Add Brainstorming to your next video conference

Brainstorming for Zoom, Cisco Webex, GoToWebinar, Microsoft Teams & More
Video Conference Web Brainstorming Software Tool

Brainstorms boost participation and results

Most remote and virtual teams now use some type of web meeting or videoconferencing solution, like Zoom, Cisco Webex, GoToWebinar or Microsoft Teams. It used to be “death by PowerPoint” was the problem in most company meetings. As virtual meetings, online seminars, and web conferences increase in popularity, the same risk exists if they’re not designed and facilitated with real collaboration in mind.

Whether you’re managing a team, designing an online conference or facilitating a web meeting, upBOARD’s Live Brainstorm app gives you a simple yet powerful solution for engaging your audience by involving them in generating and prioritizing new ideas for any topic, challenge or opportunity.

A complete video conference live brainstorming solution

Virtual Meeting Video Conference Tools

Create and Manage Agendas

The problem with most meetings, whether virtual or in the physical world, is that they lack a defined structure. Use the agenda template to create a clear sequence of events for your meeting, including the timing, duration, topic and owner of the specific agenda item.

Web and Video Conference Agenda Template
Online Pre-Read Assignment and Article

Assign Pre-Reads & Get Pre-Meeting Input

Many meetings involve long presentations to simply disseminate information, which reduces the time available for meaningful interaction. Define pre-read or pre-work assignments, upload files to review, and solicit input and questions prior to the start of any event to help jump-start engagement and discussion.

Organize and Manage Presentations

Keeping track of presentations can be tough if you have multiple presenters in a single web conference. Use the Presentation Manager to keep track of your overall agenda and individual presentations including files, action plans for presenter preparation, and more.

Video Conference Presentation Manager
Brainstorming Norms and Ground Rules

Brainstorm to Generate Ideas

Brainstorming is an essential process for most teams, groups and organizations. Brainstorming in the digital world can often be more effective than traditional brainstorms since ideas can be created, categorized, and prioritized almost instantly using specific criteria. Create brainstorm norms, define idea categories, and set evaluation criteria.

Collect and Track “Builds” on Ideas

Ideas get better when people “build” on them through comments, questions, and additional supporting ideas. Solicit builds on individual ideas or open up all ideas for input to see which ones surface as the most interesting to the group. All comments are tracked and remain connected to the idea for future reference.

Online Brainstorming Process Builds and Comments
Affinity Diagram Map Free Online Tool

Use Affinity Maps to Organize Ideas

All groups have ideas, but since ideas lie in individuals’ heads, many ideas never surface due to poor facilitation or limited interaction. Affinity mapping provides an easy way to “post” ideas on a virtual wall, categorize them into themes and review results. The possibilities are unlimited. Create journey maps, process diagrams, identify issues and challenges, surface questions and more.

Create “Themes” to Classify Groups of Ideas

Making sense of many disparate ideas can be challenging. Creating “themes” to classify groups of ideas can help organize thinking and help surface the best individual ideas for further development. Use structured templates to define themes for columns of ideas or an entire list of ideas. Create as many theme templates as desired.

Brainstorming Themes Template
Online Brainstorm Video Conference Idea Portfolio

View Idea Lists and Portfolios and Export Anytime

The most effective brainstorming processes involve scoring ideas based on specific criteria. When each idea is scored, it becomes possible to view and compare ideas within a broader portfolio. View your portfolio of ideas anytime and export to a common spreadsheet file.

Capture Actions Items During and at the End of Meetings

The best meetings, especially brainstorms, include tangible action plans to ensure implementation of the best ideas. Capture action items for specific topics or ideas including assigning owners and time frames.

Video Conference Action Item List

Make your next virtual meeting a collaborative success

Great software? Yes. But we give you something as important: Expertise in creating and leading great online meetings, conferences and events.

Learn the latest in web collaboration from our resident remote teams and organization development expert, Soren Kaplan. Video tutorials give your team the success factors for high performance collaboration.

Soren Kaplan

Soren Kaplan is an Affiliate at the Center for Effective Organizations at USC’s Marshall School of Business, a columnist for Inc. Magazine, and author of the bestselling and award-winning books Leapfrogging and The Invisible Advantage. He is a co-founder of upBOARD and has been recognized by the Thinkers50 as one of the world’s top management thought leaders.

Best Practice:  Brainstorming

Best Practice:  Virtual Stickie Notes

With our Brainstorming App you also get 200+ best practice templates to include in any online meeting or event

Our platform gives you the best virtual collaboration processes and templates, instantly out-of-the-box. We’ve integrated best practices for teams and organizations from across disciplines like strategy, change management, operations and innovation from our growing library of business best practices to create a powerful solution that’s easy to customize and simple to use. Get started with our brainstorming solution for live web and video conferencing, or if you have a remote team, get other collaboration tools and processes from our Remote Teams Command Center. We can also build a custom solution for your organization using a combination of your existing processes and ours. Some of the many best practice tools we can add to your online environment include:

Action Item List Online Template

Action Item List

An Action Item List is a simple tool for tracking tasks, owners of tasks, and the time frame that tasks need to be completed during a project.Learn More »
Strategy Online Tools Templates

Affinity Diagrams

An Affinity Diagram is a tool and technique widely used in organizations that solicits and categorizes a large set of seemingly disparate ideas identified during a brainstorming session into natural groupings. Also known as KJ Method, it was invented in the 1960s by Kawakita Jiro, a Japanese anthropologist. It enables teams to collaborate in a strategic thinking and decision making process, which increases the likelihood of producing desired results.

Learn More »

Balanced Scorecard Online Template

Balanced Scorecard

Balanced Scorecard is a model that summarizes an organization’s high-level strategic goals, initiatives designed to reach those goals, and metrics, or key performance indicators, that monitor success over time, and shows how they are connected to the mission, vision, and core values of the organization. It is a strategic planning tool used ubiquitously in organizational management that clearly and concisely communicates what the organization has set out to achieve and how it proposes to do it.Learn More »
Brainstorming Process Free Online Tool

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is the creation and listing of ideas by one or more individuals in order to find a solution to a problem or generate ideas for a future business opportunity.  Also known as “Idea Generation” brainstorming is a common practice in marketing, innovation, design thinking, Six Sigma and other quality management processes.Learn More »
Critical Success Factors Online Template

Critical Success Factors

Critical Success Factors are the core actions that underlie an organization’s strategic objectives that must be accomplished at the highest level possible in order to achieve the overall goals and mission of the organization.Learn More »
Gap Analysis Online Template

Gap Analysis

Gap Analysis is a method of determining how an organization’s current state differs from its desired future state and the steps it needs to take to achieve desired performance results.Learn More »
Issue Tracker Online Template

Issue Tracker

An Issue Tracker is a management tool for tracking incoming issues, often related to a customer support center or software development program.Learn More »
Mission Statement Online Template

Mission Statement

Mission Statement defines the fundamental purpose for why a company exists and may include aspects of the organization’s scope and values.Learn More »
OGSM Framework Online Template

OGSM Framework

The OGSM Framework is a method that helps to guide organizations from the planning to the implementation phase of the business strategy development process. OGSM is an acronym that stands for Objective, Goals, Strategies, and Measures. An organization can use this method to connect its broader strategies, such as its mission and vision statements or its values, to concrete and actionable steps that can be taken to integrate the strategy into the daily behaviors of its employees.Learn More »
Portfolio Management Online Template

Portfolio Management

Portfolio Management centralizes the management of all projects across an organization and their associated components, such as goals, resources, staffing, timeline, and budgets. Portfolio Management provides a high-level overview of the business’ projects and requirements, which allows managers to more effectively prioritize and implement upcoming projects based on ROI, risk factors, and strategic fit.Learn More »
Project Charter Online Template

Project Charter

Project Charter lists the main goals of a project as well as a detailed plan for how to attain those goals. This detailed plan involves identifying the relevant stakeholders and determining the roles and responsibilities of each individual involved with the project.Learn More »
Project Tracker Online Template

Project Tracker

Project Tracker is a tool to help project managers track a project from beginning to end. It itemizes specific jobs within a project by effectively managing work and resources required to complete a project. When each of the tasks is completed, it is checked off and the team can move on.Learn More »
PEST Analysis Online Template

PEST Analysis

PEST Analysis is a standard business practice of evaluating the Political, Economic, Social, and Technological dimensions that can impact your organization and its markets. Its purpose is to identify potential threats and opportunities coming from the external environment over which the organization has no control but must anticipate when making strategic decisions.Learn More »
Purpose Statement Online Template

Purpose Statement

The Purpose Statement defines the basic customer needs the organization exists to fulfill. Not associated with a definitive end point, time frame, or deadline, Purpose Statements essentially answer the question “what business are we in?” in a broad yet focused way.Learn More »
RACI Chart Free Online Tool

RACI Chart

RACI is an acronym for ResponsibleAccountableConsulted and InformedRACI Charts or the RACI Matrix are tools for outlining roles and responsibilities within a team or organization to ensure that nothing falls through the cracks. RACI Charts assign clear ownership of tasks and expectations so there is no confusion within a group as to who is responsible for completion of an action.Learn More »
Strategic Goals Online Template

Strategic Goals

Strategic Goals are the high-level, overarching objectives that an organization sets out to achieve over a set timeframe. They articulate what the organization plans to do to fulfill its mission and vision, and they form the foundation for designing and implementing strategic initiatives, which are the actual projects and programs that get implemented in service of accomplishing the Strategic Goals.Learn More »
Business Strategy Map Online Template

Strategy Map

Strategy Map is a clear visual representation of the major strategic objectives of an organization, usually based on a framework or model like the balanced scorecard. This representation is useful for communicating the organization’s strategy in a digestible way to employees at all levels of the organization. In this way, each employee can clearly see where their role fits in to the map and how they can help the organization achieve its larger goals.Learn More »
SWOT Analysis Online Template

SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning tool that explores an organization’s internal and external environment, including strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.Learn More »
Project Task List Online Template

Task List

Task List is a prioritized list of all the tasks and responsibilities that need to be performed for a job or role on a team. The list typically shows everything that needs to be done in the order in which it needs to be completed.Learn More »
Values Statement Online Template

Values Statement

Values Statements articulate an organization’s core beliefs and principles that drive performance and behavior. They contain the essential and enduring tenets of an organization.Learn More »
Vision Statement Online Template

Vision Statement

Vision Statements define and describe the vibrant future an organization wishes to create and achieve. The intention of a vision is to guide, inspire, and motivate people to reach the desired end state for the organization.Learn More »

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digital best practice tools & templates
Help your team quiet the chaos and focus on what really matters.