In this COVID’y world, I find I lack feedback I’m accustomed to while facilitating. A small example of this is the natural reinforcement that occurs as folks see others inspect and vote on cards during LeanCoffees.

As a result, I’ve been doing something I call Derby voting.

Folks create cards as usual, then they put them into a vertical line.

We cover a synopsis of each topic then open up for voting.

Voting is simple.

Everyone votes concurrently. You drag a card across the course one tick/column for each vote you want to cast.

On tools like Miro, Mural, etc. the visual indication of an individual’ pointer provides enough of a clue to prevent tugs of war around cards.

The result is an interesting “race” of topics to the fore.

Added bonus for the facilitator: the cards are naturally stack ranked once you compress the columns vertically.

To give it a little flair, you can create a finish line with some black boxes!