Our view at Stack - our team love using Miro as an online workspace for innovation, enabling distributed teams to dream, design, and build together. With a full set of collaboration capabilities, it simplifies cross-functional teamwork, meetings, and workshops. Create concepts, map user stories, and conduct roadmap planning in real-time.
Creativity and speed are crucial ingredients for innovation; teams must balance high quality work with velocity. However, even with the best intentions and planning, people sometimes experience mental blocks and struggle to execute — resulting in frustration and stalled innovation.
One of the best strategies for getting “unstuck” is tapping into the creativity of your community, whether they be your immediate teammates and manager or a network of collaborators from other businesses and industries who share your expertise or interests.
This is certainly true of the Miro Community, composed of 1,000-plus Creators who connect over messaging apps, on social channels, in the Miroverse, and face-to-face at events like the recent Into the Miroverse. Read on to learn how some of the Community’s most active members empower each other to make new things; maximize their efficacy and efficiency; and infuse fun, inspiration, and happiness into their work.
Jumping into Miroverse has been an immersive experience — I’m surrounded by innovative creators from around the world.”
Indra Kusuma, Business Mentor and Educator at Apple Developer Academy
Make new things while having fun
Said Saddouk, ”Faciltainer” and Miro Community Group Leader, had an idea to up-level — and have a bit of fun with — his favorite Miro feature. He wanted to infuse the otherwise straightforward, square sticky note with a bit of personality.
Said came across the artistic Miro templates of Lucie Agolini, Visual Experience Designer at WRKSHP CNVS, and shared his idea with her. Together, Lucie and Said transformed his early prototype into a usable template, adding arms, legs, and faces to bring sticky notes to life. They dubbed their creation “enotejis.”
The enotejis template is a testament to the power of collaboration and community in turning an idea into reality.”
Said Saddouk, Facilitainer
Unsurprisingly, Said infused a lot of fun into his Into the Miroverse session, “Miro Games 101: Practice Your Creativity.”
Jonathan White Hiro Studio and fellow Miro Community Group Leader Rachel Davis share Said’s “passion for facilitation, having fun in workshops, and, of course, Miro,” so Jon and Rachel launched a monthly recurring event for Miro Board Improv during which they apply comedic improv techniques and solicit audience input to build activities, icebreakers, and other never-before-seen creations in Miro.
Of Miro Board Improv, Jonathan said, “It’s a constant source of inspiration.” Jonathan and his Hiro Studio teammate Hilary Jenkins continued to inspire play and template-building in their Into the Miroverse session, “Level Up Your Miro Game Using Visual Storytelling.”
Maximize efficacy and efficiency
Creativity isn’t limited to making something new; people also express their creativity when they solve problems — like finding ways to operate more effectively in today’s always-on, fast-paced workplaces.
For example, Marie Louise de Beyssac draws inspiration from Miroverse to kick off her consultations with small- and medium-sized businesses. She said:
When starting a custom project, I always bring in best practices and trending methodologies and frameworks from the inspiring knowledge base in the Miroverse to create a welcoming experience for users and attendees, whether it’s an agile ceremony, sales meeting, or workshop.”
Marie Louise de Beyssac, consultant at InfinitoArco.com
In “AI as a Tool for Creativity in Miro” — her Into the Miroverse session with Martin Gleitsmann, business strategist and innovation enthusiast at not yet normal — de Beyssac highlighted another way to jump start solution development: AI.
Likewise, Nina Pozderec, who pulls triple duty at Switch to Eleven studio, said: “In my line of work — I’m a psychologist, and I’m a self-management expert, and an agile expert — I have to be very quick. That means that I don’t always have an hour or two to design my own board.”
So, Nina leans on Miroverse templates to operate more efficiently, whether she’s building a strategy, leading a retrospective, or meeting with a client. She leverages the creativity of her fellow Miro community members to ensure that she can focus fully on facilitating her consultancy’s workshops and growing her business without wasting time on logistics.
Work happy
When she has a moment to spare, Nina and her business partner at Switch to Eleven, Jaka Kladnik, also design their own templates — several of which focus on optimizing team dynamics, including “Self-management Team Workshop” “Team Psychological Safety,” and “Team Alignment Circle” (below). At Into the Miroverse, Nina teamed up with Indra to expand on this theme in a session titled: “Thriving Teams Through Templates.”
Read more: Why psychological safety is key to fostering creativity in teams
How to best connect and collaborate is a topic that’s top-of-mind for many of today’s workers even as — or, perhaps, especially because — teams today are increasingly distributed across different work environments. As Miro’s “The Ways We Work” survey showed, strong workplace relationships can be powerful drivers of engagement and happiness at work. In fact, among the 800+ respondents who said that they’re unlikely to leave their current company in the next year, their top reason for staying is feeling connected to their team. One remote respondent added, “The people I work with are the key to making a good place to work.”
Those who work for themselves or are part of a small company can derive these same benefits of tight-knit teams by tapping into communities of people with shared interests and unique perspectives:
I’m connected with a lot of facilitators through Miroverse and through the Miro Community, and I just think it’s amazing how I find inspiration from other people.”
Nina Pozderec, Switch to Eleven
On May 31st, over 1,000 Community members joined Hilary and Jonathan, Indra and Nina, Marie and Martin, Said, and 11 other Miroverse Creators and Miro team members to source creative inspiration, supercharge their problem solving, and forge new connections at Into the Miroverse. Thank you for joining us!
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Into the Miroverse is an annual event featuring Miroverse Creators and the Miro team in fun-filled discussions and interactive workshops, exploring ways to innovate through creativity, collaboration, and joy.
If Miro is of interest and you'd like more information, please do make contact or take a look in more detail here.
Credit: Original article published here.