Pinboards and sticky notes are so ubiquitous to any kind of workshop, training or brainstorming exercise that we almost forget how we will be able to enjoy the same (or more) benefits of such tools when our in-office team becomes a geographically distributed team. One might think that video conferencing and 2D collaboration solutions could be the answer but the lack of in-person feel leaves the participants exhausted and less engaged with the content. Research has shown that nearly half of the surveyed professional workers report a high degree of exhaustion due to perpetual use of video conferencing.
An office in VR where all the employees have a photorealistic avatar creates a sense of true presence among the participants. Harvard Business Review in its research discovered that an engaged employee is 55% more productive than one who is not. Our team is continuously working towards adding new productivity features to make Arthur the unparalleled choice for enterprise virtual office solution. One of the recent features added are the Pinboard and Sticky Note feature. In a very short time, the pinboard has become one of the favorite features of our clients and here’s why!
Pinboards in Arthur work quite similarly to real-life pinboards except that with digital pinboards, the possibilities increase many folds. Not only can you add sticky notes flexibly but you can also pin presentations, whiteboards, photos and videos to the pinboard. The sticky notes are available in a range of colors which allows our clients to color code to structure their thoughts. Digital pinboards allow you to add a wide variety of data and create a more composite presentation of the topic at hand. Furthermore, you could place as many pinboards around the room as you need, which would be a difficult proposition in a physical office. Our clients have found the pinboard to be a very intuitive and easy to use tool. This encourages our customers to use the pinboard feature in many different. In this article we would like to highlight three of most observed use cases.
Kanban Board
Probably one of the best use cases for our pinboards has been the Kanban board. The ease of moving the sticky notes allows our clients to track processes easily. Similarly, pinboards can be repurposed for a retrospective meeting by creating a Start-Stop-Continue board. Here teams can analyse and visualize practices they would like to adopt, are going well, or would like to stop as a learning for the next project. The adaptability of the feature has made it a versatile tool for all kinds of meetings needing a kanban board.
Mind Mapping
What we found to be a very good experience when it comes to utilizing pinboards has been Mind Mapping. Using multiple assets such as dividers, arrows or shapes, clients have managed to create detailed and clear maps. Using multiple boards they are able to collect everyone's ideas. By using whiteboards, notes, a photo, video or a presentation everyone expresses their thoughts in their preferred manner but still connect them under the umbrella of a topical pinboard.
Ideas and Discussion Board
Last but not least, pinboards can also be used as idea or discussion boards. We have seen our clients using pinboards to structure their thoughts for generating ideas and brainstorming. The scalability of the pinboard allows users to pin many more objects than on a physical pinboard. You can also create a one-stop site for all things pertaining to a certain topic. On your pinboard you can completely capture your vision without limiting yourself to the physical availability of resources.
Please check out our earlier blog posts if you'd like to learn more about our other features and use cases.
