Surprising Secrets to Better Remote Team Collaboration Through Dot Voting

I've had experience in the past with in-person dot voting (sometimes also called "dot democracy" or "sticky-dot voting"). It's a process that helps teams identify and focus on the top issues. As a tool for business focus, it also fosters objective conversation between team members on the key issues presented by a specific business challenge. In person, live in front of a white board with a conference room of people; the process takes 5~10 minutes to explain and then 30 minutes to execute. The time in between where the team discusses the issues and why they perceive one issue as more critical than others is flexible, but the level of engagement and interaction improve understanding, buy-in and results across the team members.

It can be tough to collaborate with remote teams, but there are a few tactics that can make it a more collaborative environment. I experienced a recent example of explaining dot voting to a team that hadn't used it before. With the limits of ZOOM and email, it was challenging to communicate the process effectively.

In -person, it's a simple matter to put the dots on the whiteboard and then tally where the team reaches consensus and agrees upon the major issues.

What is a dot voting template?

It's a pretty fluid discussion, live and in person. Getting an online format to achieve the in-person experience is a different challenge for remote, distributed teams. For a multi-disciplinary team that needs to prioritize the highest priority issues, it's one of the effective workshop activities. For the uninitiated, dot voting in-person is a simple decision-making, and effective way to solicit and give feedback that is easy for the team to act on. The process is simple and useful in driving collaboration across team members and functions. Every person is assigned X# of dots, black and white. The team member will place their dots on the paper in the place where they agree or disagree with each statement. Each team member gets the same number of dots.

Finding online tools that duplicate the interaction from the in-person process is a distinct challenge. The ideation sessions to focus the team and start brainstorming on objective outcomes rallies the team and fosters a deeper understanding across team member.

How can a dot voting template be used for online collaboration?

LucidSpark offers a collaborative white board, that can be effective as a polling method of including remote employees. But not all teams are willing to adopt yet another application for the limited purpose of this the dot voting exercise. Cost and learning curve are the primary objections. One alternative is to create a digital workspace in Excel with issues listed on the vertical axis and the names of team members on the horizontal axis. Then the participants write their dots (translated into numbers) to the issues they care about most, or in the negative their allocation of -1 votes for the issues they do not believe are relevant.

Remote work has introduced a new team dynamic and the requirement for easy-to-use online tools. We need to be creative in finding new ways for remote employees to collaborate, be heard and contribute their ideas.

What has your experience been with re-creating effective in-person business practices with an online substitute? I'm interested to read how you have solved some of these challenges for the teams you work with, please share your experience(s) in the comments.

And thanks to John Litten for his coaching and input on this article.

Any and all errors are solely mine.