In the previous chapter we spoke about traffic, its impact on meetings, and the role of the facilitator in both navigating and guiding it. Another mechanism useful in managing traffic is road signs. Have you ever traveled on a newly laid road when the lines are still to be painted? It can feel pretty daunting and confusing. Are you in the middle of the lane or possibly edging into the lane next to you? Do both lanes turn left or only one? From painted lines on the road to physical boards with arrows, visual cues are a critical ingredient in enabling drivers to self-organize on the road.

Every minute on the road, drivers are making numerous decisions, some conscious and some unconscious. The quality of decisions we make is related to the information we use when making them. Road signs enable drivers to make nuanced decisions specific to the situation at hand. While each road may be different, signs provide a universal language that enables us to navigate these spaces.

Another benefit of road signs is the way they assist in remembering information. It would be impossible to remember our route, what is required of us at each step, and the various requirements of each route. Do two lanes turn right on that highway or one? Is it safe to pass at this part of the road or not? These pieces of information are important for decision-making while driving.

So what relevance do road signs have to remote meetings? A lot is happening in a meeting. We’re trying to remember what someone is saying, what was said before, how it connects, and what we’d like to say. We’re possibly also trying to remember what was discussed in the past that is relevant to this conversation. To be able to effectively converse and make decisions in a meeting, we need to be able to navigate the space with ease. We need to be able to hold the relevant pieces of the conversation in our awareness in order to compare, analyze, or evaluate them.

Cowan, a renowned researcher in this area, says, “Working memory storage capacity is important because cognitive tasks can be completed only with sufficient ability to hold information as it is processed.”¹⁴ In meetings, a group is constantly navigating through tons of information, comparing, analyzing, evaluating, deciding—all cognitive functions which require the brain to hold the concepts under study in mind. How can we, as facilitators, create road signs, visual cues, and reminders that reduce the amount of information people have to hold in their minds, so that their focus and attention can be fully directed to solving?

Identifying key pieces of information in the meeting and representing them visually enables attendees to spend their mental energy on solving the problem at hand, without the effort of recalling the content. The group is then able to prioritize what is important: thinking and solving together. Additionally, many times as conversation continues in a meeting, different people remember different things; if we consider the limits of our working memory, it’s highly likely that people are remembering different pieces and building slightly different pictures of the topic and solution.

If our goal with meetings is to reach the best possible outcome, finding ways to help the group focus on what is important and have a shared view thereof is essential. In- person meetings often happen in a space with a whiteboard. Without intentionally replacing this mechanism for visualizing information, conversation in remote meetings can be quite difficult to hold.

Something as simple as a blank, real-time collaborative document provides people an opportunity to co-create a shared reference, guiding everyone on the call (see figure 16). As people write down pieces of information, their brains are able to focus on the conversation. If a previous piece of information is forgotten, it’s likely that there is a visual reminder somewhere.

One can take this idea of using visuals to guide conversation a lot further. If we think about the limits of the prefrontal cortex (overloading leads to lack of clear and quality thinking), how might we ease the work on this part of the brain to free up capacity? Could color-coding information make connections easier? What role can images play in helping us to remember concepts? How can the layout simplify the complexity of the problem? Too many road signs can also feel confusing and overwhelming, so how can you strike that balance between feeling lost and overwhelmed?

How it works (see figure 16):

• This visual map is relatively simple. The group has the option to jot down key pieces of information as they go

• The purpose and outcomes are there as reminders

If a road sign tells you there’s an off-ramp ahead, it’s helpful to be able to look ahead and see that off-ramp approaching. Similarly, on a call, it’s helpful for people to see what is expected of them. This does not negate the need for verbal instructions, but rather complements them. If someone is unsure and would usually use contextual cues (such as body language) for guidance, there is now an alternative mechanism for them to get this information.

We’d like to briefly talk about a company-wide demo we facilitated for a huge project. Going into it we were really nervous; the potential for chaos was huge. The audience was fully remote and there were over 150 attendees. Thirty of these people were a part of the project and we really wanted them to be acknowledged for their work— so the demo had 30 co-presenters. Talk about the potential for a traffic jam! We did not have time to practice this presentation, we only had a week to prepare, and a group of 30 to organize. All planning for this meeting was done asynchronously (more on this in the chapter called After the Call). We relied heavily on visual cues (see figure 17) to signal what was expected both of presenters and audience members.

How it works (see figure 17):

• At this point in the meeting, one person from each team on the project (six teams) gave a quick introduction to their team, what they worked on, and what they were demonstrating

• The names and arrows explained who spoke when

• To keep it engaging for attendees, each speaker added a real picture of their team on the slide while they spoke (they had been prepared for this)

• Timeboxes: Each section had clear time constraints. This meant that we did not have to keep reminding presenters when to move on, and if they forgot, they could just look at the slide

Remote meetings can be quite ambiguous spaces and so we have found having a quick discussion at the beginning of a meeting to clarify space agreements helps clear up uncertainty. Visualizing these agreements serves as a reminder to the group throughout the session (see figure 18). The content of these agreements is less important than creating the space for the group to think about how they’d like the remote meeting to be. The value of these agreements is in the building of shared context with the participants in the space. Usually common themes that arise are mechanisms to indicate talk turn, muting audio based on noise levels, and clarifying back channels.

How it works (see figure 18):

• We had pre-populated suggestions because we did not have a lot of time

• We had a lot to get through in little time, so instead of interrupting conversation, we established a bell mechanism for marking time

• We asked the group if they wanted to add or change anything and because they felt comfortable we proceeded

Finally, we would like to talk about the part of the meeting in which convergent thinking is happening and the role visuals can play in validating the conclusions we are drawing—making sure we are all converging on the same thing, and not just thinking that we are. Have you ever left a meeting with a decision, only to hear another attendee share a different outcome? Why would someone intentionally misrepresent the outcome? It’s possible that they were not intentionally doing so, but that they left with a genuinely different understanding of what was agreed to.

Misunderstandings and misinterpretations are not uncommon in meetings. Part of this has to do with the constraints of working memory, which we mentioned earlier: with finite capacity, it’s possible we all recall slightly different things. Another possibility is that our different contexts color the information we see differently. Visuals (text or images) can be a helpful mechanism to validate and align understandings (see figure 19).

How it works (see figure 19):

• In this example, the group had to agree on a plan. We used a visual timeline to take what was in our heads and check our understandings as a group

• By capturing the action, we had to decide on language choice and in so doing, spotted some misunderstandings that otherwise might not have been made visible

When we think about how drivers self-organize on the road, it’s actually pretty impressive. Road signs are a key factor in this organized chaos. Similarly, meetings can benefit from road signs to help people make decisions, recall information, and validate assumptions. As facilitators we can meaningfully improve meeting outcomes if we can visualize information in clear, coherent ways, allowing the finite capacity of the prefrontal cortex to be focused on solving rather than remembering.

Take some time to consider one or two of the questions below in relation to a meeting you are responsible for:

• Information: How many discrete pieces of information are you expecting people to remember in remote meetings?

• Perspectives: How many different views of the discussion at hand are possible?

• Instructions: How clear is it what is expected of attendees at each step of the discussion?

• Understanding: What can you do to validate the group’s understanding of the outcomes?

• Recall: What can you do to make it easier for people to remember the concepts discussed?

1. Enrich information with visuals

2. Reduce cognitive load with clear instructions

3. Visualize remote space agreements

4. Visually validate outcomes