Goals: Have attendees create a case study by editing a document at the same time.
Does it take forever for your meeting to create a document? Do you wish you could snap your fingers and get it done? Do you want to tap all the knowledge in your meeting quickly?
The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.
Your meeting is certainly smarter than a monkey. Collaboration tools have progressed rapidly. Google Docs can currently support 100 simultaneous editors. Microsoft Word can currently support 99 simultaneous editors.4 Use this power to get more work done.
Give your attendees the task of creating a case study in a limited amount of time and they will learn how to collaborate with each other and produce more work in the same amount of time.
Time: 10 minutes–2 hours
Participants: 2–99 per team; unlimited teams
Technology: Share Screen, Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or other applications that allow simultaneous editing
Category: Collaboration
Setup: Case studies are a great way to tap and apply the knowledge of a large group while engaging them in something that has a real work product at the end. This activity can be used for large events with multiple teams as a way to show new collaboration.
Prepare the case study template and upload to a shared location such as Google Docs or Microsoft OneDrive. Click “share” and get a link to the document. If you have more than one group, upload one document for every group. Use breakouts to separate attendees into groups and have a breakout leader chat the link that allows the group to edit their document.
Instructions to the Audience: Today we are going to work collaboratively to create a case study. You will have a limited amount of time to divide up the work, discuss options, make decisions, and write the report. The link to your case study is in the chat. At the end of this case study, we’ll have each team present a summary of their case study.
Tips: Record and save the video and chat from each group to use for future debriefing and learning.
Have one person represent the client of the case study and allow participants to ask the client clarifying questions.
The client can also add new information at key times during the case study to either help progress or add additional challenges.
Be prepared to facilitate success and failure.
Debrief: Allow the group to find their own way. Only interject if you think the group really needs help in working together or needs a suggestion to get through a block. Asking questions as opposed to directing the group is the preferred method for attempting to help the attendees:
What were you thinking in the first planning minutes?
How were conflicts resolved? Did a leader emerge?
When did your group work at its best?
What is a highlight of the results that you’ll use back at work?
Case Study: Adrian Segar, author of Conferences That Work, blogged about Choate Rosemary School’s Joel Backon, who used this unique initiative at edACCESS 2010, a conference for the association of information technology at small independent schools. Joel did the prework in defining and uploading the case study materials where the goal was to reduce educational costs. Then, he set the stage for 40 people, who were meeting live, to work virtually for 90 minutes. While many people felt like they could never finish in the first 20 minutes, the group selected a spreadsheet to focus their work on in Google Docs and the majority of people worked on this spreadsheet. The spreadsheet had multiple tabs and was clearly able to
document a 60% educational cost savings for their case study. With 30 minutes to go, a Google Doc of the summary was created and the team of 40 was able to complete their assignment in just 90 minutes.
This was an incredible example of teamwork with 40 participants under
a tight deadline. The case study shows the power of online collaboration when harnessed correctly. Think about what applications could be used for your virtual meetings as a way to increase engagement.
Click to read more about Adrian Segar’s case study.
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