‘Facilitating online is very different from facilitating offline.’ This is what we hear often when people join our training: Bringing your meetings and workshops online: Confident, Creative & Convincing!
It is true, there are some differences, but the basics remain the same.
In our experience, there are many similarities, such as clarifying the purpose, understanding the different perspectives of various stakeholders, inviting them to participate as contributors and actors, and designing a process with various participation formats.
Some things, however, are different. All of us have probably found out at some point in the last weeks and months that copy & paste from the analog world to the virtual world is ineffective.
A marathon of long meetings online is neither enjoyable nor effective. Screen work is more tiring, the attention span is shorter, and interaction is less natural. Distraction is just a mouse click away. The experience of time is different online. Consequently, the duration, pace, and rhythm of the virtual training must be adjusted.
By bringing a workshop online, you are bringing a process online.
Stretching a process over time creates gaps, the time between two sessions. Having these gaps is interesting from a learning perspective because we gain time to develop collaboration and learning.
The time dimension holds new opportunities for virtual gatherings. It is not necessary to cram everything into one workshop. We can stretch the workshop over time by holding shorter online workshops with complementary activities in between. It is possible to create a living process.
Plan for the gap. The space in-between two online meetings is interesting.
During a two- or three-day on-site workshop we also have gaps, the night in between. Some interesting thinking takes place and enriches morning reflections. In online processes we can create more breaks, in-between time, and time to think over things. Some possible asynchronous activities include: collecting and reflecting on questions, inviting for ethnographic research or individual interviews, one-to-one conversations or sharing tortes, joint writing, individual work. Watching a pre-recorded input. Reading, listening to a podcast, and watching a video are other excellent options. The possibilities are endless. This is a creative challenge.
Bringing a process online is interesting, it holds so many options for people to connect, engage, learn and work together. Online facilitation is a creative challenge, more than a technical one!