With many of us remote working you may be wondering; how can I host a remote workshop? Will it work?

Well here are some of our top tips for hosting a successful, engaging and interactive workshop in Microsoft Teams.

1. Start with an icebreaker, speaking to a large group online can often feel uncomfortable and daunting, especially if you don’t know the group. An ice breaker can help to relax the group and relieve any tension. So how can this be done online?

• Ask some quick, get to know people questions, for example, are you in the UK? Are you drinking a cup of coffee? Get people to raise their hands using the raise your hand function accordingly, this is a great way of getting to know things about the people in the workshop that requires only the press of a button to interact.

• Get everyone to put on their favourite background from the Microsoft Teams Meetings background effects or get them to put a background of their favourite place, for example. Not only is this a bit of fun, but it also encourages people to feel comfortable with putting on their camera, even if just for a minute. It will also establish a few hints on people’s personality, are they secretly wishing they were playing Minecraft or are they more of a get out in nature person?

Backgrounds can be changed on Microsoft Teams Meetings by clicking the ellipses on the options bar in the meeting, then clicking background effects. There is a range of given backgrounds or you can add your background of choice from your PC’s pictures.

• Ask a question for everyone to answer, for example, what they ate for breakfast. This gives people a chance to speak and get comfortable speaking with the group.

2.       Know the value of turning on your camera, if you as the host turn on your camera it will give a feeling of familiarity and hopefully encourage others to do so too.

3.       Use Whiteboard to get creative, Whiteboard is a great tool offered by Microsoft that fully integrates into Microsoft Teams, all participants of the workshop will be able to contribute by adding to the whiteboard. Here are some tips when using Whiteboard:

•         Make use of the supplied templates

•         Use the magic wand that allows you to change freehand text into neat readable text

•        Add any relevant photos or documents to the whiteboard

4.       Make the most of co-authoring, have file templates so that small groups of people can work on separate files together to get their ideas and learnings down.

5.       Add in breaks, staring at a screen for long periods can be very tiring, encourage your participants to take some time away from the screen, walk around the garden or make a cuppa tea, through having scheduled breaks.

6.       Break off into smaller teams to discuss things by entering a new meeting, participants will stay on hold from the main meeting so can easily come back when they have finished their activity.

7.       Promote the use of the raise your hand function, this is a great way to facilitate a discussion and make sure everyone gets a voice. Quieter people who don’t have the confidence to speak up over the presenter will get their chance to speak. It is important to keep an eye on this as the host to allow everyone to raise their points.

8.       Use polls for discussion points on questions raised. This creates a more interactive way of collecting people’s opinions and ideas. They can also be used as a way to reinforce what has just been learned or discussed.

Microsoft Forms can be used to create polls and quizzes. See: https://forms.microsoft.com

9.       Structure your workshop and send out the agenda in advance, this will mean those within the workshop know the timescales, causing fewer distractions as people know when breaks will be. This means participants can know what time lunch so they can organise to have it with their household or simplify just know when they can make another cup of coffee. Overall, this means you won’t waste any time.

10.   Have fun and make it a comfortable environment, know that professionalism is not always easy during times of remote working, people may have kids coming in and out, pets coming and sitting on their lap, or simplify someone knocking at the door to deliver a parcel. Make people know this is ok, so they don’t spend the whole time worrying about what could disrupt the workshop resulting in them being more attentive and focused.

Hope these quick tips can help you to create the best remote workshop going. Let us know if you try any out.

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