessions are recorded and can be accessed/replayed by a listener.
Virtual Audience Terms
During your virtual event or workshop, there are various ways to interact with your audience to increase engagement and improve participant experience. Try one of these audience engagement techniques at your next virtual event.
- Breakout Rooms: Breakout rooms are smaller shared rooms that a group of attendees can meet separately.
- Q/A: Q/A (Question and Answer) lets your audience leave questions for the presenters. The audience can use the chat for Q/A. However, it can also be a separate tool.
- Polling: Polling gathers information through real-time input from the participants in a virtual event. Often, the audience’s opinions are recorded through a series of multiple questions.
- Polling Module: A polling module displays the information gathered from polling.
- Chats: Chats are used to send messages in real-time to participants or organizers during virtual events. The audience can use chats for Q/A or to start a dialogue and engage.
Know the correct terms for virtual meetings to keep your virtual meetings and workshops current with the changing times. It’s important to understand these virtual meeting terms before planning and hosting your next virtual meeting or workshop.
Do you need help with designing or hosting your next virtual event? Reach out to us to learn more about our Meeting Design & Facilitation services.
by Lisa | Mar 2, 2021 | Business, Facilitation, Technology, Visual Thinking
Project planning is a crucial phase of your project. You can’t afford to skip it. Visualization techniques can help you get on the right track. Learn if you are using the right tools and techniques to get the desired results.
The planning phase is arguably the most crucial stage of a project’s life cycle. At this stage, you determine the logistics, budget, and other important details.
Here you can define and discuss potential problems your project might face at the different stages of execution. Then you can brainstorm with your team and provide possible solutions to these problems.
More importantly, it is during this project planning phase that you need to identify and select the RIGHT problem that your project will solve upon successful execution.
Why?
Identifying and presenting the key problem your project will solve to stakeholders is vital for effective communication and ensuring expectations are met.
So, how can you create an invaluable project management plan and identify the correct problem?
There are several visual planning tools and project plan visualization techniques that can help you execute this crucial part of the project planning phase.
Why Should You Use Visual Planning Tools and Techniques?
Turn a project’s large volume of data into useful and straightforward diagrams that help you brainstorm and communicate the project’s SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats).
Outline and visualize all stages of your project’s life cycle so you can present a high-level plan to project stakeholders.
Better yet, you can use visual planning tools at all stages of your project execution!
It’s true, visual planning techniques help foster creativity when approaching and solving complex situations or problems. Visual techniques like mind mapping, process maps, or cost breakdown structures are crucial to your project planning.
Types of Visualization Tools for Project and Program Planning
There are many project planning tools and techniques to use for project management, but not all are suitable for the planning phase. Your visual planning phase should be a detailed process where you might use several project planning techniques and tools.
Here are the top visual planning techniques that will help ensure that you identify the key problem, that your project’s stakeholders and team are on the same page and that expectations are clear and met.
1. The Six Thinking Hats:
This can be done remotely or at in-person meetings to explore different viewpoints related to complex situations or problems. Team members will wear different “hats” that represent different thinking perspectives. The six thinking hats are: Creativity, Process, Benefits, Facts, Cautions and Feelings. Use an online whiteboard tool to take notes on each of the participants points of view.
2. Starbursting:
Help meeting participants fully understand the problem that your project is going to solve. Once a team identifies a problem, draw a 5-point star and label each of the 5 points: What?, Where?, When?, How?, and Why? Have meeting participants collaborate and add detailed questions to each of the 5 categories.
3. The Five Whys:
More specifically used for quality improvement, and to thoroughly analyze a problem, repeatedly ask the question, “Why?”. Using a whiteboard, state the problem. Then list out five boxes below the problem statement, each with the question of why? As you repeatedly answer why, you will eventually reach the root cause of a problem.
4. Mind Maps:
Mind mapping is a useful way to gather and organize all information about your project. Mind maps are crucial to the information-gathering process. Mind maps can be helpful during brainstorming sessions to generate and gather new ideas. Besides, you don’t have to collect information hierarchically. You can add ideas as they come to mind, and the mind map will help you present the information in an orderly and meaningful way.
Project Management Apps For Visual Project Planning
Project management software helps you collaborate effectively with your team and carry out your visual planning. Most apps are designed to work for remote meetings as well. So, your team members and project stakeholders don’t have to be physically present to brainstorm on your project.
There are various project management applications that help to effectively assign tasks, manage, and track your team’s progress such as Trello, Asana, and TeamGantt. But what about apps for visual project planning?
Think collaborative whiteboard apps, such as Mural, Miro, Zenkit, Google Jamboard and Lucidchart.
Collaborative whiteboard project management apps provide the option to collaborate visually in real-time, and allow meeting participants to add sketches, notes, videos and more to a digital canvas.
Conclusion
Project planning is a crucial phase of your project. You can’t afford to skip it. Visualization techniques can help you get on the right track. But you must be sure you are using the right tools and techniques to get the desired results.
Do you need help facilitating your meeting so that everyone can see the big picture? You can reach out to us here to help you out with visual planning.
by Lisa | Feb 18, 2021 | Business, Facilitation, Leadership
Virtual meetings can be challenging to facilitate. It’s important to handle the “ice” that is present at the start of a meeting. How can you get your virtual meeting off to a good start, set the proper tone and promote conversation? Ice breakers! Here we look at ice breakers that provide quick and engaging ways to set the tone at the start of your virtual meeting.
As a program manager or project manager, you are responsible for setting the tone and flow of your meetings. Your goal is for all stakeholders to participate actively and engage so that your meeting provides for a productive discussion.
Virtual meetings can be challenging to facilitate and get started. And that is because it is easy for participants to get distracted and disengaged.
It’s important that you handle the “ice” that is present at the start of a meeting. Many times, how a meeting is started will determine how well people will be compelled to engage during your virtual meeting.
So, how can you get your virtual meeting off to a good start? How can you set the proper tone and promote conversation during your virtual project performance reviews and strategy meetings?
Ice breakers!
Ice breakers can help you shake things up and create quick connections at the start or during your meeting. They can also help you generate engaging conversations and spark up brainstorming sessions with and among the project’s stakeholders.
There are various types of ice breaker methods! You can use questions, project stories, or simple exercises.
Here we look at ice breaker questions and activities that will provide quick and engaging ways to set the tone at the start of your meeting.
Hybrid Project Meetings
Here are some ice breaker questions that you could attempt at your next all-virtual or hybrid (meetings that have in-person and virtual attendees) meeting.
Ice Breaker Questions for Hybrid Meetings
- What would you do at work if you knew you couldn’t fail?
- Which gives you more energy: starting big projects or finishing up all the details? Why?
- Name 3 things that you and your team have in common.
- Who in the company would you like to learn from? What would you like to learn?
- What fictitious character best represents you and why?
- What’s one thing you’ve learned from your team? What does it mean to you?
- Describe the last project you worked on, like you would describe the weather? Sunny?
- How might we learn from each other more often?
- What book would benefit the project team if we read it together?
- What would you rather hear first, good news or bad news?
- What’s one thing about the project/program you’ve learned in the past month?
Team-Building Ice Breaker Activities for Hybrid Meetings
- Group Storytelling: You can ask everyone to share their part of the project on a slideshow.
- Simulated Problems: Create a fictional scenario that the team might face later on in the project. Then ask them to strategize together to come up with a solution.
- Future Headline: Ask each person to write a magazine or newspaper headline about the project in the future.
Remote Project Meetings
Has your office just recently transitioned to 100% work-from-home status? Do you collaborate with the project’s stakeholders remotely a majority of the time? Test out these thought-provoking ice breakers for your next virtual project meeting.
Virtual Ice Breaker Questions for Projects with Remote Stakeholders
- Have you travelled for work recently? Where did you go?
- What’s your favorite virtual meeting platform and why?
- What web-based project tool do you use often at work and can’t live without?
- What do you miss most about the office?
- What’s one time where a program team took a risk, and it paid off?
- How have you been able to stay productive working from home?
- Where are you joining us from?
- What is the most exciting industry-relevant article you have read of late and why?
- What is your number one work-from-home productivity tip?
- If you could change one aspect of your remote workspace, what would it be?
- What criteria helps you decide whether to say “no” to something or commit to it?
- What makes a virtual workplace presentation compelling to you?
Virtual Ice Breaker Activities for Program Meetings with Remote Stakeholders
- Share a Picture: You can ask the group to share a recent picture of themselves or share a picture of their work desk. You can create a guessing game during this activity. Say you ask them to share a photo of when they were younger or of their workspace, and then invite others to guess who is in the picture or whose workspace it is.
- Build a birth map: Create a collaborative map in Google Maps and, before the meeting, ask everyone to drop a pin where they were born. Then, during the meeting, you can ask people to share something about where they were born.
- Use chatstorms on Zoom: Use the chat to create a storm of responses in your meeting to increase engagement.
- Zoom background challenge: Ask your group to share their virtual backgrounds at the start of the meeting. To turn it up a notch, ask everyone to come with a themed virtual background, like their favorite vacation spot, or a scene from their favorite TV show or movie.
- Create art together: You can share a whiteboard with everyone, using an online platform like Mural or Miro, and ask them to draw. It may be to draw a picture of how they are feeling about their part of the project or even something a little more informal, like their pets.
Whether you are hosting a kick-off meeting for a new program or a regional stakeholder meeting in which participants are meeting for the first time to work collectively on an initiative, include an ice breaker (or two!) that is industry-appropriate to improve the effectiveness of your next project meeting.
The team at See In Colors specializes in meeting facilitation, reach out if you need help with your next project meeting!
by Lisa | Jan 21, 2021 | Business, Facilitation, Leadership, Productivity, Visual Thinking
Have you taken time to evaluate last year’s projects or programs? It’s the beginning of a new year – the perfect time to do project course corrections with your team. What questions are necessary for project evaluations to provide innovation and improvements for your organization? It’s time to implement a simple process called the Stop, Continue, Start method when evaluating key areas such as meetings, stakeholder management, risk management, training, onboarding, reporting, changes and requests. This easy exercise can help you manage your business, team, and project more efficiently. It allows you to think through what you need to continue, stop, or start doing.
Have you taken time to evaluate last year’s projects or programs?
It’s the beginning of a new year – the perfect time to do project course corrections with your team. Besides, the last year was eventful; the pandemic forced every organization to operate differently.
Now is the best time to step back and think of how these changes will affect your programs and initiatives this year.
- What are the things your organization should be doing to take advantage of these changes?
- What are the things that are no longer relevant in the current situation?
- How can you manage your team effectively in light of these changes?
These questions are necessary for project evaluations and may provide innovation and improvements for your organization.
Do you know what process is simple to remember during a performance review?
The Stop, Continue, Start method!
This easy exercise can help you manage your business, team, and project more efficiently. It allows you to think through what you need to continue, stop, or start doing.
Here are 7 areas that should be considered, among many more, for the Stop, Continue, Start exercise.
Meetings
Meetings are a crucial part of project management. So, that is one of the areas you should perform a Stop, Continue, Start exercise. Plus, the Covid-19 pandemic has changed how meetings operate – a shift from mostly physical sessions to virtual meetings.
- What are the things you should start to make your meeting run more effectively?
- What are the things you should stop doing to make your meeting less time-consuming?
- Do you need to stop/continue/start using a specific platform for your meetings?
For example, should you conduct some meetings via phone and stop doing all meetings via video because everyone on the team is suffering from Zoom fatigue?
Should some meetings be “hybrid” meetings, because some employees are working from home while others are now working at the office?
Stakeholder Management
Your stakeholders – your team, clients, and management, are the backbone of your project. As a program director or project manager, it is your responsibility to manage how well stakeholders receive information.
You can use your stop, continue, start exercise to determine:
- What are the things you can start/stop to help you with your stakeholder management?
- What you can start or continue to help you manage information dissemination well.
For example, should you stop sending broadcast emails and start calling individuals to encourage more effective conversations and, in turn, improve communication with stakeholders? You can use this exercise to revisit your stakeholder register to identify if there are new stakeholder groups to add, or stakeholder groups to remove from the list.
Changes & Requests
Changes and requests occur often throughout the course of a project. They are necessary for growth. On the other hand, how well you handle them determines if they will improve your project.
So, during your project or program evaluation, you can discuss:
- What are the processes that you should stop doing because they impede your ability to manage changes/requests?
- Are there better ways you can handle your requests?
- What can you start doing to implement changes better?
For example, maybe you should stop receiving change requests via fax because no one is faxing anymore? As as result, you may need to consider implementation of a web based change request system to increase efficiency.
Risk Management
For any project, you must have a proper risk management plan in place to identify and take care of issues as they arise. To keep your risk register up to date, you should carry out the Stop, Continue, Start exercise often to mitigate new risks as they emerge.
- What risk mitigation practices should you start to make it easier for you to identify and manage risks?
- What risk management processes do you have in place that have proven effective?
- Do you have practices you need to stop?
For example, is it possible that management needs to revisit their emergency contact list? Is management ready to take the necessary action to contact their team during a time of crisis, such as the U.S. Capitol riots? Do they have an updated cell phone list to ensure they can get in touch with their team members?
Training
Training is a crucial process in every organization. It exposes your team members to new and more effective ways of tackling the task at hand. Due to pandemic restrictions, training your team may become increasingly challenging.
An excellent way to tackle this problem during performance evaluation is to use the Stop, Continue, Start exercise.
- In the light of the recent changes, what are things you can start to make training your personnel easier?
- Should you continue/stop in-person training? Or start virtual training?
- What can you initiate to make your team members take advantage of the training?
For example, as a program manager, maybe you need to find a service provider that can assist your staff with Microsoft teams training?
Onboarding
Effective onboarding is essential to incorporate new members and programs into your organization without disrupting the workflow.
- How efficient is your current process? Do you need to start a new onboarding process?
- Are there practices you need to remove (stop) from your onboarding process?
For example, maybe you will start using a new onboarding system to more effectively manage your growing team or project portfolio? Maybe you will need to stop using the paper system and move your onboarding process online to a more intuitive web based platform?
Reporting
Reporting is crucial to let your stakeholders know about your project’s progress. So, you should also evaluate your reporting system to ensure you aren’t lacking in that area.
- What action should you take to help your team report better?
- What are the irrelevant things you need to stop reporting on?
- What are the things you need to continue or improve?
Should you stop tracking a certain metric because it is no longer relevant, for example, fax numbers?
How to Execute the Stop, Continue, Start Exercise
The best way to run the Stop, Continue, Start exercise for your project is to perform it with your team. Create a time for you and your team to review each element of this exercise. By asking questions, you can categorize their input as stop, continue, or start.
Ask for your team members’ input. Their feedback will help you in making the right decision. Take advantage of this team-building exercise!
Conclusion
In summary, these are the things that a project manager, program manager, PMO, or senior level manager would consider to improve their project/program. Of course, the point of executing the Start, Continue, Stop exercise is to act on your findings.
Once you have completed your list, make it a point of duty to consult the list regularly. This will promote movement in the right direction towards your program’s goals, as well as your overall company’s mission.
This visual template can help you carry out your Stop, Continue, Start Exercise efficiently. Click here to print the template and instructions.
by Lisa | Dec 18, 2020 | Entrepreneur, Facilitation, Productivity, Technology, Visual Thinking
In 2020, working remotely became the norm rather than the exception. Many companies plan to continue with their work-from-home arrangement into 2021. What does this mean for you? Virtual meetings are here to stay, so it’s time to set up your home office with productivity tools to stay on target with your 2021 goals and ensure your virtual meetings run smoothly. Here are my top tools of 2020 to help you stay up to date on the latest and greatest work-from-home gadgets.
In 2020, we saw a sudden increase in the use of video conferencing. Mainly due to the pandemic restrictions.
Online meetings replaced face-to-face meetings and video conferencing became a regular means of collaboration.
In fact, working remotely is now the norm rather than the exception.
Although restrictions vary based on region, many companies prefer to continue with their work-from-home arrangement. Just recently, Google and Facebook announced that they will continue with their remote work arrangement for now.
What does this mean for you? Virtual meetings are here to stay! It is important to set up your home office with productivity tools to stay on target with your 2021 goals, and video conferencing equipment to ensure your virtual meetings run smoothly.
To help you stay up to date on the latest and greatest work-from-home gadgets, here are my top tools of 2020 that I keep in my teleworking toolbox.
1. Microphone/Headsets
The last thing you want during your video conference is terrible audio!
People should hear you clearly during your virtual meetings and using only your computer’s microphone may provide a poor audio experience.
Adding a superior external microphone or headset to your virtual meeting toolbox will ensure your audience can hear you properly during virtual meetings.
There are several microphone brands on the market to give you crisp, clear audio. Do consider if you are uncomfortable sitting in front of a microphone, and if so, go for a headset instead.
While a wired headset is a great choice, the wiring and cabling creates limitations.
You can go for the Bluetooth models that offer comparable audio quality; however, they are a bit more expensive.
Lastly, if your work-from-home environment is loud, minimize distractions by opting for a noise-cancelling headset.
Personally, I prefer a microphone, and recommend the SNOWBALL Microphone.
2. Document Cameras
Document cameras are a small and powerful replacement for transparency projectors, This specifically designed web camera projects crisp and clear images onto a display, a great addition for virtual meetings and presentations!
I use the IPEVO V4K Ultra High Def Document Camera. It allows me to draw and have meeting participants see me working on a sheet of paper. My version of the Ipevo is old and it doesn’t even have a light but I still love it.
However, the IPEVO VZ-X 8MP Document Camera has a light and WIFI included if you are interested in those specs.
A third option, that a colleague of mine raves about, is the INSWAN INS-1 Tiny 8MP USB Document Camera.
At the Black Maternal Mental Health Summit, we used our document camera alongside the Powerpoint presentation as a means to visually communicate with the attendees of the event.
3. Lighting
Invest in good lighting!
Although natural lighting can be good enough for some video conferences, better lighting improves your video quality.
If your desk is located in a darker area of your room, there will be no need to find the right angle if you have a to brighten up your workspace!
With a proper lighting device it will be easier to video call at any time, including night.
I recommend the Neewer Ring Light Kit that comes with a tripod stand, dimmable LED lighting and color filters.
Looking for a more affordable LED Ring Light option that can hold your phone, has an adjustable color temperature range, and can clip on your desk or laptop? The UBeesize Selfie Ring Light checks all of those boxes and is compact and quite versatile!
In summary, the top three specifications to consider when purchasing your video conference lighting device are its dimmability, does it have the option to control the color temperature, and whether it provides adjustable positioning.
4. Traditional “Lo-Fi” Office Tools
Aside from the tech gadgets mentioned above, there are three key office tools that I recommend for seeing the big picture with visuals.
I love this UCreate Sketch Book, it’s always on the right-hand side of my desk, right next to my mouse where I put all of my notes. You can easily turn the sketch book from profile to landscape orientation, allowing for less restriction. There are also no lines, so you can sketch and doodle to your heart’s content!
Keep a Bullet Journal handy, specifically one that includes a dotted grid to make note-taking easy and increase productivity.
Lastly, every year I order a new wet & dry erase wall calendar which is located above my desk so that I can easily add, remove or revise events and goals. I love seeing the year at a glance, because I’m a visual person of course 🙂
Leave a comment and tell us about your favorite work-from-home tools!
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels
