The pandemic has resulted in a glut of new platforms for team collaboration. But team learning and development has largely been left out in the cold.
Thanks to Slack, Zoom, MS Teams, and multiple new virtual conference platforms, it’s been possible for teams and groups of people of congregate on-line to run their business meetings, but informal chat has gone, and spontaneity has been compromised. People are feeling less connected, less focused, and less engaged.
And teams need more than vehicles for hosting meetings. They need tools to help them focus on how best to organise themselves, and how to develop strong internal alignment. They need to carry out self-evaluation and fine-tune their working methods and practices. Like elite athletes, they need great coaching. Without this, they underperform massively. Industry studies routinely suggest that they can be at least 30% less productive. In a world where teams are increasingly dispersed and more people are working remotely, there is a huge risk that business teams will not be able to afford or access this type of support, further impacting their performance at a time when we need strong, healthy, and productive teams.
Learning professionals have attempted to find imaginative ways to redesign their programmes for virtual delivery, with varying degrees of success. Sharing a screen online has enabled the same presentations to be delivered from the comfort of a bedroom. And various tools to drive interactivity such as polling, chat and breakout rooms have helped to break up the monotony. But surely teams need and deserve more than this. They have particular needs that demand to be addressed, and they need access to guidance and support that helps them navigate the plethora of daily challenges they face. They need to access this support regularly, easily, and affordably.
One company that feels the same is Muster Genies. It has spun out of a partnership between two award winning companies, Kay-Lambert Associates and Gazooky Studios, and they have come up with a solution that means no team needs to be cast adrift. It is called Muster.
Remote teams learning together
Muster is a new concept in team coaching. It is a repository of rich and immersive learning content, that provides teams with all they need to become high performing. The result is a dynamic, real-time alternative to those face-to-face team bonding sessions. Now, teams can not only meet online, but they can also simultaneously interact with materials and content designed to stimulate the development of team skills, behaviours, and performance.
Drawing on their years of experience within the Learning and Development and business consultancy sector, gaming and filmmaking industries, the designers of Muster have created something that no business can afford to do without. A tool that ensures teams focus on the right things, develop the right capabilities, make the right decisions, behave in the right way, and deliver the best results. They have been able to produce exciting and intuitive experiences that teams will want to come back to time and time again.
With Muster, you can set up a team meeting; keep a log of critical team decisions; monitor team performance and progress; complete surveys to measure how effective your team is in various operational areas; play immersive multi-player games that test and develop core teamworking skills; use interactive tools to improve thinking, planning and execution; and access a library of information and ideas that help your teams flourish.
Muster is a flexible product, allowing teams to run sessions of any length, at any time. Teams can choose to have an extended session where they work through a number of activities together in a sequence; or they can join a session to do just one short team activity. They can even use Muster as a straight swap for Zoom or Teams, taking advantage of the crystal clear and highly responsive video and voice chat function.
Muster is designed to be an accessible product. Sessions can be self-curated and facilitated or run by the companies own professional trainers. No matter where in the world your teams are; whether they share an office or are spread across different sites, cities, and countries; whether they are mobile or not; and whether they have low or high-spec devices, Muster is available to them all. When logging on, Muster points team members to the nearest available server, ensuring optimal connectivity.
We think that Muster is a truly original application that will become a staple tool for the best teams, and a blueprint for any team that wants to become one.