Remote Work Bingo

Choose this exercise

Purpose: Acknowledge everyday remote working realities and identify shared work habits across a distributed team.

Use it when: Use at the start of a team meeting or retrospective to break routine and normalize common distributed work experiences.

Skip it when: Skip when the meeting requires strict confidentiality, when participants work fully on site, or when time is under ten minutes.

Group arrangement: Individual marking, followed by pairs or triads, then whole group review

Timing: 15-minute meeting version based on UWT standard timing; asynchronous play can extend across multiple days

Materials and tools

• One printed or digital Remote Work Bingo card per person
• One pen or digital annotation tool per person

Before participants arrive

1. Send the bingo grid link or document to all participants in advance, or print copies for in-person attendees.
2. Ensure all participants have access to write on or digitally mark their copy.

Say this to open

Take a look at your Remote Work Bingo card. Review the squares and mark an X on any situation you have personally experienced this past week. After three minutes of solo marking, we will compare notes in pairs.

How to run it

1. Introduce card and rules 2 minutes

   Distribute or display the grid. Explain that participants mark squares matching their recent remote experiences. Clarify that five in a row horizontally, vertically, or diagonally is a standard line, but any marked square is valid to share.

2. Mark individual cards 3 minutes

   Participants review the grid silently and mark their squares. Anyone who prefers not to mark personal details may observe or focus on universal work habits.

3. Compare in small groups 5 minutes

   Divide participants into pairs or triads. Groups compare marked squares, notice common experiences, and confirm if anyone completed a row.

4. Whole-room wrap and debrief 5 minutes

   Reconvene the full room. Ask three volunteers to name their most frequent square or an unexpected match. Address two debrief questions before closing.

Debrief questions

• Which square was marked by almost everyone in your small group?
• What remote work habit on your card would you like to keep or change this month?

Finished output: Marked bingo cards showing shared remote work patterns across the team.

Remote

Distribute a digital fillable card or shared slide deck before the session. Run small groups in breakout rooms for step three. Call out matches in the main chat room.

Hybrid

Provide physical cards to room participants and digital files to remote participants. Form small groups using one in-person attendee paired with one remote attendee via laptop, or run separate in-room and remote breakout pods.

Access and participation choices

• Participants may pass on reading aloud any square they marked.
• Provide high-contrast text files of the square descriptions for screen-reader users.

If the session gets stuck

Nobody achieves a full five-box line within the session.

Shift the win condition to the person or pair with the most total marked squares.

A participant works in a shared office and feels excluded by home-specific prompts.

Allow them to mark boxes based on colleagues they interact with or substitute general distributed office habits.

Terms used here

• Line: A continuous sequence of five marked squares horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.