A couple of weeks ago we wrapped up our annual Distributed conference. Amazing energy and so many inspiring, creative, and fun sessions!
Apart from learning a lot, meeting new people, and feeling fortunate to be part of the process, our team definitely felt more connected than ever. Teamwork has always been at the heart of everything we do here at Miro, and Distributed 2021 made us once again reflect on how important meaningful and supportive team connections are. As we say, “play as a team to win the world!”
Inspired by all the new knowledge, we decided to learn even more, this time from our amazing Miro community members. Today, we’re kicking off a special edition of the Miro templates contest, called Miroverse Challenge: Team Connection . This contest is all about reflection and learning. How do you make sure your team members feel connected, supported, and happy? What are the Miro tools you use?
In this special edition we will have 3 award categories :
Icebreakers
Meetings
Team building
To get inspired, you can check out the Distributed Day 1 and Day 2 recordings and resources.
More Challenge Details
Timing
Submission period: November 16-January 12
Voting and judging: January 13-20
Winners announced: January 21
Voting and judging
Judges' Choice will be awarded by our panel of expert judges. Submissions will be judged on their ease of use, layout, and that special fun factor.
People’s Choice will be awarded based on top likes under the comment here in the online community. Make sure to vote for your favorite template by December 20, 23:59 CET .
Prizes for each category
Judges’ Choice: iPad, exclusive Miro-branded cover, and an Apple Pencil
People’s Choice: AirPods and exclusive Miro-branded case
Miro swag will be awarded to all other participants who will get published on Miroverse
Winners will be featured on Miroverse and Judges Choice winners will have an opportunity topresent their templates at a dedicated Miro event on Linkedin Live to our audience!
How to participate
To enter, please add a comment to this thread with the following details:
Your full name
Role and company
Mention category: icebreakers, meetings, or team building
Miro board embedded with your template (with view access)
Instructions on how to use the template
Optional: 1-3 minute video overview of your template
Entry requirements
Your template must be in English, and have been created and designed using Miro.
All information must belong to the board owner (We will reject all submissions containing copyright-protected content on board.)
Your template must be submitted to Miroverse before the challenge deadline.
Optional:share your board on LinkedIn with #Miro @Miro mentioning that you’re taking part in the challenge. Feel free to add an image or a video.
By participating in the challenge, you agree that your submission may be published and used for promotional activities by Miro.
Judges
Community Guest Judge for the Icebreaker category: Facilitator School- an education platform around the topic of online facilitation. They are one of our Miro Experts and teach professionals to be better facilitators through cohort-based courses, custom Miro templates and by curating facilitation resources.
Community Guest Judge for the Meetings category: Hyper Island- a global learning provider with a school and consulting services that enables individuals and organisations to see, understand and act upon the opportunities created by digital and technological evolution.
Community Guest Judge for the team Building category: @Stefano Mastrogiacomo- teamwork coach, project mgmt professor and author. He’s the designer of team tools like the Team Alignment Map, the Team Contract, the Fact Finder and the Nonviolent Requests Guide.
Miroverse team judge: Mariam Danielian manages the content production for Miro templates and oversees publications for the Miroverse templates library. She is inspired by the creativity of Miro users who turn an empty canvas into a universe of their own creation, and she’s passionate about sharing their work with others.
Happy collaborating and good luck!
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Template: Retrospective - Friends
Nhi Tran
Scrum Master at Nets Group
Category: Icebreakers, team building and meetings (a mix of three)
This is a retrospective board where you're able to touch upon: - A fun iteration check-in/mood:As an icebreaker. - Lucky: What went well this iteration? - Unlucky: What didn't go well this iteration? - Luck to bring: What kind of luck would you like to bring into the next iteration or going forward? - Action items: What kind of improvements should the team prioritize going forward? - Red envelope space: Wish your team good luck or give someone feedback (luck)
The timeboxing for this session depends on the team size, but I'd prefer 50-90 minutes ish.
Tips! While your team is writing the notes, make sure to play some instrumental Chinese music in the background.
Use this simple mood check in board to see how everyone's doing in the team.
I've created an avatar for each team member and suggest you to add the individuals name below the avatar to make it more interactive and fun.
There're different ways to use the board, for example:
Iteration mood check in
Quarterly mood check in
Daily mood check in
Weekly mood check in
PI-planning mood check in etc.
It might open up a few discussions or untie a few things. However I hope you find this simple mood board valuable.
Full name: Sabine Ballata
Role and Company: Product Design and Strategy at Kokoro
Category: Meetings
Miro board link:
Instructions:
This template for inclusive, strength-based team meetings also works brilliantly for distributed, hybrid and asynchronous teams.
Benefits:
It makes sure all voices are heard and introverts don't get overlooked
It focuses the team on the most important tasks and on involving everyone you need to make decisions
It keeps the team aligned to their collective strengths and helps them overcome difficulties with this positive outlook
Preparation:
As a meeting facilitator, you go through the preparation steps outlined in the template
You share the template with the team
Team members can add items that are important to them, using team strengths to guide their contributions
Have fun with the template and get in touch if you have any questions!
Video walkthrough link:
Full name: Sabine Ballata
Role and Company: Product Design and Strategy at Kokoro
Category: Team building
Miro board link:
Instructions:
In this team workshop, tensions within the team are addressed and resolved, using a combination of tried and tested techniques and exercises from non-violent communication, holacracy and agile team development.
Benefits:
Teams get a better understanding of their internal dynamics
Conflicts are transformed in engines for growth and learning
The workshop creates space to move on from tensions and focus on progress
Step by step:
Take some time to prepare the workshop by reading through the tips and FAQs included in the template.
On the day of the workshop, go through the Principles and do a Check-in. Then, the team list their tensions and match them to the space they can be addressed in.
Individual tensions are discussed first: The team helps individuals clarify their needs in order to make progress.
Interpersonal tensions are next: Using mirroring, points of contention or conflict are worked through, using non-violent communication principles
Check out by summarising your learnings.
Have fun with the elephants in the room - they might not be so scary after all!
Video walkthrough link:
Hi @Vincent Schnor@Johanna Torstensson@JPalz@JanaFiaccola@Romy Smith@Agile Games With James@Clyde D'Souza@Ruslan Kildeev@Nhi Tran@Tracy Bain@Frankie Kok@Lech Guzowski@NinaSwitch11@Regine@Daria Rudnik@Eline Charles@Kokoro@DWestgarth@Val_theWiz and all the guests of this challenge
I have an update from our judges!
We received a lot of templates submissions and after reviewing all of them and qualifying them for different categories, below is the list of templates that made it to the next round:
For everyone who did not make it to the next round- you are welcome to contact me for feedback
Hi @Vincent Schnor@Johanna Torstensson@JPalz@JanaFiaccola@Romy Smith@Agile Games With James@Clyde D'Souza@Ruslan Kildeev@Nhi Tran@Tracy Bain@Frankie Kok@Lech Guzowski@NinaSwitch11@Regine@Daria Rudnik@Eline Charles@Kokoro@DWestgarth@Val_theWiz and all the guests of this challenge
Ta-da! I am happy to announce the winners of this Miroverse Challeneg: Team Connection
The prizes will soon be on their way to the winners and all the participants who followed the entry requirements.
The winners will also see a new badge in their community profile soon
We want to thank everyone for participating in this challenge and sharing your awesome boards! Most of these templates will soon appear in our Miroverse and will become available to all Miro users.
Stay tuned for the next challenge!
Have a good one
This is ,by far, the best news of the week! Thanks!
Use this template if you want to optimize the energy in the team and to strengthen their team spirit. It is a combination of self reflection and learning more about the other team members.
Usage: Follow the rules within the board.
Part 1: What is your current energy level? 1 - Ask for their current energy level and let them stick it to the battery 2 - Let them present their currency level & ask to share insights
Part 2: What can be done to improve your current level? 1 - Ask what can be done (by themselves for themselves, by others, for others) 2 - Let them share their notes
I have some good news: we decided to move the deadline to January 12th 23:59 CET so that everyone can enjoy the holidays and also get a change to take part in the challenge!
We hope everyone enjoys the holidays, and we look forward to see even more amazing templates soon
Please don’t forget to submit your template to Miroverse before the deadline and mention what category your template is in: Icebreakers, meetings, or team building.
My name: Johanna Torstensson
I am Agile Coach in Sweden
Category: Team building
Miro board
What is it? The Moon Landing exercise brings people together to navigate a high stakes survival situation! It is ideal to stimulate the problem solving capacity of your team. It helps your team to practice communication, assertiveness and self-confidence to stay alive in the hostile environment on the moon! The Moon Landing exercise was originally developed by NASA.
When to use it? Moon Landing exercise is a team building activity that will reveal how your team deal with problem situations in extreme circumstances when time and resources are limited. You can use it to build your team and develop their team working skills anytime during their journey together.
How to run it?
This Moon Landing exercise can be done in any group size. The template is created for 9 people but can easily be adapted to any size of your group, by duplicating the Ranking sheets so everyone has their own copy.
During the assessment step you will break up in smaller groups of 3 for efficient discussion and decision making.
Time needed for this team building exercise is 90 min in total.
More detailed process steps how to facilitate the Moon Landing exercise are found in the Miroverse template.
Enjoy!
Regards, Johanna
Hi @Vincent Schnor@Johanna Torstensson@JPalz@JanaFiaccola@Romy Smith@Agile Games With James@Clyde D'Souza@Ruslan Kildeev@Nhi Tran@Tracy Bain@Frankie Kok@Lech Guzowski@NinaSwitch11@Regine@Daria Rudnik@Eline Charles@Kokoro@DWestgarth@Val_theWiz and all the guests of this challenge
Many thanks to all participants for sharing your amazing boards!
I’m here to tell you that we closed this thread for new submission and our judges take a week to choose the winner
Public voting for the People’s Choice is also open until January 20 (EOD), so let’s get voting! Please put a thumbs-up under a post if you like a template. Participants can also share a link to this thread with your network and get their support (NOTE: we only count the likes under your comment here in the Miro online community).
Stay tuned! We will get back to you on January 21 and announce the winners
Good luck
Wow, you knocked me off my feet! I´m humbled and grateful to be a winner, thank you so much for bringing the Moon Landing template in the spotlight!
This is ,by far, the best news of the week! Thanks!
Congratulations @Eline Charles, loved the simplicity and it’s an icebreaker that can be embedded in many contexts in an interactive and fun way. Kudos!
Hi everyone,
It’s amazing to see how so many diverse ideas and templates are shared to help teams form meaningful connection!
Thank you to the Miro Team and Judges for hosting this challenge to feature our work and get our templates in team connection out into the world!
Looking forward to seeing more Magic happens at Miro Community! Frankie
I love this! Very simple and well laid out!
I also love that we are the ones voting on the people’s choice! Great call on involving the community!
Your full name: Ruslan Kildeev
Role and company: Project Coordinator, MitOst e.V.
Mention category: Meetings
Miro board embedded with your template (with view access):
Instructions on how to use the template:
This template helps you run weekly team updates (for some also known as standup meetings) in a simple yet very efficient manner! It's highly adjustable & simple to work with.
How to use the template:
0. The instructions are built into the template — you can always refer to them!
1. Type in your name (name of your project, department, etc.) in the inner circle & choose one sticky notes color.
2. Share what has happened in the past week (next circle).
3. Share what is planned for the next week (next circle).
4. Read through colleagues' updates & leave your comments, questions, reactions (a.k.a. “silent walk”).
5. Discuss possibilities for collaboration & synergies using the outer circle.
Great! You've just managed a huge updates session in half an hour.
Your Full Name: Julie Palazini & Colleen Wheeler
Role: Collaborators in overhauling meetings
Mention category: icebreakers, meetings, or team building - Icebreaker
Miro Board with view access:Team Connection Wall: click image below
Team Connection Wall
See the activity instructions, objective and details on the board linked above.
A few words to our friends at MIRO...
Thank you for inviting submissions for the "Miroverse Challenge: Team Connection"! We are new to MIRO--and excited to offer this entry.
We help groups and individuals create space for focused reflection and learning. One way we do this is through designing meeting structures that support people in having the same conversation at the same time.
Well-designed, small moments have the power to create connection, deep appreciation, and even lighthearted laughter.
The brief activity outlined in our template allows team members to connect and network in a very low-pressure way. It has enough flexibility to allow the meeting facilitator/team leader to add fresh customized prompts to the pool of conversation prompts.
We decided to create an ICE BREAKER template that could be used regularly during team meetings AND during a stand-alone gathering. We kept it simple. We used frames, shapes, and sticky notes.
Yay! Congrats to the winners
This is ,by far, the best news of the week! Thanks!
Congratulations @Eline Charles, loved the simplicity and it’s an icebreaker that can be embedded in many contexts in an interactive and fun way. Kudos!
Thank you @René Nauheimer, I’m happy to hear it was so well received!
I’m in
Is there a limit of how many templates you can submit for the competition?
, 
. This contest is all about reflection and learning. How do you make sure your team members feel connected, supported, and happy? What are the Miro tools you use?
:
It is ideal to stimulate the problem solving capacity of your team. It helps your team to practice communication, assertiveness and self-confidence to stay alive in the hostile environment on the moon!
Public voting for the People’s Choice is also open until January 20 (EOD), so let’s get voting! Please put a thumbs-up under a post if you like a template. Participants can also share a link to this thread with your network and get their support (
NOTE: we only count the likes 
under your comment here in the Miro online community).
