Q&A Boards

Notes the room upvotes, with the most wanted always on top.

A Q&A board is a live question queue. Anyone adds a note, everyone upvotes the ones they want to talk about, and the list keeps itself sorted so the most wanted note is always on top. It sits in the palette's Ask category, one of the six Collaborate categories.

Questions for the panel4 NOTESNOW DISCUSSINGWhat does launch look like?DoneDone, next →9MOST WANTEDHow do we measure success?5Who owns the rollout?2Can we pilot it first?Add a note…As you
The note being discussed sits in the spotlight with Done and Done, next; the queue below is ranked by votes.

Adding a note

Type into Add a note… at the foot of the board and press Enter. Your name goes on the note unless you switch on Anonymous under the field, in which case no name is stored with it at all. The switch stays on for every note you add until you reload the page. A note can be up to 280 characters, and a board holds up to 200 notes.

People on a Participant share link can add notes and vote too: the audience asking questions rarely has edit rights, and doesn't need them here. A Viewer link only watches the board.

Voting

Press the arrow beside a note to upvote it. Press it again to take your vote back. You get one vote per note, and the board enforces that itself, so it holds however many tabs you have open.

When votes change the ranking, notes slide to their new place. The top note is marked Most wanted, and the thin bar under each note shows its votes against the top note's. Discussed notes take no more votes.

Running the discussion

The facilitator runs the board. If nobody has taken that role, anyone with edit rights can.

  • Discuss the Top Note, or Discuss Now on any note you hover, lifts it into the spotlight at the top.
  • Done on the spotlight folds the note into Discussed below the queue, with its votes frozen. Done, next closes it and spotlights the current top note in one press. Hovering a note in the queue offers Mark Done for the same thing without discussing it first.
  • Remove takes a note off the board, for duplicates and anything off-topic.
  • Open Discussed to see what the room has covered, and Reopen a note to put it back in the queue.
  • The board's … menu offers Clear the Spotlight and Empty the Board for the next session.

Templates

Two templates in the Agile category start from a Q&A board:

  • Lean Coffee: the room brings the topics, upvotes them, and talks through the top ones in timeboxes. The four steps of the loop are drawn down the left, and the board sits beside the tools that run it: an 8-minute timer, a "Keep going on this topic?" poll, a 4-minute extension timer and a takeaways checklist.
  • Town Hall Q&A: an audience Q&A for an all-hands or a panel. The board sits between the panel and a run-of-show agenda on one side, and a 30-minute timer, an applause pad, a closing rating poll and a follow-ups checklist for anything the panel can't answer live on the other.

Make the board bigger to fit more notes on screen: the text stays the same size and more of the queue shows before it scrolls. To make it readable from the back of the room, zoom the canvas instead.

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