Are you looking for an innovative and engaging way to analyse your team’s training needs? Collaborative Opening, based on the Thiagi games, is exactly what you need! This method allows you to assess participants’ knowledge, awareness and attitudes, while giving them the opportunity to set themselves appropriate personal objectives. In this article, we explain everything, and show you why Glowbl is the ideal tool for this method. And to top it all off, we’ll give you a template at the end. Let’s go!
Objective of the method
The aim of Open Collaboration is to analyse the attitudes and knowledge of participants on a given subject. By encouraging collective reflection, this method helps facilitators to adapt their discourse and expectations. The participants, for their part, can set realistic personal objectives tailored to their needs. A real win-win situation!
The benefits
For the facilitator: This method allows you to adjust your message and expectations according to the attitudes and knowledge of the participants. It’s a great way to better understand your team’s training needs and initial perceptions.
For the participant: It’s the perfect opportunity to set personal objectives while actively participating in the collective evaluation of knowledge. No more boring training courses – a double advantage!
Principle of the method
Open Collaboration involves preparing four questions related to the training topic. The participants, divided into sub-groups, take it in turns to answer each of these questions. This activity enables needs to be analysed and participants’ knowledge, awareness and attitudes to be assessed. And all in an interactive and collaborative way, of course.
How does it work?
- Preparing the questions: Choose four relevant questions related to your training topic.
Examples:
What are the differences between remote and face-to-face management?
And what are the similarities between remote and face-to-face management?
And what are your expectations for this session?
- Division into sub-groups : Divide the participants into teams. Each team starts by answering one of the questions on a whiteboard.
- Rotation of questions: After a while, each team moves on to a new question until all the questions have been answered by all the teams.
- Feedback: The teams examine and compare the different answers, providing an overview of the participants’ initial knowledge and attitudes.
Glowbl, the ideal platform for this method
Glowbl is THE platform for implementing Open Collaboration. So why?
- Interactive features: Glowbl offers collaborative tools such as virtual whiteboards, enabling teams to record and visualise their responses in a clear and organised way. Real-time annotations make communication and understanding between participants super simple.
- Sub-group rooms: The platform makes it easy to create virtual sub-group rooms where each team can work independently on assigned questions. The management of these rooms is intuitive and allows you to move from one room to another in the blink of an eye.
- Document sharing: Participants can share documents and resources in real time, enriching discussions and responses. No more desperately searching for that famous file in emails.
- Feedback tools: Glowbl integrates instant feedback tools, enabling facilitators to quickly gather participants’ impressions and responses. This helps to adjust training content in real time.
- Accessibility: As an online platform, Glowbl allows participants to connect from anywhere. Ideal for dispersed teams or home office enthusiasts in their pyjamas.
Read also: Fishbowl method
Example of a case study
Context: A company wants to improve the remote project management skills of its teams. With the boom in teleworking, this is more relevant than ever.
Sequence of the session with Collaborative Opening :
- Preparation: The facilitator identifies the following four questions:
And what are the differences between remote management and face-to-face management?
What are the similarities between remote and face-to-face management?
And what are the main challenges of remote management?
What are your expectations for this session?
- Formation of sub-groups: The 24 participants are divided into 4 teams of 6 people. Each team is given an initial question.
- First rotation: Each team discusses and notes their answers on a quadrant of the collaborative whiteboard dedicated to their question.
- Next rotation: After 5 minutes, the teams turn to the next question and add their answers or complete those of the previous teams. This process is repeated until each team has worked on all the questions.
- Feedback: Once all the teams have answered all the questions, each team presents its answers to one of the questions, comparing points of view and summarising the information.
Results :
- Facilitator: Thanks to the responses and discussions, the facilitator can adjust the content of the training course according to the real needs and expectations of the participants.
- Participants: Participants set themselves personal objectives such as “improving teleworking communication” or “adapting project management techniques to virtual contexts”.
Conclusion
Collaborative Opening is a powerful method for analysing and assessing training needs. By actively engaging participants and providing detailed feedback, it significantly improves the effectiveness of training courses. Glowbl, with its interactive tools and user-friendly interface, is the ideal platform for applying this method.