Designing Design Workshops - Adam Connor, 2016
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The document provides an overview of designing effective workshops. It discusses how workshops can generate ideas, allow sharing of perspectives, and build consensus around solutions. However, effective workshops require more planning than simply putting people in a room. The document then covers exploring and practicing different workshop activities, when to use each type, best practices for planning, and tips for facilitation. Specific activities discussed include challenge mapping to reframe problems and free listing to gather understanding of a topic.
![Lens Brainstorm
GENERATE
93
How might we…
make saving for college
more rewarding?
USE TO
Generate ideas for solutions to a problem space that
satisfy a specific set of characteristics.
PARTICIPANTS
3 or more people.
TIME
10 minutes for initial collection.
3-5 minutes per person for presentation.
HOW TO DO IT
1. Select a challenge/problem space and set of 3-5 adjectives that describe the
experience the group would like their future creation to elicit.
2. Instruct participants that they will be brainstorming solutions for the
challenge in accordance with the selected adjectives.
3. You will provide the prompt in the form of “How might we [challenge] more
[adjective]? Example: How might we make saving for college more
rewarding?
4. Let participants know that they will have 90 seconds per adjective and will
write down one idea per post it.
5. Begin the brainstorm with the prompt for the first adjective. After 90
seconds, repeat the prompt using the next adjective. Repeat until you have
gone through all of the selected adjectives.
6. Have each participant share their ideas with the rest of the group, posting
them to the wall as they go.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/designingdesignworkshops-adamconnor2016-170330195643/85/Designing-Design-Workshops-Adam-Connor-2016-72-320.jpg)
![3 Kinds of Feedback
REFINE
Reaction
Direction
Critique
Good lord! That’s awful! An inebriated cocker spaniel
could have done better!
You should have made all of those radio buttons a drop
down [,because…]
If the objective is for users to consider the impact to their
bank balance before making a purchase, placing the balance
at the bottom of the screen at the same size as all the other
numbers isn’t effective because it gets lost in all of the other
information.
123](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/designingdesignworkshops-adamconnor2016-170330195643/85/Designing-Design-Workshops-Adam-Connor-2016-88-320.jpg)
Designing Design Workshops - Adam Connor, 2016
- 2. OVERVIEW 4
- 3. Designing Design Workshops Workshops and collaborative activities provide teams with the potential to generate more and better ideas for a solution, allow individual team members to share their points-of-view, and build consensus around design solutions. However, effective workshops take more thought than just putting people together in a room. In this workshop participants will: • Explore and practice a variety of workshop activities • Learn when to use which types of activities • Review best practices for planning workshops • And learn how to facilitate activities and discussions including advice for dealing with difficult participants. OVERVIEW 5
- 6. Studios, Sprints, Workshops, Whatever… Workshops are meetings comprised of 1 or more activities in which ALL* participants: • Are presented with 1 or more questions or challenges • Explore and provide their answers or ideas for solutions to the given challenge through hands-on activities • Work together to (begin to) understand and organize their perspectives/answers/ideas. *With the exception of the master facilitator THE WHYS & WHENS OF WORKSHOPS 11
- 7. Workshops can be used to… • Generate and collect a variety of ideas • Allow all team members to share their perspectives. • Build awareness across team members of challenges, perspectives from each other and the desired solution • Build a shared vocabulary • Find consensus around elements of the final solution • Build a sense of collaboration and of ownership in the solution • And… THE WHYS & WHENS OF WORKSHOPS 12
- 8. Avoiding the all to familiar, and horribly painful… Swoop-n-poop! THE WHYS & WHENS OF WORKSHOPS 13
- 9. Reconsider workshops when… • Key members of the “team” aren’t willing to participate • The team (or leadership) is unwilling to move away from an existing solution. • There aren’t clear objectives or outputs for the workshop THE WHYS & WHENS OF WORKSHOPS 14
- 12. THE WHYS & WHENS OF WORKSHOPS 17 DISCOVER SYNTHESIZE GENERATE REFINE Initial Insight Plan Release EVALUATE Discover Explore the influences, actors, contexts, triggers, constraints, etc. of a problem or opportunity set. The Design Thinking Process
- 14. THE WHYS & WHENS OF WORKSHOPS 19 DISCOVER SYNTHESIZE GENERATE Initial Insight Plan Generate Generate a large number of ideas for “solutions” (products, services, etc.) for achieving the desired objectives. The Design Thinking Process
- 15. THE WHYS & WHENS OF WORKSHOPS 20 DISCOVER SYNTHESIZE GENERATE REFINE Initial Insight Plan Release Refine Iterate, combine, and eliminate solutions based on analysis and appropriate variables while increasing fidelity until one (or a small number) of solutions are determined. The Design Thinking Process
- 16. THE WHYS & WHENS OF WORKSHOPS 21 DISCOVER SYNTHESIZE GENERATE REFINE Initial Insight Plan Release EVALUATE Evaluate Deploy the solution(s) in some form and monitor it’s effect on the problem space. The Design Thinking Process
- 17. THE WHYS & WHENS OF WORKSHOPS 22 DISCOVER SYNTHESIZE GENERATE REFINE Initial Insight Plan Release EVALUATE The Design Thinking Process
- 27. Planning Backwards • Identify the immediate next action you need to be able to take once the workshop is complete. • Ask yourself what information, decisions, artifacts, or answers you need in order to be able to take that action. • Ask yourself the same question again and repeat until you reach whatever information you currently have. • You now have an information trail from your current state to your desired future state. Select the best activities to acquire this information and decide what can be accomplished in your workshop or as pre or post work. STRUCTURE & PLANNING 32
- 29. All About Agendas • You’ll need one. It helps you figure out what you can get done in the time you have. • Don’t save it for last. (It’s usually the second… and fourth... and sixth thing I do) • Give everything specific timings, not general blocks like “early morning”. • If things feel tight when putting together an agenda, they’ll probably seem worse in the actual workshop. • Pad everything. Things almost always take longer than you think they will. Plus you’ll need time for transitions, instructions, clarifications, etc. • Remember that the time needed for many activities will be depended on the number of participants. • Have others look it over and give you their OK, especially if leadership is involved. STRUCTURE & PLANNING 34
- 30. DISCOVER 37
- 31. DISCOVER 38 DISCOVER SYNTHESIZE GENERATE REFINE Initial Insight Plan Release EVALUATE Discover Explore the influences, actors, contexts, triggers, constraints, etc. of a problem or opportunity set. The Design Thinking Process
- 32. For many projects, much of the gathering of information will be done via research. However, gathering perspectives from participants (such as stakeholders) will still be important. For example: • Understanding various perspectives of the challenges to be solved. • Understanding the roles associated with a project’s execution. • Understanding initial objectives (i.e. goals and principles). DISCOVER 39
- 33. Challenge Map DISCOVER 40 USE TO Reframe a problem space by exploring perspectives on why it should be done and challenges to it’s success. PARTICIPANTS Work in pairs or triplets. TIME Minimum of 25 minutes. More depending on the scope & number of participants. HOW TO DO IT 1. Divide into small groups (2-3 people per group). Each team will then: 2. Write the current problem statement in the form of “How might we…” on a post-it and place it in the center whiteboard (or butcher paper) 3. Using a different color post it, ask the question, “Why should we do this?” Capturing each answer on an individual post it and placing them in a row above the original statement. Preface each answer again with “How might we…” or (HMW…) for short. 4. For each answer, repeat step 3, continuing to expand outward and upward until the team feels the answers it’s uncovering are no longer useful. 5. Select a third color post it and begin working below the original problem statement. Here you will challenge the problem statement with “What is preventing us from doing this?” or “What is preventing this from happening today?” Again, include the HWM... preface. 6. Continue, moving downward in the same fasion as you did for the question of “Why” in steps 3 & 4. 7. Examine all of the answers and determine if one or more would might make more apporpriate problem statements. 8. Have each group share their results looking for patterns and overlap.
- 35. Free Listing DISCOVER 45 USE TO Gather data about a group’s understanding of the “contents” of a specific topic. PARTICIPANTS 2 or more people working individually TIME 5-10 minutes for initial collection. Time needed for presenting and organizing items will be variable. HOW TO DO IT 1. Provide participants with a topic related to the purpose of the project or workshop. For example, “auto insurance” 2. Ask participants to individually write down as many things as they can related to auto insurance. 3. Depending on how you plan to analyze and organize participants answers you may want them to write each item on a separate note card or post it, or write all answers on a sheet of paper.
- 37. 4Cs DISCOVER 47 USE TO Build an understanding of a group’s perspectives on a specific topic. PARTICIPANTS 4 - 24 people TIME 25 – 30 minutes HOW TO DO IT 1. Draw a large 2x2 grid on an easel pad or whiteboard. Label the 4 spaces: Components, Characteristics, Challenges, Characters 2. Provide participants with a topic related to the purpose of the project or workshop. For example, “auto insurance” 3. Explain to participants that the activity’s purpose is to help them explore what they know about the selected topic by having them gather information with respect to each of the 4 spaces: • Components: parts of the topic. • Characteristics, attributes of the topic • Challenges: obstacles associated with the topic • Characters: people or roles associated with the topic. 4. Break participants into four equally sized teams. Assign each team one of the “C”s and provide them with post it notes and markers. 5. Instruct the teams that their job is to collect as much information about their assigned “C” from others in the room. Give the teams 5 minutes to discuss their assigned “C” and how they will gather information.
- 38. 4Cs DISCOVER 48 USE TO Build an understanding of a group’s perspectives on a specific topic. PARTICIPANTS 4 - 24 people TIME 25 – 30 minutes HOW TO DO IT 6. Once the 5 minute planning period has elapsed, give the teams 10minutes to gather information from as many of the other participants as possible. 7. At the end of the 10 minute gathering period, give each team 5 minutes to organize what they’ve captured in whatever way they deem appropriate and then add their organized findings to their space on the original 2x2 grid. 8. Have each team present their findings to the others and facilitate discussion to ask clarifying questions and have other participants add information if they sense something missing.
- 40. SYNTHESIZE 50
- 41. SYNTHESIZE 51 DISCOVER SYNTHESIZE GENERATE REFINE Initial Insight Plan Release EVALUATE Synthesize Organize findings into insights: what the group believes and understands about the problem space and articulating the objectives for the future state that the project will work to create. The Design Thinking Process
- 42. During “Synthesize” the team builds a shared understanding of both the current state surrounding the problem space as well as their objectives and vision for it’s future. Work done during this phase often focuses on these aspects: • The framing of the “problem” or “opportunity” • Establishing Personas • Identifying Goals (OKRs) • Articulating Principles • Constructing Scenarios SYNTHESIZE 52
- 43. Proto-Personas SYNTHESIZE 53 USE TO Develop an understanding of the team’s perspectives on the needs, constraints, and contexts of their audience/users. PARTICIPANTS Up to 10 people TIME 3-5 hours, typically divided over 2 sessions. Additional time in between sessions needed for consolidation. HOW TO DO IT 1. Introduce the concept of personas and proto-personas (as necessary). 2. Provide participants with proto-persona templates, or have them construct their own (paper divided into quadrants labeled: Name & Sketch, Demographics, Behaviors, Needs & Goals. 3. Working individually, give participants 15 minutes to come up with as many personas as they can think of for the project. 4. Once time is up, have each participant present their personas to the group, posting them to the wall as they do. 5. Work with the team to select 4-5 characteristics that can be conveyed as a spectrum (ex: risk aversion) based on the pool of personas. These characteristics will be used to help organize the personas and identify opportunities to consolidate. Try to select characteristics related to behaviors/needs/goals rather than demographics. 6. Draw the spectrums on a whiteboard. Have the group decide where the each persona falls on each spectrum, placing a post it with that persona’s name at that point. Voting cards can be useful here. 7. Make sure that conversations focus on the users themselves. Participants should be debating each other, not trying to convince you (the facilitator).
- 44. Proto-Personas SYNTHESIZE 54 USE TO Develop an understanding of the team’s perspectives on the needs, constraints, and contexts of their audience/users. PARTICIPANTS Up to 10 people TIME 3-5 hours, typically divided over 2 sessions. Additional time in between sessions needed for consolidation. HOW TO DO IT 8. Once all personas have been placed, end the first day/session with a quick description of the next session’s work. 9. Before the next session, examine the personas that have been generated and work to refine/consolidate them into a smaller set (3-5ish) as necessary. Keep track of your work as in some cases you’ll need to explain your rationale to the group. • For this step, combine the demographics and name/sketch quadrants from the first round and use the lower left quadrant for the personas positioning on the characteristic spectrums. 10.When the group gathers again, present them with the new set of personas and how you arrived at them. 11.Allow the group to adjust the new personas as necessary to reach agreement.
- 45. Proto-Personas SYNTHESIZE 55 TIPS & CONSIDERATIONS 1. Large groups can make this activity somewhat difficult. When dealing with significantly large groups it can be useful to break out into multiple sessions and run the just the first session with each sub group, then the second session with a core, decision making group. 2. If the entire group is sufficiently small enough, you may be able to do the persona consolidation together. 3. When dividing over 2 sessions, do not allow too much time to elapse between sessions. Too much time in between kills momentum. WHY WE USE IT Personas are a useful tool for understanding user/customer archetypes. But projects don’t always allow for them or sometimes we need to talk about users before they’ve been created. This approach allows organizations to build upon and later validate or invalidate their understanding of their audience earlier in the process. MATERIALS Whiteboard (or butcher/flipchart paper) Post Its (3 colors) Markers PAIRS WELL WITH Follow up with additional exploration like empathy mapping and/or journey mapping. Or possibly with brainstorming activities like Design Studio or 6-8-5.
- 46. Empathy Mapping SYNTHESIZE 60 USE TO Help participants empathize with specific audiences in a given situation. PARTICIPANTS Teams of up to 6 people. TIME 20-25 minutes HOW TO DO IT 1. Prior to this activity, make sure that the team has developed proto-personas or is familiar with any personas developed for the project key use cases have been identified. 2. Assign a persona and use case to each group. You can select the same or different combinations for each group depending on your needs. 3. Provide each team with an empathy map template or have them construct on easel pad paper (see image). 4. Give each team 20-25 minutes to capture what their persona is sensing (seeing/hearing/etc.), thinking, feeling, and doing when they encounter the assigned use case. Each item captured should be written on a post it and placed in the appropriate section of the template.
- 48. Design the Magazine Cover SYNTHESIZE 64 USE TO Envision key characteristics, features, and outcomes of the future product or service the project will create. PARTICIPANTS Teams of up to 6 people. TIME 30-40 minutes HOW TO DO IT 1. Provide each team with one or more sheets of easel pad paper. 2. Instruct each team to imagine that a magazine is running a special issue all about their future product/service/organization. The sheet of paper represents the cover of the issue. Their job is to determine the contents of that cover in 20 minutes. Their contents should include the following: • Feature Story: The big thing people will be talking about related to the product/service/organization • Key Headlines: Other stories that reinforce or explore other angles to the feature story. • Quotes: things people, often customers, but can be anyone, will say about the future creation. • Ideas for images: images reflective on the new future state the creation will bring about. • Sidebars: Smaller stories that reveal interesting facets of the feature story. (often personal experiences) 3. As the facilitator, remind teams as they work that this is a magazine cover. Imagine it sitting on the rack, trying to grab people’s attention.
- 54. Don’t just throw people together. • Workshops can be done with any group. Think about your objectives for the workshop and their implications for who you should invite. In many cases you’ll want to go for cross-functional representation. • Don’t forget to include stakeholders. • Understand the roles, needs, and influence of participants (i.e. who needs to sign off and who is there more for awareness). • Though in a workshop, you should treat everyone as equals, it’s useful to know who your gatekeepers are. • To the degree you can, get a sense for individuals’ personalities prior to the workshop. TEAMS, ROLES, & FACILITATION 72
- 56. How you put people together makes all the difference. • Teams are an effective way of making workshops with large numbers of people work. • They can also be useful tools for exploring various perspectives. • Try to keep them to no more than 6 people per team. • Most of the time, teams should be cross-functional. • Think about the personalities of people in each team and try to avoid bad combinations. • Each team will need a facilitator. TEAMS, ROLES, & FACILITATION 74
- 58. Herding cats…
- 63. Facilitating Activities & Discussions • Silence can be both good and bad. Be on the lookout for it. • Be a time cop, but also give people time to finish their thoughts or reach agreement. Don’t be afraid to let them go on long or cut them off if necessary. Know when to hold boundaries and when to let them slide. • Be prepared to adjust your agenda on the fly. Always know where you are. Make calculated decisions on how to proceed. • Watch out for group think and design-by-committee. Use framing tools, output from prior activates, research, etc. to steer back to what matters. • Facilitators should be unbiased TEAMS, ROLES, & FACILITATION 81
- 64. Facilitating Activities & Discussions • Summarize arguments, conclusions, etc. • Look for understanding. Check to make sure everyone understands what is being talked about. • Look for emotions in participants. • Ask lots of questions. Play dumb. “Why?” is your weapon of choice. • Be transparent. Let people know why you’re doing things. • Use a parking lot. It sounds lame, but it works so long as you follow through with it. • As you move through activities recap and refer back to observations and conclusions from previous ones. TEAMS, ROLES, & FACILITATION 82
- 66. Recognizing “Difficult” People • Sometime it’s pretty obvious. • Signals can include: • Dominating conversations. Talking over people. Ignoring what others are saying. • Not Participating. Being closed of both verbally and physically. • Not staying in scope. Introducing topics and questions outside the bounds of the workshop. TEAMS, ROLES, & FACILITATION 84
- 67. Handling “Difficult” People • Remember that someone’s difficult nature isn’t always a reflection of their evil plans for world domination. • Use open ended questions to work at finding the root of their concerns, misunderstandings, etc. • Like most things in facilitation, forms of the question, “why?” are your best friends here. • Work with them to relate points back to any previous activity output, objectives, problem framing, etc. • Use your parking lot. • Call time-out, regroup, and adjust if necessary. TEAMS, ROLES, & FACILITATION 85
- 68. GENERATE 88
- 69. GENERATE 89 DISCOVER SYNTHESIZE GENERATE REFINE Initial Insight Plan Release EVALUATE Generate Generate a large number of ideas for “solutions” (products, services, etc.) for achieving the desired objectives. The Design Thinking Process
- 70. Bad Ideas GENERATE 90 USE TO Explore what “shouldn’t” be done in order to better understand the contexts of a topic and potential real solutions. PARTICIPANTS 2 or more people. TIME 30 – 40 minutes HOW TO DO IT 1. Prior to the workshop or activity, select a challenge/topic you’d like participants to generate solutions for. 2. Assemble participants into teams, provide each team with markers and an easel pad/paper. 3. Present the challenge to the team, and ask each team to work at creating (sketching) the worst solution possible over the course of the next 10 minutes. 4. Set your timer for 10 minutes and have the teams begin. 5. When 10 minutes are up, have each team swap their solution with another. 6. Each team then has 10 minutes to imagine and write/sketch the circumstances in which the “bad” solution would be a good one. 7. When time elapses, have each team present the bad idea they were given and the reframed circumstances they came up with that would make it a good idea. Allow for 3-5 minutes for each team. Let’s Have lunch at McDonalds!
- 72. Lens Brainstorm GENERATE 93 How might we… make saving for college more rewarding? USE TO Generate ideas for solutions to a problem space that satisfy a specific set of characteristics. PARTICIPANTS 3 or more people. TIME 10 minutes for initial collection. 3-5 minutes per person for presentation. HOW TO DO IT 1. Select a challenge/problem space and set of 3-5 adjectives that describe the experience the group would like their future creation to elicit. 2. Instruct participants that they will be brainstorming solutions for the challenge in accordance with the selected adjectives. 3. You will provide the prompt in the form of “How might we [challenge] more [adjective]? Example: How might we make saving for college more rewarding? 4. Let participants know that they will have 90 seconds per adjective and will write down one idea per post it. 5. Begin the brainstorm with the prompt for the first adjective. After 90 seconds, repeat the prompt using the next adjective. Repeat until you have gone through all of the selected adjectives. 6. Have each participant share their ideas with the rest of the group, posting them to the wall as they go.
- 74. 6-8-5 GENERATE 95 USE TO Generate a large number of ideas or answers to a given challenge or questions. PARTICIPANTS 2 or more people. TIME 25 – 35 minutes per round HOW TO DO IT 1. Prior to the workshop or activity, select a challenge/topic you’d like participants to generate solutions for. 2. Provide participants with paper folded (or divided) into 2 x 2 or 2 x 3 grids. 3. Instruct participants that their task will be to–working individually– sketch their ideas for the proposed topic using the provided paper with one idea/division. They will have 5 minutes to sketch as many ideas as they can with the goal of coming up to 6-8. 4. Set your timer for 5 minutes and have the participants begin sketching. 5. When 5 minutes have elapsed, provide each participant with 3-5 minutes to present and discuss their ideas with the whole group (or team if your workshop is broken into multiple teams) 6. Repeat the process as you see fit to collect more ideas, coaching participants to try to generate new ideas based on what they’ve seen in the previous rounds.
- 77. REFINE 108
- 78. REFINE 109 DISCOVER SYNTHESIZE GENERATE REFINE Initial Insight Plan Release EVALUATE Refine Iterate, combine, and eliminate solutions based on analysis and appropriate variables while increasing fidelity until one (or a small number) of solutions are determined. The Design Thinking Process
- 79. Affinity Mapping REFINE 110 USE TO Allow teams to find shared ideas as well as outliers. PARTICIPANTS 2 or more people. TIME 1-3 hours depending on the number of participants HOW TO DO IT 1. Begin with a large pool of related items posted to a wall. For example, the output of a Lens Brainstorm or Free Listing exercise. 2. Instruct the group to move items to another wall (or a space far enough on the current wall) arranging them in groups according to how similar they are to form “clusters” of similar items. • Participants work individually, simultaneously, and shouldn’t discuss as they work. • They can move items into groups created by others or rearrange groups that don’t make sense to them. 3. Once all items have been moved to the new wall or space and any rearrangement seems to have diminished, end this phase of the activity. 4. Next, work with the group to assign a name to each cluster. Review the contents of the cluster with the group and allow them to suggest names. If the group agrees that a cluster represents more than one theme, break it apart.
- 82. Dot Voting REFINE 114 USE TO Determine relative priority or interest in concepts based on participant selection PARTICIPANTS 3 or more people. TIME 10 – 15 minutes HOW TO DO IT 1. Determine a total number of votes each participant will be given. 3 and 5 are common choices. 2. Begin with a pool of options for the team to select from. Review them with the participants and allow participants to ask clarifying questions as needed. related items posted to a wall. For example, the output of a Lens Brainstorm or Free Listing exercise. 3. Instruct participants to select the ideas they believe are most important (or most worth pursuing, etc.) and note place dots next to them. If they think an idea is particularly important, they may vote more than once. 4. Participants will place their votes simultaneously. 5. Tally the votes and arrange the items according to most to least votes. Discuss the resulting arrangement with the group. Are there any surprises?
- 84. Design Studio REFINE 119 USE TO Generate a large number of ideas and then build consensus around the most valuable through iteration and consolidation. PARTICIPANTS 2 or more people. TIME 1-3 hours depending on the number of participants HOW TO DO IT 1. Prior to the workshop or activity, select a challenge/topic you’d like participants to generate solutions for, typically a scenario for use of your product or service. 2. If needed, arrange participants in teams of up to 6 people. 3. Provide participants with paper folded (or divided) into 2 x 2 or 2 x 3 grids. 4. Instruct participants that their task will be to–working individually– sketch as many ideas as possible for their solution in 8 minutes. 5. At the end of 8 minutes, give each participant 3-5 minutes to have each team member present and critique their ideas with their teammates. 6. Once all participants have presented and received critique, have each participant sketch one idea for a solution based now on their previous ideas, the ideas of their teammates, the critiques they heard, and any new ideas that may have popped into their head. Again, participants will use the divided paper and have 8 minutes to sketch. 7. Again, once time is up, give each participant 3-5 minutes to have each team member present and critique their ideas with their teammates. 8. This time, participants will their solutions to their teammates quickly and then critique them with the Participants may use the divided paper as they wish.
- 95. Materials • Gather the appropriate materials based on your selected activities. Always bring extra. Common Materials • Post Its (Various Colors & Sizes) • Markers (Various Colors) • Blank Paper • Easel Pads • Tape (we use painters tape) • Index Cards • Dot Stickers • A Timer • Printouts can be useful. Think about anything that participants might need for reference. LOGISTICS 130 Sometimes Useful • Pipe Cleaners • Block/Bricks • Foam • Scissors • Video Camera
- 96. Space • Make sure the space is large enough. It can get loud when groups are working and discussing. You need enough space for each team to not feel crowded and for people to be able to move around freely. • Sometimes breakout rooms can be useful, but they can also complicate overall facilitation and transporting of things back and forth. • Plenty of wall space for posting ideas and notes (and the blessing of facilities to do so) • Good lighting, including daylight • Whiteboard LOGISTICS 131
- 98. Back To Agendas • Make sure you incorporate breaks. Try for 15-20 minute breaks every 90-120 minutes. • Lunch should be no less than 45 minutes. Try to avoid “working lunches.” • Provide snacks (and lunch if possible). Not just caffeine and sugar though. • Don’t start before 9 and don’t end after 5. 9:30-4:30 is good. • Never plan to start on time. LOGISTICS 133
- 99. WRAPPING UP 140
- 102. Premortem WRAPPING UP 143 USE TO Help teams prepare for predictable obstacles to their success. TIME 20 – 25 minutes HOW TO DO IT 1. Ask the group to share their concerns and ideas about the things that will prevent the project and their efforts from succeeding. Capture these items on a whiteboard as you go. 2. After about 10 minutes, switch to discussing what will be needed to prevent the obstacles from occurring or to avoid their derailment of the project. 3. Capture these comments alongside their problems they address. surprises? How WILL OUR EFFORTS FAIL?
- 103. Closing Out The Workshop • Review the insights that emerged over the course of the workshop: patterns, outliers, assumptions, agreements, etc. • Don’t expect workshops to produce THE answer. Instead they are more like research, they point you in the direction of the answer(s). • Share next steps and assign responsibility if necessary (there are activities that can help with this as well). The key to a successful workshop is MOMENTUM. • And… THANK EVERYONE! LOGISTICS 145