A remote workshop is a workshop where everyone joins from their own screen. The facilitation is the same; the logistics are harder, attention is scarcer, and almost everything has to be decided before the call starts.
Written as practical advice. Where a step rests on established research practice, the source is listed under References. Nothing here is a universal rule.
Let people arrive, test audio and open the board. Fix problems before the clock starts.
A two-minute task that makes everyone add a note or move a shape. It is practice with the tool as much as an icebreaker.
What you are deciding, how the time is split, how to ask a question, and what happens to what is produced.
Everyone adds notes in silence. This is the remote format's strength: nobody waits for a turn.
Three to five people per room, with written instructions they can still see once they are in it, and a named note-taker.
Switch between writing, discussing and voting. Take a real break in anything over an hour.
Dot votes or a poll, done silently and at the same time, so nobody follows the first vote.
Read the decisions and owners back, and write them on the board where everyone can see.
Senior designer note“If one person is remote, everyone is remote. Otherwise that one person is watching a meeting, not in it.”
References