In a remote work environment where communication is limited, this format will be one of your keys to a healthy work environment. Read the material, download the template and get ready for an unusual call.

📖 Content

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Intro

Hello creative teams! I’m Max, I’ve been managing design teams for over six years and I just decided to write an article about one of the methodswhich I use to rally employees and maintain trusting relationships within the department. It will be an interview-quiz “🎙 Talk” that helps employees get to know each other better, safely discuss difficult or sensitive topics, maintain team spirit and just have fun in an unusual work bell format. This interview quiz is also great for introducing the team to a new employee.

The origins of the game originate from the TV quiz “Your Game”, using a similar principle of choosing categories, but more on that later, everything else is implemented in a different way. In this article, I described examples of use, provided instructions and left a link to the Figma project for anyone interested. But, first, let’s touch on the prerequisites and problems.

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Problems

In today’s world, remote work has become a common phenomenon, and its advantages are obvious: flexible work schedule, saving time on the road, and the ability to work from anywhere in the world. However, despite all these advantages, remote work also brings with it a number of challenges, one of which is the lack of healthy communication with colleagues. And this already negatively affects various aspects of work:

1. Decrease in team spirit and motivation. When interaction is limited to work calls and texts, it can lead to less motivation and more conflict over small things.

2. Communication problems. Facial expressions, gestures and tone of voice play an important role in effective communication. In the conditions of remote work, these non-verbal signals may be absent, which leads to errors in the transmission of information.

3. Decreased creativity. Personal communication stimulates the exchange of ideas and promotes the development of creative thinking. And when interaction is limited, it inevitably affects the quality of work and the team’s ability to find non-standard and bold solutions.

As any reasonable manager, it is important for me that there is a healthy working environment within the department and that each employee performs. And when there are more than four people in the team and everyone works remotely, there is a wild need to maintain openness and the absence of toxic relationships. My practice shows that such informal meetings help to reduce the level of stress and tension that accumulates during work. Employees feel more comfortable, they can express their ideas and opinions more freely, which contributes to more efficient work.

Okay, I’ll stop at this point and start talking about the principles of the interview quiz and how to run it in your department or team.

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Mechanics and principles

The format of the meeting can be both online and offline, but in this article we will focus on the first option, since it has more dependencies.

🗂 Necessary services:

1. Figma for the launch of the finished project, the Prototype will also be launched on a free tariff, so even the manager will be able to be the leader.

2. Video conference service with a screencast, such as Google Meet or Zoom.

3. Survey service to collect questions for the player/guest, as well as to find out how the staff described him in one word. I use Google Forms (here is my template), but you can also use Yandex Forms or any other service.

🧑‍💻 Meeting participants:

1. Driving. Usually, this is the manager.

2. Player/Guest/Hero. The employee to whom the meeting and all questions will be addressed. Then simply “Player” in the text.

3. Spectators. Team or department employees.

🚦 Meeting procedure:

1. Player’s choice. It’s up to you, but the prototype project has a final screen where you can select the next participant from the list.

2. Time planning. It is ideal to set aside 1 hour for the meeting and schedule it on a busy day, preferably on Friday. Let’s be clear about this right away: As a manager, I see no objection to holding such events during working hours, as long as the department/team is functioning properly and business tasks are not suffering.

3. Appointment and announcement of the meeting. Set a date for the meeting and announce it in the local chat, inviting employees to write possible questions for the guest (Once again, I am duplicating the form template). For general comfort, it is better to hold a meeting once a quarter so that no one gets tired of the format and interest is maintained.

4. Figma project settings. Instructions for the blocks are in the project itself, as well as below in the article.

5. Start a meeting. When all the steps described above are completed and it’s time to meet, the host shows a screen with the finished interactive prototype from Figma and communicates with the player, helping to reveal their answers. The presenter can ask the audience for additional questions.

🕹 Interview-quiz stages:

1. Greeting. All participants join the video conference with cameras turned on, but only the host and player have microphones turned on. The presenter switches the slide in the prototype to the player’s card, where the answers from the point have already been inserted “Describe the player in one word”. Then there is a quick introduction to the rules, playing field and categories.

2. Choice of questions. The interview quiz has four categories: Familiarity, Design, Company, and Soul. Each category has four questions of varying difficulty. The player chooses the category and difficulty level of the question, after which the presenter clicks on the selected card and reads the question.

3. Audience voting. After the player answers a choice question, the host asks the audience to vote with their reactions, which determines whether or not a point will be counted. These reactions show how much the audience found the answer to be sincere or meaningful 🙂

4. The results. At the end of the response time (~40 minutes), the presenter presses the end button on the interactive prototype, and the player’s points are recorded in the project.

5. The last word and the choice of the next player. The host gives the last word to the player to share his impressions and wish luck to the next participant he chooses from the list. The format of choosing the next participant can be changed according to your opinion.

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Examples of questions

As I wrote above, there are four categories in the interview-quiz: “Acquaintance”, “Design”, “Company” and “Dushness”. Of course, you can rename them, but it is important to follow the general principles:

• The question should be personal so that the player talks about himself

• When composing questions, balance between common topics about life and more local ones related to work

• Experiment, joke and adapt the questions to the player

To help you get started, here are examples of questions we ask in each category:

👋 Dating

• Tell me about your dream

• Share an interesting fact about yourself that none of your colleagues know

• Tell me about your phobias

• How did you earn your first money?

• Tell an embarrassing story about yourself

🧑‍🎤 Design (here the sphere of the player)

• How did you come to [сфера_игрока]

• Most unsuccessful project/experience/interview

• What project/field would you never do work for?

• Do you plan to work all your life? [сфера_игрока] and if it is not [сфера_игрока]then…

• what to you [сфера_игрока] and what pros/cons do you see in the job

💼 Company

• How did you find out about the company and why did you decide to work here?

• What would you change in the company and why?

• Describe it [название_компании] in three words

• What has to happen for you to leave [название_компании]

• Your most pleasant and most unpleasant event in the company

🪟 Shortness of breath

• The most unpleasant person for you in [название_компании]

• What annoys you at work?

• High salary or friendly team

• Will you go to your competitors if they offer better terms?

• Your most embarrassing act or decision

To create an unexpected twist during the meeting, one of the question cards can be made a “Surprise” type. When a player chooses such a question, he can address the next question to any spectator. Whether to use this technique or not is up to you.

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Project settings

I made the structure of the components in the project as simple as possible and separated the automation with decorative elements from the content being edited, so no one should have problems.

The player’s points in the prototype are automatically calculated using variables. The display of question cards is also adjusted. The project is designed for you to duplicate it from Figma Community, fill in the required fields and that’s it.

The project has four pages:

1. 📖 Instruction — Basic knowledge that you have already read in the article. Can be deleted after reading.

2. 🛠 Settings — All project components are here. To personalize the project, go to the “Configuring” section, where each component has a description. I will briefly talk about the most important ones below.

3. 📦 Template [ Duplicate me ] – Fully customized template for new meeting. Duplicate the page, rename it to the player’s name, add a photo and fill in the answers with the form questions.

4. 🎙 Michael Scott [ Example ] – Visual example of a designed meeting page. Run the prototype and click to understand how it works.

Setting up the project requires only 4 steps:

1. Thumbnail. Select the language to be used for the project cover and the prototype’s main launch slide.

2. Categories. Rename the categories as you see fit, but don’t change the design or constraints.

3. Header. This component displays the current status of the record holder in terms of points. For the first encounter, turn off block display. Blocks with glasses and a stop button are not touched.

4. Players for next game. Enter the names of employees who can be selected for the next meeting.

Figma pros can update the Fundamental components section, but I guarantee that the changes will be properly merged when updating the project.

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Conclusion

Such informal meetings play an important role in creating a comfortable climate in the team, strengthening mutual understanding and trust, as well as in developing team spirit. It’s an investment in the team’s future that will pay off long-term. In addition, fun and interesting activities help to diversify the work process and make it more exciting. Employees who feel happy and motivated work more productively and with more enthusiasm.

I hope this article aka guide will be useful and inspire you to conduct an interview quiz in your team!

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