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Face-To-Face in Virtual Reality

  • 5 minute read
  • 1:30 minute video
Ally Lengel
on July 02, 2020
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We recently had the pleasure of joining International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) to talk Face-2-Face in Virtual Reality. The webinar’s purpose was for Brendan Tubbs (Tubbsy) and Jarad Roberts to share tips and tricks on how to transform a virtual meeting into a virtual experience.

Some of those top techniques for facilitating virtually include:

• Having a social agreement

• Using meeting MOJO

• Roman voting

• How to make icebreakers (or warm-ups) fun and not cringe-worthy

Social Agreement or Social Contract?

What are our rules of engagement? When creating a social agreement for a session, the group should collectively agree to what is in it. The agreement can include such things as raising your hand if you would like to talk next, be back on time from breaks (or pay the penalty of telling a dad joke or doing push-ups), and build on each other’s ideas. It is then the group’s responsibility to keep each other accountable.

Visual Agreement

How will the group show they agree or disagree? Voting with a thumbs up or thumbs down, known as Roman Voting, is a quick and easy way to understand where people’s thoughts are on the current topic. This can be used to agree when it is time to move on from a topic, get commitment to the idea, or confirm understanding. If you cannot visually see everyone, a virtual thumbs-up can also be used.

Icebreaker (Warm-Ups)

What is the purpose? It is a fun and powerful way to make a human connection before delving into some possible crunchy topics. Some ideas are:

  1. Have everyone wear a hat and talk about it.
  2. If using a virtual collaboration board, have people add an image of their favourite band/singer and explain how they have impacted them.
  3. Create a scavenger hunt and ask them to find those particular items around their house – child’s/pets toy, book with over 300 pages, keep cup.

Tubbsy and Jarad shared a wealth of usable and memorable tips, such as handling silences and creating human connections. If you would like to adapt how you facilitate for the virtual world, join our upcoming Virtual Agile Facilitator training, where we go into detail around techniques, share tools, and talk about how to bring the energy to all your meetings. If you are a Business Analyst, head over to IIBA, where you can connect with BAs across many industries in Australia.

Face-To-Face in Virtual Reality Infographic by Marc Hundleby