Creating context, freedom and autonomy are critical elements for designing effective virtual workspaces of the future.
The shift to a digital workplace provides huge opportunities to re-imagine the digital workspace instead of just recreating the physical workspace. Without the limitation of physical space, there is the opportunity for an entirely new, more transparent paradigm to emerge.
Distributed workforces required high levels of alignment to be effective. Alone in the woods, every private is a general, but you can't make decisions that are consistent and aligned with the mission unless you know where you should be heading.
The challenge for companies is to create a radical transparency that enables employees to understand the bigger picture and their part in it.
However, in many organisations, there is a plethora of document that provide alternate versions of the truth. It becomes difficult to decern which version of the truth is correct, paralysing employees into inaction.
Design virtual rooms to reflect operating structure
Instead of designing virtual meeting rooms around calendars and events, design them around operating structure.
When a company's operating structure closely reflects its strategy, alignment increases and friction between groups decreases due to the improved clarity and reduced conflicting priorities around what teams are trying to achieve.
In a virtual structure such as Berst, you can design a virtual layout that reflects this operating structure. In addition, the ability to attached information and context to a room eliminates the proliferation of documents. Employees are then free to explore relevant information as needed.
What might this look like?
- Strategy & OKR Room — for strategic company direction setting and transparent objectives
- War Room — for operational metrics and mid horizon planning
- Department Rooms — for strategic department planning and discussions
- Team Rooms — for focused team discussions
- Hangout rooms — for water-cooler discussions when people need to relax
Making this work in VideoFacilitator
Berst rooms can be set up at any time and made permanently available. Rooms can also be connected to contextual information such as a Miro boards or google documents, and any other cloud based tool.
Example Room Setup in Berst
Contextual links attached to the Strategy & OKR Room
Because participants move themselves, employees can freely decide if and when it is appropriate for them to review and discuss relevant content.
The domain based design of the room structure aligns more intuitively with how we think about the way we work, and help employees rapidly find relevant information to the things they want to learn about.