@McCall Turner -

For my company (a training boutique firm), it was essential to find a rich platform for translating our in-person class exercise to a live virtual format. Miro provided this with a very short learning curve and in some cases made the exercises even more engaging that the physical world ones we had used before!

Personally, I also really enjoyed the opportunity to contribute to this thriving user community!

Kiron

@McCall Turner - Five years ago as we started our agile transformation, I joined our first longer-lasting, multidisciplinary team of business analysts and developers. We were also the first team to move into one large workspace vs. 4-person pods where we had an entire wall converted into a whiteboard and also a TV on a moveable stand that we could all share our screens to. For our organization, this was a pretty deal as we no longer had to book a meeting room to get together to collaborate on a whiteboard--well, one that was bigger than a flipchart-sized whiteboard.

Fast-forward two years and while searching for a Visio alternative for mapping a business process, I discovered RealtimeBoard. Having a web development background and being a tech-tool nerd in general, I was blown away at how RealtimeBoard, er, Miro just did everything I wanted it to do. I immediately started experimenting with it as I documented business/system flows. I also started inviting our business partners right to our workspace rather than a meeting room, so we could all see the Miro board on the TV and make changes to process maps in real time. The feedback was immediately positive in that, ‘this was so much better than going to a meeting room and watching a few of us draw/erase/draw/erase on a whiteboard or type notes into a Word document!’

Two years later, our entire office was getting ready to make a big move to a newly renovated, modern office space equipped with hi-tech meeting rooms and multiple collaborative workspace options. As nice as that sounded, our whiteboard and TV would no longer be located where our desks were going to be. Add to that the fact that we were being encouraged to make use of the many smaller, collaborative spaces where all we would have with us would be our laptops, I was convinced that Miro was going to be even more important. Two months before the move was set to happen, COVID happened. On our way out of the office for the last time, someone snapped a picture of our physical Kanban board, uploaded it to Miro, and we’ve never looked back.

Since the pandemic and our entire organization being fully WFH for the first time in our company’s history, Miro had enabled our team to continue with our collaborative practices without skipping a beat. Our being on our computers as we communicate over Teams means that Miro is always right there at our fingertips which in turn has increased our practice of visualizing any issue/process we are discussing. In doing this, we are now able to refer back to these visuals and even share and explain them to other teams. I can’t imagine working any other way ever again.

For me, as a teacher, Miro has become my classroom. I teach young ESL students and routines are essential. I wanted to emulate the greeting moment, the calendar moment, the weather moment, and then go to the academic moments. And this had to flow. Normally we have 100+ minutes a day of English. Now we have only 30. (Google Meet & PowerPoint were not going to do it.)

I have set up my main board to go from one section to another via links. I use a grid (the academics) for each day of the week. (I move the week´s grids to a different board as “previous classes”.)  With Miro’s embedding capabilities, I have direct access to Google Slides, YouTube videos, Quizlet flashcards, ThingLink and other iframe tools.  I no longer have to “tab surf”. I use the Kanban cards to mark which students have participated and who to call on next. The students can see this as well, saving time and eliminating surprises (and protests).  Now I am using the Kanban cards to plan as well. 

When we return to the classroom, Miro will be there as well. (And I will not have to worry about forgetting my pendrive with the presentation on it or losing content because the systems people changed the class computer or reformatted the disk drive.) Echoing Robert Johnson’s post above: Miro has not only helped my teaching, it has changed it as well. There is no way I am going back to my previous way of teaching. Thanks again, Miro Team!

Hello @McCall Turner thanks for the call-out for stories! Pre-COVID I’ve always been working with leaders and their teams in training and workshop-style events. I actually travelled extensively for this work so my wings were pretty much clipped starting from February this year.

Experimenting with Miro has been one of the best thing I’ve done in my entire work-life. I’ve shifted almost 100% of work online and using Miro exclusively. My Miro-sharing contribution to this community and in general has also reaped immense benefits including being invited to the Miro Experts program and an opportunity to present at the Miro Distributed conference. 

More tangibly, I’ve discovered a “niche” that I’m fully focused on building in 2021. As a coach and facilitator, I’ve always believed that leaders I work with must be more facilitative in engaging their teams. It means having the ability and skills to organise and facilitate learning or work sessions. In a complex world where not a single person have the complete answer or solution, this is a non-negotiable way of working. Looking at reports and expecting self-organisation without actually putting the effort.

While many teams have been distributed over the years, more are working remotely because of the pandemic. In my mind, Miro (or any visual collaboration work platform) is the perfect tool to bring leaders and teams together where everyone is engaged. With the right facilitation skills for virtual working and simple Miro skills, remote-working team leaders can really bring their leadership and management practice to the next level!

The full story in the link below, although I hope I’ve captured the essence of how Miro gave me lots of inspiration and a great tool to continue enabling leaders and their teams for better work-life

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/leading-from-distance-facilitative-visually-engaging-leader-tanuri/

I work in public health in California with a crew that inspects utilities in the field. With Miro, I’m able to import all of our .pdf maps into one giant grid. The crew is then able to annotate these maps (with the new stylus feature in Miro) and I, as the supervisor, can see their work in real time, which is fantastic.

Adding the board storage, sharing, and internal linking available in Miro has made it an amazing solution for what we do.