Brainstorming with social distancing

How many times did you say, before the lockdown measures, that “everybody must be present in order to do that thing”?

And how many times did you discover, in the last few months, that “that thing” was feasible online as well?

However, some activities do not translate well. We got them done, but:

• the outcome was not as good and thorough as expected;
• the sense of accomplishment was missing;
• the results felt like a collection of individual contributions, not the result of teamwork.

Photo by Pexels, from pixabay.com

In some cases, this is also true for traditional meetings, but the proximity factors mitigates the feeling of exclusion, and one-to-one parallel interactions can provide alternative communication channels between participants. When meeting online, this is made much more difficult.

Let’s consider brainstorming in its classic format: the organizer wants to collect ideas, gathers people in a meeting, gives them some sticky notes and a pencil, and asks them to write their ideas and stick them on a whiteboard. What happens next?

• somebody does not feel like contributing because they do not consider themselves “a creative person”;
• somebody remains silent, even though they do have ideas, for fear of exposing…