Exploring new forms of collaboration – an online workshop format

Defining your new collaboration environment together

“A transition is needed from workplace to meeting place in our offices.” This is the most important result of a workshop on the “new collaboration environment” that Co-Learning has facilitated at the invitation of the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). In this blog we share more about this workshop and its results.

At the end of August, Co-Learning facilitated a workshop for CBS with the aim of generating ideas and scenarios for a "post-corona" way of working together.

Members from the CBS 'Change Agents Guild' and one of their managers participated in this 2.5-hour workshop. As online collaboration tools, we used Zoom and Mural. We applied for some Liberating Structures to ensure a high level of interaction. With the help of Co-Learning, the participants succeeded in creating a concrete vision of a new way of working in the "post-corona" era in a short time, without any upfront preparation for the workshop.

The most important outcome for the participants was the insight that CBS wants to take measures to change the function of their office buildings from workplace to meeting place. Additional technical challenges have been discovered and recognized. The participants identified a top four of specific actions.

An important outcome for us as facilitators was that the participants synchronized their ideas and perspectives on the future. The discussion also touched upon the current way of collaboration and communication patterns in the context of the participants.

The score the participants gave to the session was an average of 8.5/10. In addition to this, the participants cited the achievement of concrete closing actions as a reason to rate the workshop above expectations.

A few weeks later, Marc Maessen (CBS) shares the impact of the workshop: “It was a success. We have already initiated a package of concrete changes in three follow-up sessions. This is definitely going to get things moving. We also think we could do this or a similar workshop with all employees to create support and to define a context that contributes to good mental health for our people.”

With this workshop Co-Learning can help your organization to optimally utilize the advantages of the Corona time, mitigate the disadvantages and make them fit into working at the office as you were used to pre-Corona. 

In addition to this workshop, we can help you to get a grip on collaboration challenges in your organization by means of workshops (remote or on location). Co-Learning enables you to gain insight into possible causes for existing problems and to concretely define steps forward.