Lessons from Maliasili's First Ever Virtual Team (Non)-Retreat (It Worked!)

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Last week Maliasili attempted something we thought we would never do -  we held a weeklong online team ‘retreat’ (which we aptly dubbed the ‘non-retreat’).  The main takeaway: it worked! While in-person time is invaluable, our virtual experiment was a success and so we asked our team to help us develop some top tips for effective online meetings to share with you:

1. Prepare, prepare, prepare

  • We’ve learned that online trainings and meetings require more planning and prep time than the in-person equivalent. Session agendas, presentations, breakout groups, etc. all must be prepared ahead of time as there’s less wiggle room  in the virtual meeting space.

2. Encourage participation from all

  • Always do a check in to get everyone’s voice ‘in the room’ and to help build trust. We recently stumbled upon this great list of check in questions that can help. 

  • Mix things up - we used Zoom breakout rooms, word clouds, journaling, PowerPoint presentations, and Google Docs as different points of interactions for the team. We also used different configurations of break-out groups - pairs, trios, and larger groups.

3. Assign roles

  • Whether it’s facilitating a session, taking notes, or keeping time, find everyone a role to play at some point during the ‘retreat.’ (Note: you’ll likely want a tech lead, a meeting facilitator, and someone keeping time.)

4. Have an online collaborative space

  • We used Slack and Google docs to share notes, photos, questions, and documents throughout the week.

5. Assign Homework

  • “Thinking” time is not as easy online, thus encourage people to think about specific topics or ideas before the meeting.

  • Break your meeting down into smaller chunks of time and ‘assign’ work in between so that people can come back and share what they’ve done. We structured our ‘non-retreat’ with morning and evening sessions to allow for this in-between work as well as to allow for the time differences.

6. Breaks

  • Virtual meetings and screen time is tiring. Build breaks into your sessions and aim to limit your meetings to no more than 3 hours at a time.

  • Get everyone moving as often as possible: a two-minute break for an energiser (dancing...) or some chair yoga. (We asked our team to take nature photos during breaks and to share with each other.)

7. Fun

  • Use music at the start and end of sessions to bring energy and positivity - have everyone share some favourite songs for the playlist ahead of time.

  • We incorporated short and fun games into our week, which provided some laughs and team building  (a quiz night, a team bio quiz, etc.).

But don’t just take it from us...

We supported our partner, IRDNC, to hold their team’s weeklong annual planning and review meeting during Namibia’s lockdown in April and this is what they had to say: 

“We had more than 20 participants and three external guest presenters from three regions, many of whom joined from their homes and villages across Namibia’s most rural areas. The workshop achieved its objectives of sharing, refining and adapting our annual plans to the new COVID realities and motivating our team after a demanding year. The team was surprised that the technology worked so well and by how much fun it was to gather remotely. This event has sparked off a new phase of doing more work through video calls for IRDNC” - Willie Boonzaaier, Program Director, IRDNC

IRDNC also estimates that they and their partners saved roughly $30,000 by holding the meeting remotely.


Read the full newsletter here: Maliasili Reader Issue 2

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