How do you run a full innovation method online, not just a single workshop?
There is no shortage of advice on running a remote workshop. There is very little on running a structured innovation project that lasts months, where every step has to produce a deliverable the next step depends on.
Online Innovation documents exactly that, for the FORTH innovation method. When the first lockdown came, "a group of more than twenty FORTH facilitators decided, on Coenie Middel's initiative, a FORTH facilitator from South Africa supported by Gijs van Wulfen, to 'go online'", and the result was "FORTH online as a smooth-running online methodology with 23 short online workshops in 12 weeks generating the same deliverables as the in-person version."
The book is specific about the set-up, and about why each choice was made. Miro as the collaboration platform, with designed templates and agendas for all 23 workshops. SessionLab for the facilitator agendas. Zoom for videoconferencing, chosen because it is stable, has break-out rooms and gives the facilitator real control. Survey tools such as Google Forms or Typeform for customer feedback on concepts.
It is equally specific about what online costs and what it gives back. It saves days of travel and thousands in flights and accommodation. It helps more introverted people contribute, through bulk writing and anonymous voting, instead of being talked over. And it takes away the coffee-corner moments, while time zones become a real design problem: on one project a team member in the United States had to be up at five in the morning.
The proof point is a client project at Philip Morris International, which delivered six new business cases and was rated 8.4 out of 10 by the participants, against 8 to 9 for the in-person version of the same method.