virtual wins - teaming with power - 2013

January

2012

Virtual WINs Teaming with Power & Lessons

Learned Facilitating Virtual Teams

John Carroll, CEO, Virtual WINs, LLC Facilitator, Canyon Leaping Guide, & Community Coach

404-633-9887

[email protected]

Virtual WINs – Teaming with Power January, 2013

John Carroll Page 1

Virtual WINs

Teaming with Power

Table of Contents Magic of Facilitation – Becomes Everyday 2

The New World – Why Virtual WINs 2

Imagine – Every Team WINs 3

Key Benefits 3

Virtual WINs Add Process and Discipline 3

The Virtual WINs Platform 4

Leap from “Me Tools” to “We Tools” 4

Top 10 Accelerators for Rapidly Performing Teams 5

25 Year Technology Evolution 6

Virtual WINs Architecture 9

Top 10 Virtual WINs Process Team Maps 12

Lessons For Launching Virtual WINs Communities 15

Lessons For Coaches, Facilitators, & Moderators 17

Lessons For Participating In Online Sessions 22

Ending Poor Behavior In Virtual Meetings 26

About the Author 27

This paper is for facilitators, project managers, coaches and process consultants ready to

facilitate WINs with the teams, businesses, agencies, non-profits, and other entities they serve.

Facilitating a great session using Virtual WINs doesn’t requiring reading this paper, nor the

Virtual WINs Facilitators Guide. If you are setup as a workplace moderator on

www.virtualwins.com, you can already clip a team map, add people to the roster, send out

invites, and facilitate great sessions. This paper is for when you want to do more.


John Carroll Page 2

Magic of Facilitation – Becomes Everyday

Virtual WINs, or “Workplace Innovation Networks,” provide the means for professional firms

and those with in-house professionals to facilitate great sessions, manage projects, build teams,

and coach online communities.

In a WIN, the magic of top facilitators and proven group processes can easily be wielded to

impact the millions of meetings, projects, and other group processes occurring every day. Our

goal is to make facilitated collaboration the everyday way teams get work done.

The Virtual WINs platform is designed to effectively engage teams working virtually. Anyone

who can facilitate a team to brainstorm ideas, evaluate them, and assign actions can do so better,

faster, and with a heck of a lot more fun in a WIN.

Traditional Online Meetings One topic at a time (hopefully)

One person at a time (hopefully)

Decisions by last person talking/typing

Shallow buy-in and documentation

Tedious and NOT the best we can do

Virtual WINs Online Meetings Many topics and people at a time

Amazing if done at the same time

More powerful if done any time

Decisions made per a process

Deep buy-in, everything documented

By using the private team social networking, the same professionals can coach people to get up-

to-speed with each other and the purposes they share. Build great teams in the same place you

facilitate great team efforts.

The New World – Why Virtual WINs

Pick your reason – flattened management teams, global supply chains, travel costs, security

fears, inability to truly engage people with existing technologies, competitive drive to accelerate

decisions, multi-generation workforce, pace of change – in our new world, learning to work

more effectively in virtual teams is a necessity.

What’s needed is a new level of collaboration, beyond people sharing and networking to people

thinking, creating, deciding and doing.

“Virtual WINs isn’t for socializing. It is for when you have

something to accomplish”

Peggy Joyner, Past Chair, PMI-Atlanta, CDC IT Strategic Planning

Our focus is on enabling professionals to facilitate great team efforts, whether these efforts have

the luxury of participants meeting face-to-face, blended with a core group meeting face-to-face,

or with everyone participating virtually. Whether meeting at the same time, or with people

participating when they can, and whether for a one-time event, or for complex projects.


John Carroll Page 3

Recent efforts with the CDC to update their IT strategic plan, RANA engaging teams in federal

agencies and the private sector, the Jholdas Group working with the Florida Conference of the

United Methodist Church, Stratagem working with the Board of the World Trade Center of

Atlanta, and other partners working with financial institutions, schools, health systems,

professional associations, and more confirms that, yes, teams CAN eliminate much or all travel,

while BETTER engaging MORE people than otherwise possible.

Most importantly, in all of these efforts, our partners didn’t need us to facilitate, nor in many

cases to even design and map the process sessions. We coached from the sidelines as the

professionals facilitated their own WINs!

Imagine - Every Team WINs

The Virtual WINs breakthrough is to enable every team to benefit from the power of facilitated

collaboration and decision making. Imagine everyone who should be involved before decisions

are made able to fully interact with each other, get on the same page, identify opportunities and

risks, freely consider potential solutions, and act rapidly, decisively, confidently, and

successfully – all of the time.

Just imagine 10, 20, 100, or more people using robust facilitation tools to exchange ideas,

comments, and questions simultaneously and even anonymously. Imagine people raising issues

that otherwise would be difficult to discuss. Imagine people making decisions, assigning tasks

and timeframes, with everything documented and tasks posting to people’s profiles.

Now, imagine all of this done virtually, with teams using short duration, same time sessions

combined with asynchronous activities where people work on their own schedule, alerted when

there are updates or new activities. Individuals using team networking to get up-to-speed with

each other and about their shared purposes, with thought leaders and subject matter experts

(SMEs) assigned to blog privately and share media.

The result - vastly improved outcomes with far more people involved, more factors considered,

greater buy-in achieved, and reduced time and cost for implementation.

Now that it is easier, faster, less expensive, and less risky to do the right things right, no more

excuses.

Key Benefits

The benefits to the team, project, business, or other enterprise are immediate and enormous.

Cut online meeting time by 50%

Reduce project time by 50%-90%

Cut face-to-face meetings, and travel, by 50%-100%

Vastly expand participation and satisfaction, especially if using optional anonymity

People able to get to know each other better than many who can meet face-to-face

Generate confidence people’s time will be well spent


John Carroll Page 4

For the professional firms who embrace what is now possible in a WIN and migrate to delivering

services virtually, the competitive advantages are enormous, too.

And, before you ask, NO, this is NOT what teams are doing with WebEx, Live Meeting,

GoToMeeting, AnyMeeting, nor with SharePoint, Drupal, Basecamp, nor with PBWorks, Jive,

Mindjet, Twitter, nor LinkedIn, Facebook, Ning, Skype….useful as many of these are for their

primary purposes.

WINs are for those ready for what comes next in online collaboration – facilitating teams with

proven group processes and decision making discipline. Top talent teams going beyond sharing

and networking to thinking, creating, deciding, and getting work done.

Virtual WINs - Add Process & Discipline

In this time of greater uncertainty and less structure, purpose-driven people crave process and

decision-making discipline. The Virtual WINs platform gives people confidence they can

succeed, and access to the processes, tools, and top talent they need to realize success.

WINs provide secure online workplaces to enable teams to get to decisions faster with better

results while using less effort. WINs utilize the power of facilitation tools and proven group

process “team maps” to allow every session to follow a proper process to achieve optimal results.

Leaders no longer have the luxury of “winging it.” Creativity based on intuition is highly

valued, though in today’s new world, that intuition had better be founded on a full grasp of every

aspect of a decision. Minimizing business risk, ensuring you wring every last electron of

knowledge, judgment, and creativity out of your leadership community, project team, or board,

while also accelerating decision making - that’s what facilitators enable teams do in a WIN.

In a WIN, when need or opportunity arise, people can immediately come together and work

through proven group processes, illuminate uncertainty, share their thinking, magnify collective

brilliance, make decisions, assign actions, and get work done.

The result is significantly improved and accelerated decision-making and better implementation

as everyone is up-to-speed and part of the solution. Continuously…All the time…Right now.

Leap from “Me Tools” to “We Tools”

Me Tools - what we have seen so far with Web 2.0 and “collaboration” technologies has been to

extend the ability of individuals to be productive working virtually – “Me Tools”. From iPhones

to Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin, a Me Tool further extends the ability of individuals to

perform in a world that is increasingly comprised of people working virtual. Great! Use them as

much as you can for individual purposes.

We Tools - The focus of WINs is on the performance of the team, community, network,

business, or enterprise. For example, in a WIN social networking becomes team networking and

is a “We Tool” designed to transfer many of the tasks of team formation and team building to

people to do themselves.


John Carroll Page 5

In Virtual WINs, if you share a file, or post a blog, it is to serve the purpose of the business,

project, community, team, process, or other shared purpose. Use Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook,

and other great tools for your individual purposes. WINs are for Teams!

Top 10 Accelerators for Rapidly Performing Teams

1. 100/80/100 - strive for 100% participation, tapping the 80% of any group's knowledge that

is in people's heads, and the 100% of assumptions upon which decisions are actually based

that reside there as well.

2. Have a process - people invest themselves in efforts they have confidence will succeed,

evidenced by a known process with understood purpose, roles, and deliverables. If cross

functions, disciplines, generations, cultures, etc., have a glossary.

3. Make decisions about making decisions before making decisions, otherwise people

make it up each time or settle for last person talking/typing, as in most web conferences,

team spaces, and use of wikis.

4. Anonymity within known groups - improve solutions by elevating discourse above

personalities, politics, power struggles, fear of participation or fear of offending.

5. Asynchronous participation - vastly increase quantity and intensity of participation by

mixing same time interaction with any time, as-you-can participation.

6. Simultaneous participation - many-to-many participation on many topics enables top

people to participate where they can have the greatest impact, bypassing the tedium of

sequential processes.

7. Vote early and often - the first vote often surfaces uncertainties and misunderstandings,

catalyzing better discussions, and frequently additional votes resulting in greater clarity,

certainty, and confidence in decisions.

8. Tag and bound SMEs - identify subject matter experts upfront, bounded by subject,

recognizing the limitations of SMEs by definition if tasked with creating a new order of

things. Tip – if pursuing a truly new order of things, there aren’t any SMEs.

9. Bias for decision-making - not having to look back is essential for going fast. Neither

head-nodding nor silence equate to making decisions.

10. Expect rapid performance - design processes so people to get themselves and each other

up-to-speed using the Virtual WINs team networking tools as everyone expects the other

participants to perform immediately.

“We just did in 10 minutes what normally takes hours!”

Dave Jones, Altus Alliance


John Carroll Page 6

Twenty-Five Year Technology Evolution

For the past 25+ years I’ve worked to harness technologies for engaging far-flung leadership

communities and project teams, beginning with efforts to plan innovations for serving our then

newly emerging senior markets. I then pioneered the application of facilitation tools, starting

with IBM’s Team Focus, and moving on to GroupSystems, WebIQ, and now coaching others to

do the same using Virtual WINs.

The following strategy formulation efforts provide an overview of the evolution of technologies

and approaches. A key criterion when assessing the effectiveness of an approach, and one to

bear in mind when contrasting with social networks, is the percentage of penetration of a

leadership community. Where social networks are focused on quantity of participants to

“emerge”, facilitators using Virtual Wins are seeking to achieve high levels of participation of

the right people, right away! No time for emergence.

25 Years Ago To plan a new association, the first to focus on all entities serving seniors, we designed and

implemented an innovative approach using a multi-iteration survey, a Delphi study, with 50+

leaders from all sectors serving seniors – from developers breaking ground to academicians in

the midst of 10-year studies.

We used diskettes, overnight mail, WordStar with mail-merge to assimilate responses, and even

included a psychological profile instrument to determine the optimal groupings of participants to

maximize creativity in the face-to-face summit we facilitated using flipcharts, markers, and

voting matrices.

Technologies Used – multi-iteration surveys, WordStar, diskettes, overnight mail, Fax,

flipcharts, and tape.

Penetration – every one of the 50+ participated in the preliminary activities, and ~40 in

the face-to-face, with some declaring it the most creative experience of their career.

This graphic, from seminars I gave

between ’86 and ’91 on the “Business

Opportunities in an Aging Society” to

the American Society of Aging,

NASLI, AHCA, ABA, NIC, and the

launch of the Center for Creative

Retirement at UNC Asheville,

illustrates the reality that we are the

first society ever to be middle-age

oriented.

Virtual WINs will enable us to tap the creative potential of our diverse youth, leverage the

productivity dividend of our middle-aged workforce, and mine the latent wealth of wisdom,

experience, and foresight of our elders through intergenerational collaboration.


John Carroll Page 7

12 Years Ago After the acquisition of an assemblage of 18 businesses in the same industry, we were charged

with planning the operational merger. The approach we designed entailed facilitating fifteen

teams of 15 participants through a 90 day process – 225 executives and managers from

companies who all considered each other competitors, and that their own company was the only

one doing things right.

We used our Canyon Leaping approach for strategy formulation to guide each team as they

painted a vivid, shared vision of success, and then planned how they got there.

We used face-to-face kick-off sessions at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport conference

facility for fly-in/fly-out one day kick-off sessions for four teams a day where people were issued

laptops, and, using GroupSystems and four portable networks, were guided through the initial

planning activities.

Each person was set-up with AOL accounts, the only means at the time to have cross-enterprise

interaction, and was guided through activities using email, chat rooms, and instant messaging.

Many recall 2 AM IMs, and I recall facilitating one critical meeting while on a pontoon boat in

Michigan where, supposedly on vacation, I was simultaneously fishing with my son and niece,

and using my laptop and a cell-phone modem. Pretty amazing considering this was last century!

We completed the effort 20 days early, with only 2 face-to-face meetings for each team required,

rather than the original estimate of 5 per team (that’s a reduction of 3 trips per person for 2/3rds

of 15 teams of 15 people, as most people needed to travel – or approximately 450 less trips!)

greatly reducing the overall cost of the effort.

Technologies Used – Flyin/flyout meetings, GroupSystems, portable laptop networks,

teleconferences, video conferences, NetMeeting, AOL Chat Rooms, and AOL IM.

Penetration – nearly 100% - some were owners of the acquired firms and took a pass,

the rest became successful Canyon Leapers.

8 years ago OK, this one was face-to-face, yet it shows the power of facilitation tools and what is now

possible virtually as a comparison. A global supply chain needed to design a new business

model.

Eighteen highly competent subject matter experts were convened. Using our Canyon Leaping

process for strategy formulation from the Vision Side, they first decided that if fourteen agreed,

all eighteen would support a decision. Then, after identifying the key stakeholders, they were

challenged to “Leap the Canyon” and paint their vision of success for each stakeholder.

With significant debate and discussion, and by continuously applying their decision criteria, they

utilized anonymity and simultaneous exchange to rapidly build consensus. They then wielded

this vivid, Shared Vision to identify the “BIG IDEAS” that got them over their Canyon, the

“Baggage” left behind, high level maps of both the “As Is” and “To Be” processes and a detailed

Action Plan with assignments, dependencies, and timeframes.


John Carroll Page 8

Now, realistically, how long would such an effort take with traditional means? This effort took

not 6 ½ months as many estimate, or 6 ½ weeks, not even 6 ½ days. It took 6 ½ hours! And

now, eight years later, this whole process can be done virtually, though we certainly wouldn’t

need to do everything in a single, same time 6 ½ hour session. And, we could involve dozens,

even hundreds more experts, top thinkers, and leaders to improve outcomes, and speed the

implementation by reducing risks and misunderstandings.

Even more important to scaling, they wouldn’t need me as any professional facilitator or project

manager could facilitate such a WIN using the Canyon Leaping Team Map.

Technologies Used – portable laptop network with GroupSystems.

Penetration – 100% participation.

5 Years Ago Twenty-six participants from 15 locations of a global healthcare organization needed to provide

requirements for a major, complex project, and this needed to be done in a timely manner – the

day after we were asked to facilitate the session.

With the project’s consultant, we set-up Ids and passwords for each participant, designed the

session, imported draft requirements and loaded background documents for download, review,

and commenting before the session.

During the session, we utilized both full team participation on single activities, and sub-teams to

process through a series of topics, rotating teams for review and follow-up so that everyone had

the chance to have their say – and know they were heard – on every topic.

The only difficulty was that more people than expected were able to participate – because word

spread about what we were doing, overloading the conference call bridge – though everyone was

able to participate online while the conference call bridge was expanded, and the 90-minute

session wrapped up 10 minutes early!

Technologies Used – WebIQ and teleconference

Penetration – 100%+ - more people than originally invited asked to participate!

Today

Jim Seligman, the CIO of the CDC, had some aggressive targets for the CDC’s first use of

Virtual WINs. The project, the update of the CDC’s IT Strategic Plan (CITSP):

1. Eliminate face-to-face meetings

2. Engage more people

3. Provide a safe environment for people working across disciplines and hierarchy

4. Enable people to participate asynchronously

5. CDC professionals able to facilitate with minimum of coaching

“Everyone was raving about the experience in using the tool….

It was a great enabler of the process.”

Jim Seligman, CIO, CDC


John Carroll Page 9

Virtual WINs Architecture

WIN Front Page

Similar to the SaaS website, www.virtualwins.com, the front page of a WIN can be designed

with multiple pages. Alternatively, links to specific WIN Community Pages, or even to specific

Workplaces, Sessions, or Activities can be placed on existing websites enabling participants to

login, bypassing the front page.

WIN Community Page

Each WIN Community has a Community Page to provide a private place for keeping up with the

activity occurring within each WIN Community. The functionality includes:

Recent Blogs – list and link to recent blogs from members and workplaces

Featured Member – display and link to top experts, coaches, or other members

Featured Workplace – display and link to orientation or other workplaces

Featured Blog – display most recent blog post of key member or workplace

Community-wide Q&A – everyone can post questions or discussion topics and respond

Message Boxes – from announcements to links to videos hosted on other sites

http://www.virtualwins.com/


John Carroll Page 10

Process Session Activities – Facilitation Tools

Process Sessions are designed using a wide variety of facilitation tools for people to share ideas,

discuss, decide, and assign. Great for simple meetings, crafting documents, or facilitating

complex group processes. The WIN Process Session Activities:

List – brainstorm a list or import an existing list or document to discuss

Category List – brainstorm within categories or import a document

List to Category List – moderators identify categories and move list items to categories

Select – moderators or participants can select items

Vote – participants approve, disapprove, or abstain

Prioritize – evaluate a list or category list

Estimate – great for budget preparation

Range Estimate – reveal the true level of uncertainty in a team

Order – sequence a process or rank order options

Weighted Criteria – evaluate lists or category lists using multiple weighted criteria

Tasks – create tasks with dates and assignments that post to people’s profiles

Media – upload and share files, images, or documents

Text & Links – insert notes or include links to videos or other tools hosted on other sites

Publish – all ideas, discussions, decisions, and assignments are automatically

documented with HTML report ready for printing and XML for exporting

Clipboard – used to copy and paste content within and between sessions. Additionally,

moderators have the ability to clip and paste from external content enabling import of

existing documents for group writing and approval.

Member Profiles

Members have their own profile with a lean set of team social networking tools. The team focus

is designed so that a person can have their basic profile (photo, contact information) replicated to

each WIN Community they join, with shared media, private blogging, and messaging specific to

each Community. For example, Dr. Young’s blog in the XYZ Community can be different than

one she might post in the ABC Community. Member Profile tabs display:

Workplaces – public or private with shared media, blog, and process sessions

Tasks – to-do list and links from tasks assigned in process sessions

Blog – each person can post blogs that are private to the Community

Media – people can upload documents, photos and other media to share

Bio – a brief biography

Basics – share as much or as little information as you choose, and opt for sending

messages and invitations to your email



Workplaces

Process Sessions – group processes mapped using Virtual WINs facilitation tools, either

by clipping, pasting, and tweaking a WIN Team Map, or by creating new sessions

Blog – members can post to a shared blog and comment on the posts of each other – blog

posts are anonymous, while comments are attributed

Media – workplace participants can share documents, photos, and other media

Roster – view members and link to their profiles. Workplace moderators can add people

and send invitations with links to login directly to the workplace

Virtual WINs Team Maps

For the next project, why not try something different? Rather than making it up each time, as

most teams are forced to do, especially when working virtually with web conferencing, wikis,

discussion boards, and team spaces.

Instead of hoping that a diverse group of individuals will somehow bond and figure out how to

use all of the technology you throw at them, how about changing the game? Try a Virtual WINs

Team Map.

In addition to mapping our own processes, we team with top professionals to map their

proprietary processes. For example, we teamed with a consulting firm to map the firm’s

proprietary strategic planning and course correction processes, enabling their client to replace

quarterly ½-day face-to-face meetings for eight regions, with 90-minute conference calls, with

all participants reporting better outcomes. After the first quarterly sessions, the regional training

managers assumed the role of facilitators, with co-facilitation support from our Coaches.

The growing WIN Team Map Store with proven, repeatable group process Team Maps will

vastly expand the reach of effective facilitation of virtual teams. For example, facilitators can

assemble a team, clip the “Action Planning Team Map”, tweak the Team Map as needed, and

facilitate people to brainstorm possible actions, discuss them thoroughly, evaluate, make

decisions, and assign tasks, with everything documented automatically. Another Simple WIN!

Each WIN Community can be equipped with a core set of Team Maps that address many of the

needs for facilitating virtual teams. The following are the Top 10 WIN Process Team Maps



Top 10 WIN Process Team Maps

1. Canyon Leaping Session “The first thing we did….”

Paint Shared Vision of Success

Plan from the Vision Side

2. Sales Strategy Identify Targets

Strategies

Tactics

Assignments

3. BIG IDEAS & Baggage Drop Build Shared Foresight

BIG IDEAS

Baggage Drop

Action Plan

4. SWOT+ Strengths

Weaknesses

Opportunities

Threats

…and Actions

5. Risk Assessment Identify Risks & Assess

o Severity

o Probability

o Visibility



6. Customer-Centric Values Identify Values & Assess

o Importance

o Customer Visibility

o How Well We Live

Assess Gaps & Address

7. Project Team Lifecycle Project Charter

…to…

Lessons Learned

8. Action Planning Brainstorm & Discuss Actions

Evaluate & Decide

Assign Tasks & Timeframes

9. Budgeting Identify Budget Items

Range Estimate LOE

Range Estimate Costs

10. Advisory Board High Points

Challenges

Key Performance Indicators

Actions & Assignments



Team Map Example - Action Planning

This Virtual WINs Team Map includes a series of activities for either asynchronous or same time

participation to enable a team to move rapidly through idea generation to the assignment of

responsibilities and timeframes for starting and completing tasks. Facilitators using Virtual WINs

can clip and paste the Team Map into their own workplace, tweak the activities, invite

participants, and facilitate a team to rapidly create an action plan.

Action Planning Session Team App

Brainstorm Ideas Discuss Ideas

Merge Redundant Ideas First Evaluation

Surface reasons #1 & #2 for disagreeing

Weed out weak ideas

Generates great discussions

Discuss, Add Ideas, Edit, & Merge

Second Evaluation of Ideas

Create Action Plan (assignments & due dates)

Publish Report (discussions, decisions, tasks)

Optional Activities Estimate Level of Effort

Estimate Costs

Risk Assessment (three criteria)



Lessons for Launching Virtual WINs Communities

The focus of these lessons is to get 80%-100% active participation. Regardless of the purpose of

the community most of these lessons should apply.

Lesson 1 - Warm-Embrace Offer a combination of technologies and human interaction to enable individuals to feel

comfortable with the many-to-many collaboration of Virtual WINs facilitation tools and team

networking. This is especially important cross cultures and cross generations with differences in

language, life experiences, and methods of collaboration and decision-making.

Lesson 2 – Pre-Wire People Set-up so that people are already part of the orientation workplace with initial task assignments.

Lesson 3 - Multiple Orientation Approaches

Support people from where they are in getting comfortable using the tools and confident their

time will be well spent.

While technologies are increasingly easy to use, most people find it helpful to have a brief 5-10

minute orientation before posting their first blog, uploading their picture, posting a bio, or before

participating in their first session using facilitation tools.

Whether just-in-time, one-on-one orientations at the time of a meeting, scheduled formal team or

informal group orientations, self-orientations, or via streaming video tutorials, the goal is to be

there to give participants what they need, how they need it, and when they need it.

Our experience is that ~40-60% of the people will attend group orientations, another ~30-50%

will make it to one-on-one or will orient themselves, while the remainder will call in late to a

conference call, unable to login. For these, we’ve learned to schedule a back-up call and an

additional Online Coach.

Lesson 4 - Coaches and Catalysts Orientation Include targets and milestones for seeding the Community with content. Online Coaches are the

people who will provide coaching to new participants, while Community Catalysts (who may be

the same people) are charged with seeding content.

Lesson 5 - Communication Campaign and Participant Recruitment Integrated program for inviting people to register, announcing upcoming activities, and

requesting participation in orientation sessions. A combination of email invitations,

announcements, newsletters, orientation videos, team orientation sessions, and Online Coaching.

Tools ranging from MailChimp to EventBrite may be very useful in your campaigns.

Lesson 6 - Sponsor Recruitment and Advertising Placement Targeted online communities are becoming highly valued by those who would like to get their

own message to the members. Most communities will not be of a size to justify Google Ads,

though they are great opportunities for highly targeted sponsorship advertising, and through

exclusivity, justify membership fees.



Lesson 7 - “Perfect Meeting” Warm-Up Activities A perfect meeting we describe as one where people come up with ideas, discusses them

thoroughly, make decisions, and assign actions. Most meetings only do the first activity fairly

well, not much of the second, and avoid the third.

Our warm-up activities prepare people by helping them shift from what they had been doing

prior to the session. This is an essential step, especially considering the tendency for people

working virtually to not schedule any breaks – often leaving one conference call early to join

another one late. The warm-up activities provide orientation in a non-threatening manner, using

a topic removed from the reason for getting together.

For example, asking participants to enter their favorite vacation destination, than having them

make comments on each other’s ideas, or ask and answer questions. Then, take the list and have

people evaluate each of the destinations on a scale of 1 to 5 as to whether they agree it is a great

destination for a vacation. In 10-15 minutes we will have gone through all three stages of a

perfect meeting – the first time for most participants.

Lesson 8 - On-Call Online Community Coaching

Access to Online Community Coaches provides an essential level of support to accelerate and

increase participation. Using Skype, www.freeconferencecall.com, or similar, enabling people to

contact someone for help is a simple matter – and doing so will materially and positively impact

participation.

Coaches are on call for participants and moderators, for simple one-on-one orientations (or re-

orientations), or to help guide the mapping of complex group processes to the Virtual WINs

facilitation tools.

Online Community Coaches are important during early adoption so word spreads that

participation is easy and well worth the effort, thereby reducing the need for Coaches as use

becomes normalized.

http://www.freeconferencecall.com/



Lessons for Coaches, Facilitators, & Moderators

Virtual WINs facilitation tools enable people to harness many-to-many interaction and weave in

group processes and decision-making.

Lesson 1 - Dive Right In Resist the temptation to tell people how good it is going to be and instead jump right in with an

active learning experience. Our goal is to have people hitting the keyboards within the first 5

minutes to experience true many-to-many interaction.

Lesson 2 – Walk Before You Run Resist the temptation to try all of the facilitation tools with new participants. Let everyone get

comfortable first – the value and impact of just brainstorming ideas, discussing them, voting and

assigning actions is sufficient.

Lesson 3 - The Power of Silence If everyone is asked to type in their thinking at the same time, guess what? People are going to

be silent – for far longer than they have ever experienced silence on a conference call before,

with everyone absorbed in many-to-many collaboration as each other’s ideas and immediately

displayed.

Lesson 4 - Make Decisions about Making Decisions BEFORE Making Decisions Or, continue to make decisions about making decisions every time you make decisions. Give

people confidence by deciding upfront how decisions will be made.

For example:

Determining the percent that need to agree in order for all to support a decision.

Deciding if a subject matter expert (SME) can call for the floor and further discussion if

they are one of the dissenters.

Identifying who are the subject matter experts and for what subjects.

Lesson 5 - Vote Early and Often Call it “polling”, “evaluating” or whatever is politically correct in your environment. The fastest

way to kick interaction up a notch is to ask people to vote on something they’ve been discussing.

Once a team goes through the mental switch from dialogue to decision making, assumptions

masquerading as facts, knowledge gaps, and hidden agendas surface, launching some of the best

vocal discussions, thereby eliminating 2 of the 3 reasons people disagree.

1. People not having a common understanding of the alternatives

2. People not having a common understanding of the criteria

3. People come equipped with different knowledge, assumptions, experience, judgment,

wisdom, and foresight – the real wealth of a community.

Getting rid of the first two allows teams to concentrate on leveraging the latent value in the

strengths of our individual diversity (subject matter expertise, cultural, life experience,

generational, etc.) of the third reason people disagree.



With greater clarity on the alternatives and the criteria, the team votes again. What will surface is

convergence on a solution, or the recognition of the existence of well supported alternatives.

Voting transforms a meeting from simply informing to robustly engaging people in GREAT

vocal dialogues about what is REALLY important. And, with voting so easy in a Virtual WINs

session, people often vote at least twice, with the first vote igniting clarifying discussions, the

second driving to decisions.

Lesson 6 - Group Writing in a WIN - The Super Wiki Participants generate a draft document and recommend improvements virtually, while voting for

each paragraph of the document (Yes I Support, Yes with Edits, No I Don’t Support). As edits

are made, people return to the continuous session and updated their votes until all parties agree.

Lesson 7 - 2-3 Minute Follow-Up Think of the last PowerPoint Presentation you sat through – face-to-face or virtually. At the

completion, when a call for questions was made, at best 3 or 4 of the 10, 20, 50 + people spoke

up, and the discussion was surface level.

Every time we add a 2-3 minute (yes, just 2-3 minutes) Q&A activity at the end of a PowerPoint

presentation, 10, 20, or 50+ people hit the keyboards and there is no question remaining as to

whether the participants “get it”. And, where they don’t, more often than not the other

participants teach each other what they learned before the presenter responds.

Lesson 8 - Begin with a Straw man

Especially with large groups, seed idea generation and discussions with initial lists and examples

(strawmen). People will see what to do by example, including the recommended syntax for

wording of ideas. Where wording isn’t consistent, you will find that with anonymity, the team

will self-correct. The intention isn’t to offer a recommended listing that is nearly complete, but a

starter set to ignite the creativity of the team.

Lesson 9 - Multiple Facilitator Screens

Logging on from multiple PCs or laptops can be very helpful. This enables the facilitator to have

one screen devoted to guiding participants through the various activities; with another screen

showing the participant’s view, or to see how participants might view the screen using a different

browser.

80% of IT budgets are spent on managing 4% of an

organization’s knowledge – structured data.*

We focus on engaging the 80% of an organization’s

knowledge, and 100% of the assumptions, that only

exists in people’s heads!

* Giga Information Group, Inc.



Lesson 10 – Accelerated Face-To-Face Sessions The Virtual WINs facilitation tools impact more than online efforts. Face-to-face sessions are

transformed as well, since much of what is often crammed into face-to-face efforts can now be

done online, allowing for much higher value uses of increasingly rare face-to-face time.

If you haven’t participated in a facilitated face-to-face session using collaborative decision tools,

please know a few basics:

You won’t get any other work done, so don’t bring any.

You will work intensely for the full session.

Most people are “brain-drained” in 4-6 hours, even with lunch, breaks, and only 40%-

60% of the time spent on the keyboards,

You will accomplish more in those 4-6 hours than most teams would do in 2-3 days, if

not weeks, or months, if even possible by other means.

Lesson 11 – Blended Sessions A blended session has a core group face-to-face, with remote participants for some or all of the

session activities. With Internet access, nearly any facility can host remote participants for

blended sessions. The result – getting a lot done and still having time for those able to be face-

to-face getting in an unhurried 18-holes of golf – turning a “Retreat” into a “Golftreat”, enjoying

a leisurely meal, or other great relationship building face-to-face activities.

Lesson 12 - Combination Same Time & Asynchronous Participation Asynchronous participation means people participate in continuously available sessions when

their schedule permits. This is a powerful capability for engaging participants, though just as

many-to-many Virtual WINs facilitation tools need to be experienced to understand the

possibilities, so do people need to experience the use of asynchronous participation to understand

the potential.

Many experienced teams find 30-60 minute same time sessions are sufficient, when interspersed

with asynchronous participation. For example, a 30-minute conference call once a week, with

individual and team assignments in between, or, a full team kick-off meeting for 60 minutes

followed by sub-team “jamming” asynchronously for 48 hours, followed by a core "Knowledge

Team" processing of the results of the sub-teams and reporting back to the full team prior to a

follow-up same time decision session. Whew! These tools enable a new level of creativity for

designing effective group processes.

Lesson 13 - Dual Team approach – this approach can be effective for many group processes.

A “Knowledge Team” is the core group who is charged with assimilating the input of the full

“Planning Team” and/or Sub-Teams, and moving the process forward, with ground rules for

doing so agreed upon up-front. The Knowledge Team designs and tests all Planning Team

activities.

Lesson 14 - Sub-Teams Sub-teams are highly effective when used to rapidly process through significant quantities of

input. In our processes we design for full team initial input on multiple topics (e.g., in our

Canyon Leaping process, teams are charged with envisioning what it will be like on the “Vision

Side” for the most important stakeholders).



Sub-teams are then asked to take off their individual “hats”, and put on their “team hats” and

work as representatives of the whole to summarize the input of all participants on a specific

topic, knowing that other sub-teams are doing the same for other topics or questions.

Returning to the “Main Tent”, sub-teams review their thinking, with other team members able to

respond vocally or anonymously via their keyboards. This same process can be adapted to

global teams participating in a series of sub-team activities, with asynchronous participation

between same time activities.

Lesson 15 - Conference Calls & Break-Out Rooms Creative use of a mixture of rapidly improving conferencing technologies, secondary conference

calls, asynchronous participation, and voice/video solutions such as Skype and ooVoo provide

the communications infrastructure needed to facilitate virtual team efforts. New, reliable and

cost effective solutions (e.g., www.freeconferencing.com, Adobe Connect, and Maestro) enable

large group processes with “Big Tent” conference calls, and multiple breakout conference call

rooms pre-set for use by sub-teams.

By establishing and clearly communicating a set of ground rules beforehand, people know that

leaving the full team conference call and going to their break-out conference call is just like

taking a break and walking to a physical break-out room.

Drive the point home by giving everyone 5 minutes so they can take care of personal matters

before meeting with their breakout group, then have them all return to the “Big Tent” for full

team reviews. The facilitator can proctor each of the breakout teams via the Virtual WINs

facilitation tools, as well as pop in on each of the separate breakout conference calls.

Lesson 16 - “Having Your Say” versus “Know You’ve Been Heard” By designing processes that weave together individual participation with sub-team and full-team

activities, buy-in to the results is significantly enhanced because people know that even if

decisions don’t go their way, at least they have been heard. The use of sub-teams to process and

summarize the input of the full team ensures that every idea and comment has been read and

considered.

When charging the sub-teams with what first appears a daunting task, summarizing a topic that

could easily have a couple of hundred comments, we simply assign the roles, request a scribe for

each team to enter bulleted summaries, and give them 10-15 minutes. Amidst initial grumbling,

people get to the task and pretty soon realize that rather than having someone else make

decisions about what they had to say; they can easily do it themselves. From there, the sub-

teams are off and running through the team stages of forming, storming, norming, and

performing. First team finished gets to pick the next topic to summarize.

Key to being able to focus each sub-team on summarizing separate topics is to convey that the

review step includes a discussion stage where the full team can review each of the sub-team’s

summaries and interject comments – either vocally or anonymously via the keyboards. This

either ignites further creative discussions and changes, or simply enables dissenters to gain

closure because they know they’ve been heard.

http://www.freeconferencing.com/



Lesson 17 - Parking Lots In a face-to-face session, a facilitator will often use a separate flipchart to list topics or issues that

surface that need to be addressed, but that are NOT the focus of the specific session. Parking

Lots take on a heightened value in virtual team efforts, especially with asynchronous

participation.

When utilized with anonymous participation, teams are able to voice tangential, yet important

topics, and receive a full airing, without hampering the progress of the core process. Parking lots

are also a great place to move otherwise disruptive “team humor” so it can instead have a

constructive, relationship building role.

Lesson 18 - Back-up Coaching To minimize disruption, and to help those having problems to get help without feeling

uncomfortable, provide “Back-up Coaching”. Back-up coaching makes use of an Online

Community Coach to provide one-on-one or small group orientations by asking anyone still

having problems to hang-up and call back in using a secondary conference call number.

Secondary numbers and/or breakout room conference call numbers are included in the pre-

session information.

Often simply knowing they can return later to add their thinking through blogs or their ideas and

votes in session activities, all asynchronously, will enable the session to move forward.



Lessons for Participating in Online Sessions

Lesson 1 - Ground Rules for Online Sessions

Many of these ground rules should serve as the foundation for all facilitated sessions – they are

just MORE important when people are participating virtually. The reality, they are treated as

LESS important for virtual meetings, resulting in many of the poor behaviors.

All sessions have agendas.

All sessions begin by enabling people to get a GRIP – goals, roles, information, and process.

All sessions start on time, break on time, and end on time – unless, of course, if meeting

asynchronously when people can participate at any time.

Everyone participates – “hitting the keyboards” for many-to-many interaction rather than

succumbing to traditional linear one-to-many “dialogues”.

The happy irony of hitting the keyboards is that this launches far better vocal discussions as

the choir-preaching, show-boating, meeting-bullying, or other means by which people gain

and wield power in traditional group processes are bypassed.

Pre-work is provided with sufficient time for completion.

All pre-work is completed prior to a session.

Failure to complete pre-work has known consequences (e.g., login 10 minutes early for rapid

review, loss of voting rights, loss of SME status, revoke invitation, etc.)

Subject Matter Experts (SME) are identified BEFORE sessions, and are bounded to their

subjects to serve as experts.

Conduct ourselves with a “bias for decision-making”, so that when the opportunity for

making a decision exists, we make it and record it.

Neither head nodding nor silence is accepted as a substitute for decision-making. Nor is the

last person talking/typing tolerated as the decision-making approach.

Any team member can call for a vote at any time in the process.

Patience will be extended to participants working in a second language, or who are working

through the aid of a translator or similar assistance.

Cross-functional, and especially cross-cultural teams require a Team Glossary so that a

common language is built and utilized consistently.

Respect the time investment made by other participants – don’t bring other work to the

session expecting to get it done in between participating.

Once you have a foundation, your team can lighten-up and have some fun, because everyone

builds confidence and trust that they will succeed and their time will be well used.

Lesson 2 - The Power of Teams Pretty quickly, people learn about the “Power of Teams” when everyone can get a word in

edgewise. In a traditional 1 hour meeting with 20 team members, everyone would get a

maximum of 3 minutes air time, though we all know that 3 or 4 people will dominate 50% - 80%

of the meeting time.

In a session where people have access to Virtual WINs facilitation tools, everyone gets to talk at

once. Assuming 50% of the time is spent on the keyboards, that means everyone will get 30

minutes – or 7 to 10 times what they would have gotten even in the best of meetings, with even

the “Meeting Bullies” getting more time!



Lesson 3 - Power of Simultaneous, Many-to-Many Collaboration An example from hundreds of face-to-face sessions that can now be magnified with virtual

teams. At the Carter Center, we were awaiting a visit by the heads of thirty of the top

Foundations to hold a 45-minute demonstration of the Collaboration Room where I served as a

volunteer facilitator.

We were informed, due to the opportunity for an extended visit with President Carter, we would

only have 15 minutes! During that time, these leaders created a list of the top issues confronting

our children in urban areas, discussed them and why they were important, than rated them to

decide on those that were most important to address. We handed everyone a report of the results

on their way out the door.

Lesson 4 - Power of Anonymity While many have read the works of quality guru, W. Edwards Deming, few have experienced the

power of a safe environment he called for, such as is created by the use of optional anonymity.

Creativity flourishes, as people are able to freely tap the thinking of each other.

Anonymity provides safety.

Anonymity provides leveraged creativity -- separating ideas from the personalities,

igniting people to expand each other’s thinking.

Anonymity enables people to tell someone they care about that their ideas are wrong.

Anonymity launches some of the most fruitful, enjoyable, engaging dialogues.

Anonymity accelerates team formation and building of trust, thereby eliminating many of

the reasons for needing anonymity.

Anonymity can have another significant benefit, diffusing the individual who will not be silenced

on a conference call or in a face-to-face meeting, the “Meeting Bullies”. With optional

anonymity, everyone is able to fully participate, even if some others try to monopolize either the

vocal discussion, or the onscreen dialogue.

If you want to know what people really think, you need to provide them the means to speak

openly. The easiest way to do this is to protect them by providing them with anonymity and a

process everyone has confidence will work.

An example was a quality team charged with developing clinical standards. The team of eight

physicians, supposedly peer subject matter experts, had one amongst them who felt he was the

team leader. After our warm-up activities, we launched the team into a brainstorming activity

and seven of them hit the keyboards while the eighth one assumed his normal role of lecturing

his colleagues – for about 10 minutes straight. Taking a breath he paused to look at his screen

and realized people had been typing ideas other than his. The rules hadn’t really changed, the

tools simply made the rules effective – that everyone on the team participate!

Lesson 5 – Don’t Assume the BIG Stuff

Another example of the power of anonymity is in taking on the BIG stuff using traditional brain-

writing. “What business are we in?” was printed on 5×7 index cards. The eight senior

executives who had all worked together in the same business for at least 25 years were amazed



when I charted their statements they had written on the cards onto flipcharts and they realized not

one of them was in the same business. Don’t assume the big stuff was the other lesson.

Leap ahead 30+ years and the same lessons apply. However, corporate cultures that insist on

“openness” and “people speaking their minds” settle for the wisdom of the willing as the best we

can do. Great, if you really have such a culture. Do you?

The reality is that the assumptions about the big stuff are even more important to debunk.

Anonymity out on the open Internet is absurd. Anonymity within known or knowable groups can

provide the safety needed for people to reveal their true levels of uncertainty and elevate each

other above remaining barriers to innovation.

As teams evolve in their confidence, trust, and knowledge of each other, the benefits of

anonymity will `iminish; though will still be used simply to minimize the clutter on the screen by

not having the user ids listed for every comment.

Lesson 6 – Lead Rather Than Dominate

An example of true leadership in my view was when the Chairman of a holding company asked

me for some coaching during a session with his top executives. When reviewing his input, it was

obvious he was submitting ideas he was publicly against. He explained that for some thorny

issues, he needed his people to think through them, rather than just telling them what to do or not

do, and that by anonymously floating ideas contrary to his position; his leadership team could

debate the ideas without fear.

Lesson 7 - Fear of Misuse of Anonymity In 20 years facilitating teams using facilitation tools, with anonymity and simultaneous exchange

of ideas, we have found people respect the safe environment created by the facilitator, group

process, and the technologies. I have seen less than a handful of personal attacks – that are

themselves easy to address with the technology - as people appreciate the opportunity to not only

have a chance to have their say, to know they have been heard. Even in hundreds of sessions

focused on some of the most controversial issues of our time.

Lesson 8 - Attributed-to-Anonymous A creativity technique where the initial set of ideas is generated in an activity where the

participant is identified with their ideas. Then, once these ideas have been processed (e.g.,

redundant ideas merged, a simple Yes/No evaluation and subsequent discussion for

clarification), they are transferred to another activity that is set-up for anonymous input so that

everyone can build on the ideas of each other without concern for who is saying what. The

reverse can also prove to be an effective creativity technique.

CAUTION

People who only know how to dominate may

be uncomfortable with the level of

collaboration these tools enable.



Lesson 9 - Power for International Teams During a kick-off session for a European based global manufacturer, we asked the managers

from Europe, Asia, and South America what they thought of the process and tools we were

using. The response was that they could finally get their thoughts into the session, rather than

just listening to a few for whom English is their first language do all of the talking, and that they

could read and understand everyone else’s ideas much faster than they could when people were

talking.

Lesson 10 - People Want to Work – People Expect Everyone Else to Participate

If you can show people you are not going to waste their time, a feeling of confidence that real

work can be done virtually will rapidly permeate a team. This becomes a positive, self-fulfilling

prophecy as people participate more intensely and effectively, reducing the overall time, cost,

and disruption to everyone.

Rather than facilitating to the lowest common denominator, expect everyone to do their best.

People want to do their best, so expect it of them. Manage the exceptions by having agreed upon

ground rules for the inevitable occurrences when people are not prepared, don’t show up on time,

leave early, multi-task on other work, etc.



Ending Poor Behavior in Virtual Meetings The initial technologies for virtual meetings (e.g., web conferencing, wikis, team spaces) often

grasped out of desperation and pushed beyond their capabilities, have led to the toleration of

undisciplined team efforts. Poor behavior dilutes much of the savings from not traveling, and

dilutes the confidence amongst participants that anything of value can be accomplished virtually.

The payback for eliminating these poor behaviors is enormous – to the business and to the

individual. Many of these poor behaviors apply to face-to-face meetings as well. Where they do

we’ve found they are worse in virtual meetings.

Poor Behaviors in Virtual Meetings

Poor behaviors that turn potentially great virtual meetings into just another in a seemingly

endless series of conference calls, include:

1. Virtual meetings – must not be worth it!

2. Everyone is multi-tasking

3. People don’t show up

4. Meetings don’t start on time

5. Few people do the pre-work

6. There is no pre-work

7. Few actively participate

8. No agenda, nor clear purpose for the meeting

9. Sponsor doesn’t prepare (tip-off – reads directly from yet another PowerPoint)

10. No team glossary

11. No clearly understood ground rules for proper individual and team behavior

12. “Meeting Bullies” dominate

13. Facilitator fails to ensure everyone is comfortable with the technologies

14. Remaining technophobes avoid any technology orientations

15. No clearly understood deliverables

16. No time allocated for relationship building

17. No effort to create excitement

18. No decisions made on anything of importance

19. Decisions, if made, made without a clear understanding of the alternatives

20. Decisions, if made, made without a clear understanding of the criteria.

21. No feedback from, nor follow-up to, the participants.

22. People expect the least from each other – and tolerate getting it!

This is NOT the best we can do!

People’s perception, backed by the inevitable poor performance from the self-fulfilling

prophecy, is that if a meeting is not worth being face-to-face, it must not be worth investing your

full effort. For many lean organizations, face-to-face is simply no longer an option. Even if you

could afford to, no one can get away!

Time for WINs!



About The Author John co-founded Virtual WINs, LLC in 2010. For the twenty years prior to this, John served as

the head of Dynamic Directions, Inc. which he founded in 1991, conducting successful planning

efforts for businesses, professional firms, and organizations across industries. John has particular

expertise in implementing technologies for virtual collaboration and decision-making.

As a pioneer in the application of technologies to facilitate virtual teams, John designed unique

approaches to engaging people, including the Canyon Leaping approach to strategy formulation

from the Vision side, Customer Advisory Boards to tap the latent value of this key resource, and

the Igniter Summit approach to engaging large groups of hundreds of participants.

John began his career at IBM, bringing business systems planning to large clients. He brought

sophisticated market research and planning to businesses and agencies serving the senior market.

John served as the lead instructor to over 700 partners of Deloitte & Touche for both business

development and the value added audit to assess the risks inherent in the strategies of publically

traded companies.

Recent clients range from the CDC, the Jholdas Group working with the United Methodist

Church, Great Lakes Dredge and Dock, Farm Management Canada, the Material Handling

Industry of America, Elekta, Tenet Healthcare, IBM, and the Association of Public Health

Laboratories (APHL).

For APHL, the State PHL’s, and the CDC labs, John served as the strategist, facilitator, and

community coach for PHLIP, the Public Health Laboratory Interoperability Project to

standardize vocabulary and messaging for infectious diseases, and co-authored the PHLIP

Primer, served on the core vocabulary team and as a contributor to the PHLIP ETOR HL7

messages.

John's focus now is on developing best practices for professional firms to build thriving online

communities of purpose using Virtual WINs and facilitating great team efforts.

Articles and papers written include:

Whittington, Carroll, "Strategic Planning for the Geriatric Care Organization," Aspen Press,

Topic in Geriatric Rehabilitation, 1987.

“Target Market Discrimination,” INSIGHTS, NASLI (National Association of Senior Living

Industries), 1990.

"The Integrated Project Team Approach to Strategy Formulation," INSIGHTS, NASLI, 1991.

"Canyon Leaping Collaboration: Lessons Learned Facilitating Virtual Teams," IAF

(International Association of Facilitators), 2006.

The 1987 paper was the first published in an Aspen healthcare journal to be allowed to use the

terms "marketing", "strategic planning", and "strategic management" as prior to this, each was

considered unethical in healthcare. Twenty-five years later, we can now deliver on the strategic

management concepts we introduced in this paper.