Successful facilitation in Howspace is built on supporting participant activity, clear pacing, and utilizing smart tools. This article summarises the key ways to guide work both asynchronously (at different times) and synchronously (at the same time).
1. Monitoring Activity and Reacting
Tracking participant activity allows for timely intervention and encouragement.
Asynchronous Work:
Widget-specific data: See directly from the widget who has seen the content, commented, or replied.
Path progress: Track participant progress step-by-step through Path settings.
Workspace-level activity: View the big picture and react by sending email reminders directly from the Progress view.
Synchronous Work:
People Widget: Use the "seen within 5 minutes" setting to see who is currently online.
Real-time updates: Utilise the Super Chat "like" function and real-time result updates to spark the conversation.
Tip: Remember to react to positive activity too! Send a thank-you message to those who have already completed tasks and encourage them to deepen the discussion in others' contributions.
2. Phased Working
Structure helps the participant understand what is expected of them at each stage.
Journey Widget: Visualize the stages of the process and provide direct links to different sections.
Path mode: Use self-directed path for asynchronous progress and facilitated path for synchronous work, where the facilitator moves participants from step to step.
Pacing: Start with easy multiple-choice questions (warm-up) before moving to open-ended questions requiring deeper reflection.
3. Automated Guidance
Reduce manual work and ensure a steady flow of information through automation.
Targeted Invitations: Guide participants directly to the right page using the login button in the email.
Scheduling: You can pre-schedule emails, page visibility, or the opening of individual layouts.
Using Layouts: During a live event, you can schedule new task layouts to open, for example, every 15 minutes to pace group work.
4. Utilizing AI (Howspace AI)
Artificial Intelligence helps manage large amounts of data and summarize the essentials.
Summaries: Help participants grasp a wide-ranging discussion at a glance.
Word Clouds: Visualize keywords and help participants find themes of interest within large amounts of text.
Prompting: Use AI to analyze the discussion and create, for example, voting options or prioritization lists based on it.
Mindmaps: Visualize discussions, PDF’s or videos to create shared understanding.
5. Visuals as a Guidance Tool
A clear visual look and info about one's own progress motivate the participant.
Progress Feature: Enable progress tracking for participants. It visually shows which sections are completed and what is left.
Navigation: Keep the top menu clear using folder structures. Show only the pages that are currently relevant.
Widget Styles: Use different styles (e.g., background colors or borders) to distinguish materials (read this) from activities (do this).