Five principles for remote collaborative innovation

During our recent InnoDays Livestream we hosted Ryan Van Winkle for an insightful conversation about remote collaborative innovation. Ryan is the director of sales at Treehouse Innovation, the creators of Sprintbase — a virtual collaborative platform that empowers individuals and organizations to solve important innovation challenges by applying human-centered design. Ryan works with an entirely remote team to support organizations to move their innovation efforts online. Here are the main takeaways.

Lead with purpose

Leadership is a fundamental pillar of remote collaboration. Creating a shared sense of purpose is pivotal to make sure that people understand why they are doing what they are doing. Based on his experience at Sprintbase, Ryan suggests having kick-off calls at the beginning of each project with all the people involved. Kick-off calls help to build alignment and ensure everyone is on the same page. Moreover, it is important to motivate people by holding them accountable for the delivery of results towards a shared mission.

Once you go remote it is fundamental to success to have the organizational level which starts with the right leadership.

Create a culture of autonomy and ownership

Leadership should be based on people’s autonomy. Leaders need to promote and enable a culture of allowing people to take ownership and complete projects on their terms. Micro-management should be abandoned. To do this, it is necessary to create “safe spaces” for experimentation and failure. Failure to establish a trusting culture might disincentivize effort and commitment to a common objective.

A culture supporting remote collaboration needs to thrive on accountability. Sharing routines and practices is fundamental to create a climate of trust.

Redefine the office experience

Embarking on remote collaboration requires a redefinition of the office experience. Looking back to the set up of Sprintbase, Ryan recalls a common evaluation of what the office meant to the team. One big question involved how to recreate those “watercooler moments” — moments of spontaneous interaction among colleagues. For this reason, the frequency of standup meetings was increased and their duration shortened. Frequent check-ins help to reinforce a sense of “togetherness” that the virtual environment sometimes hinders. In addition to this, Ryan recommends being tolerant of individual work styles and establishing clear collaboration channels. Confronted with the availability of multiple communication and project documentation tools, it is advisable to agree on a few selected tools that are asynchronously accessible to the whole team.

Everyone can engage in remote work, whether it is people or organizations. However, they need to develop an understanding that what we do in person cannot be fully replicated in a remote space.

Embrace technology

Moving projects online has several upsides. If you are physical, you are limited by the geographical space in which collaboration takes place; If you are virtual you can expand your reach. As it happened at Sprintbase, the possibility to work remotely opened up opportunities to include the right people in different projects regardless of their geographic location or time availability. The Sprintbase teams realized that while it is not possible to completely replicate the in-person experience online, remote work makes stretching workshops from two days to several weeks possible. The prolonged engagement on innovation workshops allows more time for reflection about the outcomes and improvement of the deliverables through the asynchronous involvement of experts and introverts. Remote work further allows greater talent accessibility and customer reach.

The benefits of remote collaboration are multiple…not having to fly people across the world for a two-day workshop, reaching out to more clients, building empathy quickly and easily on calls, relying on more flexible teams and workdays.

Blend physical and virtual experience

To conclude, it is important to keep in mind that the physical and virtual world are not “either-or”. Instead, there are important complementarities. Doing work virtually does not mean that you have to be constrained by the limits of your screen. Very “physical” experiences such as 3D prototyping, role-playing, and pitching may be recorded on videos and shared with distant colleagues for feedback. Online platforms, such as Sprintbase, can improve documentation of ideas by providing solutions for instant tracking of the collaborative work. When work is performed by groups joining from distant physical locations, it is important to have everyone turning their cameras on in order to create a shared experience and guarantee an inclusive environment.

When we set up Sprintbase we wanted to replicate the in-person experience online. In time we learned that some things worked much better online, some other things worked better in person. One thing that worked better in person is the human to human connection. That type of interaction will always be valuable.

While we agree that the in-person human to human connection will always be valuable, we hope that the COVID-19 will make everyone realize the value and opportunities that remote work has to offer. Thanks to Ryan for your great insights!

Watch the full interview with Ryan Van Winkle, Treehouse Innovation and Sprintbase

About Sprintbase

Sprintbase supports amazing virtual design thinking workshops and projects that yield tangible results. Find out more about Sprintbase here.

About the InnoDays

The InnoDays bring companies and talent together to prototype ideas with a positive impact in 48 hours. Find out more about InnoDays on our website.