CASES · STRATEGY
The annual meeting as an online offsite
An annual meeting during lockdown, a whole company of more than 50 people. Instead of simply translating the planned in-person format into a video call, we redesigned the day as a digital working format: a Miro board as the shared room, short plenary phases and consistent work in small groups.
The engagement
- Client caplog-x
- Sector Energy infrastructure · IT
- Place Online
- Period 2020
- Service Design · facilitation
- Format Digital annual offsite · Miro
THE PROCESS
Online, thought through afresh.
1 The design
The board is the room.
Instead of translating an in-person offsite into a long video call, we built the entire day as a Miro board. The schedule, the tasks, the materials and the results all lived there; the video call was only the channel for talking.
So that the shared work would not get stuck on the technology, participants received a self-explanatory introduction to the board in advance, worked on first tasks across team boundaries, and could test their technology and access in a Q&A and an optional check-in before the start.
2 THE DAY
Many small rooms.
There were no long plenary phases. After 20 minutes at the most we moved into interaction; breakout groups stayed small, with a maximum of six people, and time slots ended strictly. From 15 participants upwards we facilitated in pairs: one leading through the board and the process, the other through the video call and the chat.
Even the lunch break was part of the design: participants distributed their avatars across various Leipzig restaurants and met there in small groups — while the food was delivered to their homes.
3 The evening
Results first, then cocktails.
At the end of the working day the results were condensed, open points clarified and concrete action items and next steps recorded. Only then did the format deliberately move into its informal part.
To finish, everyone met for a shared online cocktail class. Ingredients and equipment had been sent out in advance; the mixing happened simultaneously in front of the screens. That way the social part of the offsite got a digital format of its own too.
FROM THE WORK
Insights.
Participant feedback
“I had no idea online meetings could be this good. We should do it this way too!”
A member of staff, caplog-x IT (translated)
A systemic reading
Online is not simply in-person with a screen. The format changes the conditions under which communication arises. Time-boxing, breakout rooms and changing group sizes keep setting new boundaries — and thereby change who talks to whom, who is heard and which subjects can arise at all.
That can generate an astonishing amount of momentum and a high density of results. At the same time, many informal possibilities are missing through which groups in person sort information, reduce it and regulate relationships along the way. Good online architecture therefore has to design both deliberately: the production and the reduction of communication.
Dr. Jonas Asendorpf
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