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How do you brainstorm tricky stuff with your remote teammates?
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@aaronoleary @chrismessina we use Notion for writing and Figma for graphical brainstorming. Both work extremely well.
@jtreinen do y'all use figjam or actual design Figma? Been using figjam for a while - love it. but my laptop starts to overheat in about 10min
@rucha_joshi8 we dont' use figjam currently, just standard figma. We are running on M1 Mac Book Pros currently, it tends to spin up the fans on intel-based macs pretty quickly .
Well, we do group video calls to brainstorm ideas. You can share your screen on calls to explain what you want to say.
@rucha_joshi8 Yes, we use ''connect'' to make calls, and that has a built-in feature for annotation, so we don't need to use any other tool.
Video calls - we've found it to be the quickest way to discuss things and the best way to make sure that everyone is on the same page so there are no misunderstandings.
@inesfenner Thanks for sharing! Do you whiteboard with the team when ideating?
@rucha_joshi8 We've just been using Google Docs to write all of the notes and ideas down. It's been working so far!
We do video conferences, but once we all happened to be in the area and met up in person and there was so much more energy in the room than we'd ever had. We were all struck by it and decided to do this every 6 six weeks or so because it was easily twice as productive and the ideas were that much more vibrant. So we set the date for the next one and someone couldn't make it so we postponed and so on, until now it's been over a year and we still have not done it again.
While this doesn't answer your question, it does underscore what you're getting at, I think. That this subject warrants discussion & exploration.
@dow_osage Oooh that is a tricky one. especially given how an in-person meet-up still has not happened after a year - despite the benefits. How do you try to channel that energy virtually? What tools or processes have you used so far?
First, all the teammates are notified about the agenda then we select a day for the remote meeting when everyone comes up with his points/suggestions.
We do a monthly design thinking/ divergent thought session called "Unlock" and invite all of our teammates (optional) and run activities that are designed to stimulate big thinking... as inputs for later more convergent work.
Depends on the topic and the size of the audience. If it's a bigger team, it's useful if everyone can write down their thoughts before a common get-together, and then ideate in a video call, preferably using some collaboration tools, like Miro.
@andrasjuhasz yes, coming in with a few ideas already does seem like a good process. What white boarding/collaboration tool do you use?
It's always great to talk through ideas in video calls. When we can't, we often use WhatsApp. Personally, I also like to use Miro to visualize and share ideas with mind maps, storyboards, etc.
@ben_cotte aah yes - voice messages consume less time as well. but how do you document for the larger team? quick scannable summaries?
Somehow I can be tricky. But mostly used solid and nice things. You can visit for more wanted to know.
@siena_romes and is how do you document the discussions/next step? Do you use any tools to annotate while someone is screen sharing?
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