Interactive Workshop Activities for Virtual Collaboration
Engagement is the secret sauce for any virtual meeting or workshop. But, it’s tough to get people to stay focused—let alone actively participate. A recent survey found that more than half of workers admit they do other things (like check email or peruse social media) during online meetings. This is where workshop activities come in handy. These interactive exercises command attention, encourage contributions from everybody, foster team bonding, and help you run a collaborative session that’s free of groans and eye rolls.
Why should you add exercises and activities to your workshop?
You’ve likely heard the objections about putting yet another meeting on the calendar. But here’s the thing: Meetings aren’t inherently bad. When they’re structured and managed well, they can be a great thing for your team’s culture and productivity. Interactive workshop activities can help with that by offering the following benefits:
- Maintain focus: Workshop activities require all of your participants’ attention because they can’t sit back and watch—they need to chime in. Beyond keeping everybody involved, these exercises also keep your meeting on track. When your activity relates to the purpose of your meeting, it’s easier to stay zoned in on your meeting’s objective rather than getting sidetracked by tangents. When 71% of senior managers say meetings are unproductive and inefficient, that focus level is important.
- Encourage participation: Do you hear from the same people in every single meeting? Fortunately, a shared activity pulls contributions out of everybody—and not just your most extroverted team members. Hearing from everyone can be a struggle, but these exercises help.
- Build psychological safety: Your workshop activities don’t need to be all work and no play. Even the seemingly silly icebreakers serve a purpose. When a survey found that 62% of managers say meetings miss opportunities to bring the team closer together, these lighthearted exercises encourage bonding and foster more psychological safety on your team. That means your team will be more comfortable sharing their ideas, even if they’re a little out-of-the-box.
Don’t treat meeting exercises as a brief reprieve or total departure from your agenda items. Instead, integrate them into your workshop or conversation to encourage engagement and push things forward.
Types of activities and exercises
Whether you want to spark some friendly competition or lead creative brainstorming, there are sure to be some workshop activity ideas that suit your needs. Before we get into the exercises themselves, let’s cover some of the different categories these activities fall into:
- Icebreakers: These lighthearted workshop warm-up activities foster a sense of togetherness before you get into the meat and potatoes of your meeting. There’s always a little bit of awkwardness when you bring a group together (especially virtually), and these help.
- Energizers: Particularly if you’re hosting a longer meeting, a lot of sitting and listening can cause your participants’ eyes to glaze over. These energizer activities for workshops get everybody re-engaged in the conversation.
- Brainstorming: Several brains are better than one, but sometimes you need some structure to get the creative ideas flowing. These innovation workshop activities help to pull the biggest and best suggestions out of your team.
Workshop activities to engage your virtual team
Now that you know the different buckets that workshop activities can fall into, here are some different workshop activity ideas and templates to get into the good stuff.
Icebreaker workshop activities
- Share something: This simple icebreaker asks team members to share two things: a picture of something on their desk as well as something they’ve learned recently. It’s straightforward to run but helps your team members get to know each other a little better.
- When was the last time you …: Your team has probably experienced some disruptions to their normal routines while working remotely. This easy icebreaker pokes fun at that by asking your team to share the last time they did a certain action—like taking a shower or wearing “real” pants.
- The ‘big picture’ puzzle: This icebreaker will involve a little more preparation from the facilitator but it is a great way to get your team working together. You’ll create a puzzle from an image and upload the pieces to the template to facilitate the activity.
