Line Up Overview:
- Objective = A fun way to learn and practice online collaboration tools
- Team Size = Any group size will work
- Time = 5-10 mins
- Difficulty = Easy
- Materials Required = Yes
- Preparation Required = No
- Technology Required = Video/phone conferencing,
Virtual Team Activities: Line Up
Why this is an important activity for your team
The majority of people are not used to simultaneous collaboration on live documents. Traditionally, when if I wanted your thoughts and opinions on a document or presentation, I would email it to you. Then I would wait however long, and then you would email me back your comments or proposed changes. But at no time were we working on the same document at the same time.
Google-Suite and Office 365 changes that. Gone are the days of emailing files around and everyone working on their own saved version. Now we can all work on the same document at the same time. But this kind of working takes some practice, because it will seem like a chaotic mess with everyone typing all at once. By running this exercise, you can help your team build their virtual collaboration skills, and at the same time you can learn fun things about each other.
Virtual Team Activities: Line UpVirtual Team Activities: Two Pictures
Step 1 – Open up a shared document, and give everyone in your team access to it
Before you start the exercise, open up a shared document and create a list of numbers equal to the amount of people that will join the meeting. I have created an example worksheet you can use. Make sure you give everyone access to the document, and the ability to edit it. This will be critical for the next step of the exercise.
Virtual Team Activities: Line UpVirtual Team Activities: Two Pictures
Step 2 – Without talking, have the team “Line Up” based on a question (2 mins)
Explain to your people that everyone is going to answers a question, and put their answer on the shared document. Those answers need to be in order based on the question. For example, an easy question to start with is arrange yourself on the list by order of your birthday. The list might look like this:
- Maria – February 13
- Signe – February 22
- Fred – May 07
- Cary – July 01
- Matthew – August 17
- Laura – October 29
This might seem super easy, but there are 2 rules that make it a little tougher. The first rule is that no one can talk, all they can do is type in the shared document. The second rule is that each person can only type or delete their information. It would be too easy for one person to put all the information in the right order. So that is why people cannot touch other people’s answers.
Virtual Team Activities: Line UpVirtual Team Activities: Two Pictures
Step 3 – Discuss how you collaborated (5 mins)
Remember that the goal of this exercise is to help people see the benefits of cloud collaboration and simultaneously working on shared documents / presentations. So after the exercise, debrief the team with a few questions:
- What was easy about collaborating on the same document at the same time?
- What was hard about collaborating on the same document at the same time?
- How can we use live collaboration when working together virtually?
Virtual Team Activities: Line UpVirtual Team Activities: Two Pictures
Different questions you can use to run this exercise
Birthdays are an easy question to run a Line Up on, but there are many questions that will help your team learn interesting and funny facts about each other. Here are a list of Line Up questions that I have personally used in my 10+ years of training:
- How long ago did you watch a guilty pleasure tv show? A guilty pleasure show is something that might be a little embarrassing, but you love it anyway. For example, I watched a Hoarders show a few nights ago.
- When was the last time you caught yourself nodding off or falling asleep in a setting where you weren’t supposed to sleep? (etc… in a work meeting, in a college class, last Sunday in church…).
- How long ago have you been dancing?
- Arrange yourself from smallest to largest foot size.
- Line up alphabetically by the city of your birth.
Virtual Team Activities: Line UpVirtual Team Activities: Two Pictures
More Virtual Team Activities / Exercises
- Build a Team Availability Calendar
- Coat of Arms
- Two Pictures
- Four-Word Snapshots
- Communication Best Practices
- Tips from Remote Workers
- Coat of Arms (coming soon…)
- Smashing Obstacles (coming soon…)
Leave a Reply