Remote Lightning Decision Jam
It's always a pleasure to facilitate a remote Lightning Decision Jam to solve problems we uncover. The process, initially created by AJ&Smart, uses some of the core principles of the Design Sprint—working together, alone, and in cross-functional collaboration.
What is a Lightning Decision Jam
A Lightning Decision Jam is a 60-90 minute problem-solving workshop exercise that you can use to solve any problem, from improving internal processes to building a collaborative culture or bringing the voice of the customer into your organization.
Why we use it
The Lighting Decision Jam replaces open-ended discussion in group brainstorms or unstructured meetings. This inclusive process helps avoid groupthink and allows everyone's voice to be heard on top of making your meetings more productive.
How to Facilitate a Remote Lightning Decision Jam
If you're new to running workshops, running a Lightning Decision Jam is a great way to get comfortable with facilitating. It's easy to follow and doesn't take long to run. If you want to improve your facilitation skills, it helps to run a retrospective at the end to see what participants liked and didn't like. Don't think of the dislikes as negative feedback; think of it as an opportunity to improve your facilitation skills and workshops.
You can run a Lightning Decision Jam in person using post-it notes, markers, a whiteboard, and dot votes, or you can run it remotely with a virtual collaboration tool. We use Miro, Mural, or other collaboration tools that allow us to add an unlimited number of anonymous contributors. It is an excellent feature because people don't have to create an account to use the tool. Mural also has built-in facilitation tools, like a timer and voting.
We recommend spending some time at the beginning of your workshop doing a creative warm-up. Creative warm-ups are a critical part of the collaborative design process. They're a strategic way to set individuals, the team, and the work up for success and get people into the right mindset. It helps participants get comfortable with generating an abundance of ideas, and if you're running a remote session, it also helps participants get used to the tool you're using.
The exercise itself is very straightforward.
It starts with the team silently brainstorming things that are working.
Then the exercise repeats, but this time team brainstorms what isn't working.
After grouping the problems, teams would vote on the biggest problem.
Top-voted problems are reframed as how might we statements, and then the team brainstorms solutions.
Solutions are prioritized, and an action plan is created.
For more tips and step-by-step instructions on facilitating a remote Lightning Decision Jam, check out our Lightning Decision Jam guidebook.
If you are looking to expand the type of workshops you want to facilitate, check out the Solution sketching workshop that will help remote teams ideate solutions.
Want to run a Lightning Decision Jam?
MB Collab can help you plan and facilitate it.
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