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Running a collaborative thinking session using Miro

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ReachOut is a national mentoring and education charity, rooted in local communities. We support young people aged 9-18 to grow in character and confidence.

Use this guide if you want to run an online session with your team to come up with new ideas. Miro is a digital whiteboard tool that can make your session more enjoyable and useful than simple video calls.

Jump to steps
Key software:
Miro
How they set it up:
Followed simple on screen instructions
Setup costs:
None
Ongoing costs:
None
Guide in use since:
April 2024

Steps to running a collaborative thinking session using Miro

Running creative activities on a video call only can be challenging for several reasons:

  • Some people might talk more than others

  • Quieter team members might not share their thoughts

  • It's hard to work together on ideas

  • It can be boring or repetitive

  • Recording everything is an extra step, and it can be easy to miss ideas.

An online whiteboard like Padlet, Mural, or Miro can help by:

  • Letting everyone share their ideas at the same time

  • Giving you a visual space to work together

  • Making collaborative thinking more fun and interactive

  • Letting people with different communication styles all take part

  • Making it easy to record and organise ideas.

ReachOut is a national mentoring and education charity, rooted in local communities. They started a project to improve the experience for volunteers joining the charity, and decided to hold an ‘ideation’ session to come up with new ideas.

They needed a way to collaborate effectively across teams in Manchester and London, and wanted to make their ideation session more engaging and inclusive. Traditional video meetings weren't supporting different working styles and often favoured more confident or extroverted participants.

ReachOut recognised the need for a tool that could make sessions more fun, ensure all voices were heard, and encourage people to be open to new ideas. When they were introduced to Miro they decided to give it a try.

Good planning is important:

  1. Decide what you want to achieve

  2. Think about who should be there and how to group them

  3. Choose activities that fit your goals

  4. Add fun elements to keep people engaged

  5. Make a clear plan for the session

  6. Set up your whiteboard in advance

If your team isn't familiar with the whiteboard tool, make sure they can access it and build in time for them to learn how to use it.

You can find ideas for collaborative thinking exercises and ideation activities online. We’ve linked to some resources under Further Information below.

The ReachOut team planned their ideation session carefully.

They wanted to encourage people to be creative and use logic, but trying to do both at once is difficult. They planned activities to support both types of thinking at different points in the session.

They only had an hour for the session, so they needed to make sure they could move through the activities quickly.

  1. Set up your board. Create a new Miro board and give it a clear title.

  2. Plan your layout. Divide the board into sections for different activities or topics. Use frames or coloured backgrounds to separate areas.

  3. Add instructions. Write clear, simple directions for each part of your session. Use big text so it's easy to read. You might like to add a “how to use this board” section for new users. Create a practice area where people can try out tools.

  4. Prepare templates. Make sticky note areas for collaborative thinking. Create voting sections if you need them. Add any images or diagrams you'll use.

  5. Set up collaboration. Invite your team members to the board. Set the right permissions so everyone can take part.

  6. Test it out. Try the board yourself to make sure everything works. You may want to ask a colleague to test it too.

ReachOut prepared their Miro board with different sections for each activity, and used colourful backgrounds, sticky notes, and icons to create a fun, creative feel for the session.

Welcome everyone and explain the session's goal. If needed, show people how to use Miro's basic tools or use an activity to allow people to familiarise themselves.

Set ground rules and expectations: encourage all ideas, with no judgement.

Begin with a warm-up, such as a simple activity to get people thinking creatively.

Guide the main activities by clearly explaining each task and showing where on the board to put ideas. Give people time limits for each section and stick to these. Keep the session fun and focused, and be ready to change activities if energy drops.

Recap key points and end with clear next steps.

ReachOut started their session with a short presentation (about 5 minutes) to bring everyone up to speed on the project.

Then they had a creative warm-up where people could add funny posts, GIFs, and play with Miro's features, which helped them get used to the tool.

Participants were divided into two mixed teams to encourage diverse perspectives and allow for different ideas to emerge.

They ran a variety of activities, including:

  • Brainwriting exercise to come up with lots of ideas quickly

  • Plotting ideas on a grid to work out which ones to try first

  • New York Times Connections game

  • Dot voting on different follow-on tasks to capture people’s enthusiasm.

After the session, clean up the board to make sure all the ideas are clear and organised and that nothing has been missed.

Create a new section on the board for main takeaways and list the top ideas you all agreed on. Write a brief action plan and set deadlines for next steps.

Share the board with everyone. You might like to invite people to add any other thoughts or ideas that come up after the session to a specific area of the board.

After their session, ReachOut collected all of the ideas and insights from the session and combined them into a plan for the project. In future they would like to use Miro to give participants more of a say in this part, too.

They asked their colleagues for feedback on the Miro board and found it was popular. Participants said it made the session fun and energetic and helped them to think more creatively. The board from the session stayed online so that everyone could see it. They have since started using Miro more widely across the charity.

Further information