App Kick-Off Long Term Digital Connections

Choose this exercise

Purpose: Establish an active digital channel and agree on one concrete deliverable through silent text collaboration.

Use it when: At the start of a multi-day conference, hackathon, or retreat where teams need durable digital channels for ongoing coordination.

Skip it when: When participants lack devices or reliable internet access, or when the gathering does not use a team chat tool.

Group arrangement: Parallel topical groups of 2 to 6 people chatting in dedicated channels.

Timing: Source specifies 5 to 15 minutes. UWT structured the plan for the full 15 minutes to allow setup troubleshooting and synthesis.

Materials and tools

• One internet-connected device (smartphone or laptop) per participant with the chosen chat platform installed or open
• Screen or whiteboard listing 5 to 10 topical chat channel names
• Printed or digital login troubleshooting instructions
• Timer

Before participants arrive

1. Set up 5 to 10 topical channels or chat rooms in the team chat tool prior to the session.
2. Post login and setup instructions on a display screen.
3. Write or project the list of active channel names where all participants can see them.

Say this to open

Open our team chat tool on your phone or laptop. On screen you see several topical channels. Pick the one channel that interests you most and join it. Once you are in, put your voice on mute in the room. We will conduct a silent discussion entirely inside your chat channel to decide one small thing your group can finish and share before our gathering ends.

How to run it

1. Select channel and balance groups 3 minutes

   Participants open the chat tool and join their chosen channel. Anyone who cannot access their account follows the printed login guide or pairs with a neighbor. The facilitator monitors channel rosters. If any channel has only one member, or if a channel exceeds 6 people, the facilitator announces consolidated channels and reassigns participants so every active group has between 2 and 6 members.

2. Silent brainstorm of deliverables 4 minutes

   Participants work in spoken silence, typing directly into their assigned channel. Each person posts 1 or 2 concrete things the channel group could create or solve by the end of the event. Example: 'Write a two-page onboarding checklist for new hires' rather than 'Improve onboarding'.

3. Select one shared deliverable 4 minutes

   Remaining in spoken silence, channel members review the typed proposals and vote or reach consensus using emoji reactions or text replies. Each channel pins or posts their final chosen deliverable to the top of their thread. Anyone who prefers not to commit to an active deliverable can observe or offer editing support.

4. Whole-room share and debrief 4 minutes

   Spoken communication resumes. The facilitator calls on 2 channels to read out their selected deliverable in one sentence each. The facilitator then poses one debrief question to the room and takes 2 brief verbal reflections.

Debrief questions

• What made silent text discussion faster or slower than talking out loud?
• What will your channel need to do next to finish your deliverable before the event concludes?

Finished output: Each active topical channel has a posted and agreed deliverable to complete during the event.

Remote

Run in your primary video meeting. Share screen displaying the topic channels in your team messaging platform (such as Slack, Teams, or Discord). Participants join the corresponding channel and type there while video audio remains muted.

Hybrid

Both in-person and remote participants join the exact same digital chat channels. All participants remain muted in the room and on the call during the silent brainstorming and voting steps.

Access and participation choices

• Provide a large-screen laptop station for anyone who finds typing on a smartphone screen uncomfortable.
• Participants can participate by reading and adding emoji reactions to colleagues' ideas without having to type original text.
• Anyone may choose an observer role in a channel without committing to complete the final project.

If the session gets stuck

A participant cannot log into the chat tool or forgot their password.

Provide a pre-printed one-page quick-access guide with an admin contact, or allow them to pair up on a neighbor's device and add their initials to messages.

Only one person joins a specific channel topic.

Direct that person to merge into another channel that currently has fewer than 6 members.

Terms used here

• Connector App: The team's selected digital communication tool, such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Discord.