How can we best connect with each participant and effectively receive their feedback throughout a virtual gathering?
Check-in is a quick way to connect participants at the beginning of an event, both to each other and with the topic at hand. It also serves to break the ice, with each participant participating briefly and settling in. Usually, one minute for each participant to answer a few questions is enough.
Think of smart working: each of us might be in the office or at home, alone or with others. If you start a meeting by stating: “My name, my role, where I am and who I am with”, this helps to make the meeting more relaxed and not to startle people during a work meeting with a cat jumping around or children coming into a room.
Other possible questions at the beginning of a gathering might be: “What is my motivation (or interest, expectation, urgency) for being here today?” and “What’s at the top of my mind…(regarding the topic of the meeting)?”
Mid-check allows participants to express what they have understood, or their feelings, concerns and wishes at different stages of a longer and multilayered meeting.
- A fun and creative way to have a fast virtual mid-check is asking participants to have 3 objects (e.g. fruits and vegetables), one green, one orange and one red. Whenever it is needed in the meeting, whoever is in the role of the facilitator will ask the participants to show one of the objects: green might stand for “I understood” or “yes”; orange “I have some questions” or “neither yes or no”, red for “I did not get it” or “no”.
- Another mid-check is the “one breath”: each participant shares understanding, reflections, emotions…in one breath!
- Ringing cymbals to create moments of silence (when the sound is on) in which each participant reflects “where am I listening and talking from?”, and then the meeting continues.
Check-out is feedback about the meeting content and process and is an appreciation of the work achieved together.
Some questions for check-out might be:
- Key insights and takeaways of this meeting?
- My next step from here would be…
- What I really appreciate when working with you is…
- What open questions do I still have?
Please have a look at our book The Wave for more inspiring activities to turn your meetings into co-creative events.
The Wave
Our co-creation expertise and experience, condensed into one book.
Co-creation as we see it is a journey undertaken by people, usually from different fields and backgrounds, who come together to find meaningful and sustainable answers to complex challenges and to work out together how to effectively implement them.
This manual and the set of cards that goes with it are for people who want to engage mindfully in the process of co-creation.
You can find The Wave on your Amazon store: