What are the differences between whiteboards and retrospectives and how to use these techniques online?

Meetings are rarely satisfying. Important discussion points remain undecided. Not everyone participates. The behavior of some people is particularly disruptive. Usually, the meetings take up far too much time due to a lack of structure. Today we have an extra factor to consider. Covid forces us to have online meetings. Many of the techniques we use in offline meetings need custom tools to work well online. For brainstorming in real life, we use whiteboards. To learn and grow from our past projects we use retrospectives. What are these techniques and how do we use them online? We’ll help you in this article.

What are whiteboard meetings?

A whiteboard meeting is a meeting where we use a dry erase board in an office environment or classroom. A whiteboard allows one or more people to draw images and write or change content on a dry erase board.

A whiteboard works well when sharing concepts our explaining ideas in real life. When in an online meeting it’s a different story. Video can make some people feel uncomfortable. So, a good online whiteboard tool, that encourages people to take part, is a must. A whiteboard is still the best when it comes to explaining complex ideas in a meeting room. It’s the ultimate way to do a brainstorm session with a small of large group of people.

How to start with an online whiteboard?

Microsoft makes a fantastic tool called Microsoft Whiteboard. It’s a fantastic tool that gives you an endless digital canvas where you can create and store your ideas. The Whiteboard app is available in the Microsoft Store and the App Store. It comes with a variety of features. There’s also the web version, which is also a part of Microsoft Teams. In Teams, you can use the Whiteboard to sketch, write, and share anything you want. So, how do you get started with Whiteboard in a meeting? You can easily share it with all the participants in a meeting and on any platform. It’s available on mobile devices, as a Windows app and on the web.

What are retrospectives?

A whiteboard meeting is a brainstorm meeting. A retrospective is a meeting method to analyze problems and ideas. It’s a way to end up with specific solutions to improve ideas and processes in the future.

A defined reflection process is important for teams. It’s the best way to overcome running in to the same obstacles. It’s a method to learn from past experiences and to continuously improve.

How to start with online retrospectives?

Retros.work makes an excellent online retrospective tool. It’s very easy to set up and very pretty to look at. Every team member can give feedback and share his or her feedback about certain topics. All this data is easy to manage ant to analyse. This data helps companies and organizations to learn and improve from past experiences. The Retros.work app is available on the web. There is a free trial available so there is an easy way to try retrospectives with your team.