Run your own workshop: templates, tools, and tactics to facilitate like a boss

Let’s face it: Facilitating a full-day workshop can be overwhelming. Between painstakingly building alignment around a single idea, blocking calendars, and doing the preparation to make sure you don’t metaphorically (or maybe physically…that’d be worse…) fall on your face in-workshop, good ideas can easily whither on the vine, simply because no one’s willing to take the risk and the reigns.

This is a situation that I have found myself in quite often. But rather than throw up my hands and walk away, I instead decided to run an experiment around a simple question: How Might We build a step-for-step blueprint for facilitating a successful one-day workshop? The following is the output of that months-long experience.

If done right, in just six hours, a well-run workshop will result in organizational alignment around a complex problem and the start of a series of high fidelity ideas to be expanded further in subsequent workshops.

The process on the coming pages lays out the five stages that any one-day workshop opportunity will go through:

1. Pre-Opportunity
2. Opportunity Identified
3. Workshop Prep
4. Workshop Day
5. Post-Workshop

Each phase has a unique set of decisions, actions, and deliverables.

***NOTE: You can access *everything* here (all the templates, tactics, and tools) in a single place by clicking → this ← Dropbox link. Everything bolded and underlined below represents a document, example deliverable, or template for your review and use (and is individually linked to its Dropbox file for easy access and download).

Pre-Opportunity

This is simply a learning phase. There are a number of things here with which you can immerse yourself in, should you desire to learn more about the high-level design sprint process with which you plan to use!

Book & Reading List

A. Sprint, by Jake Knapp

From three design partners at Google Ventures, a unique five-day process for going from problem to prototype. A practical guide to answering business questions, Sprint is a book for groups of any size, from small start-ups to Fortune 100s, from teachers and PTAs to nonprofits and public institutions. It’s for anyone with a big opportunity, problem, or idea who needs to get answers today.

B. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Don’t, by Chip and Dan Heath

This is a really wonderful book that lays out the distinct principles as to why some ideas become sticky and others, many of which are quite good, ultimately fall by the wayside. It creates a really full understanding of how to advance ideas within large companies, and the facets of building a business case or inspiration case that stick with senior leaders.

C. Well-Designed: How to Use Empathy to Create Products People Love, by Jon Kolko

Perhaps my favorite non-fiction book I’ve read, Well-Designed lays out a design thinking-centric approach for understanding how to frame user problems, build to those problems, and iterate on those ideas constantly. Filled with insight upon insight, it’s a great book for the team, especially given the recent considerations of building out the Student Journey Platform and moving to a more product-centered solution.

7P’s Framework

Every meeting deserves a plan. Note that a great plan cannot guarantee a great outcome, but it will help lay down the fundamentals from which we can adapt.

Use the below items as a checklist. When preparing for a workshop/design sprint, thinking through and writing out the 7Ps can improve focus and results, even if done quickly and loosely:

i. Purpose: Why are we having this meeting? As the workshops leaders, we need to be able to state this clearly and succinctly. Consider the urgency of the meeting: what is going on, and what is on fire? If this is difficult to articulate, we should ask if this meeting is really necessary, or if perhaps the proposed purpose needs to change.

ii. Product: What specific artifact will we produce out of the workshop/sprint? What will it do, and how will it support the purpose?

iii. People: Who needs to be there, and what role will each play? One way to focus the list of attendees is to think is terms of questions and answers: What questions are we answering for this workshop/sprint? Who are the right people to answer our questions?

iv. Process: What agenda will these people use to create the product? Of all the 7Ps, the agenda is where we have the greatest opportunity to collaborate in advance with the attendees (both ICF SMEs and the Client Team). Co-designing the agenda will ensure that the full Design Team shows up engaged and ready to participate.

v. Pitfalls: What are the risks (both perceived and real) in this workshop/sprint, and how will we address them if they arise? These could be as simple as basic ground rules, like “no laptops,” or specific topics that are proactively deemed as being “out of scope.”

vi. Prep: What would be useful for us to do in advance? This could be material to read in advance, research to be conducted, or “homework” to be assigned to attendees and reviewed by the Design Team.

vii. Practical Concerns: These are the logistics of the meeting — the where and the when, and perhaps most importantly, who is bringing lunch!

7Ps Tips and Tricks

a) Each of the 7Ps can influence or change any of the others, and developing a good plan will always consider this. For instance, if you have certain participants for only part of a meeting, this will change your process.

b) Get others involved in the design of the meeting. Their participation in the design is the quickest route to being effective and efficient.

c) Make the 7Ps visible during the meeting. These reference points can help focus and refocus a group as needed.

d) Have a plan but always expect it to change. The 7Ps can give us a structured, repeatable framework for designing a meeting, but they cannot run the meeting for us. The unexpected will virtually always happen, and as workshop leader it will be your job to adapt and adjust!

Opportunity Identified

Once an initial meeting has occurred, and you’ve decided that a workshop approach fits the problem/opportunity space, you can send a targeted email proposing a one-day workshop.

If those involved seem amenable to the process, you can now spin back some specific opportunities that you think would be impactful in a workshop setting.

In support of your efforts, consider the Six Principles for Sticky Ideas as you run through this thought exercise.

Six Principles of Sticky Ideas

Simplicity — How do we find the essential core of our ideas?

To strip down an idea to its core, we must be masters of exclusion. We must relentlessly prioritize. Saying something short is not the mission — sound bites are not ideal. Proverbs are the ideal. We must create ideas that are both simple and profound.

Unexpectedness — How do we get out audience to pay attention to our ideas and maintain their interest?

To get people’s attention and keep it, we need to be counterintuitive. We need to use surprise to grab people’s attention. For our idea to endure, we must generate both interest and curiosity. We can engage people’s curiosity by systemically “opening gaps” in their knowledge — and then filling those gaps with our expertise and positioning.

Concreteness — How do we make our ideas clear?

We must explain our ideas in terms of human actions, in terms of sensory information. Mission statements, synergies, visions — they are often ambiguous to the point of holding little meaning. Instead, we should offer concrete images that stick in people’s brains, as brains are wired to remember concrete data.

Credibility — How do we make people believe our ideas?

Sticky ideas have to carry their own “credentials” and must play to their audience. Know when to use detailed fact sheets versus softer, more emotional imagery.

Emotions — How do we get people to care about our ideas?

Sticky ideas make people feel something. Humans are wired to feel things for people, not for abstractions. Sometimes the hard part is finding the right emotion to harness.

Stories — How do we get people to act on our ideas?

Sticky ideas tell stories. Humans are naturally wired to respond to storytelling. Many times, the positioning of an idea plays an even greater role in the success of a product or service than the quality of the idea itself.

Workshop Prep

Once the workshop is confirmed, it’s time to pick your team, draft an initial briefing document, and establish those pesky expectations that can make or break a successful workshop!

Picking the Right Team

Workshop teams operate best at a full team size of approximately 7–10; any more than this and you will have a hard time controlling the room and keeping a thread on all the ideas coming your way. Trust me: those slots fill up quickly; especially when you’re working through high-profile questions! Use the questions below to make sure that each individual adds a unique value.

In selecting the right set of participants, facilitators should first ask themselves three high-level questions:

1. Who are the people that will be most impacted by any decisions that come out of the workshop?
2. Whose perspectives, involvement, and buy-in are so critical that they should be at the table or represented by someone who is?
3. Who will be the individual(s) who will carry the decisions/action plan forward after the workshop is over?

Next, think about the potential individuals that you’ve identified from the questions above. Verify that all these individuals:

1. Understand the issue under study
2. Have some type of stake in the outcome
3. Are open to solutions other than their own
4. Are empowered to make decisions and carry forward any recommendations

As a sense check, consider the potential team that you’ve put together, and ask yourself these questions:

• Does the group I have selected represent a diverse set of communication styles?
• Are the individuals I have chosen knowledgeable about the relevant activities under study (even if they may have specialized information in one area over another)?
• Is the team cross-functional and representative of all the groups with a major stake in the outcome?
• Is the team I plan to bring together drawn from various level of the organizational structure (for example, managers, supervisors, technical analysts)?

The Workshop Brief

To socialize the opportunity for the client and for our own team members, it’s essential to share out some type of “briefing document” that encapsulates:

i. the context of the opportunity;

ii. the expected outcome of the opportunity (i.e., if you are successful, what will the client/team take away from this?);

iii. the high-level workshop plan (Note: this process has been optimized to such an extent that this largely will not change from workshop to workshop);

iv. the potential participants (both from our team and from other’s); and

v. the expectations for the workshop (e.g., no device policy, length of day, room/lunch logistics)

→ You can use this template as a place to start!

Calendar Hold & Workshop Ground Rules

As soon as the workshop date is confirmed and the team is defined, send a calendar hold for all participants to ensure that the time is in fact carved out.

(Pro-tip: You can typically embed in the calendar invite for the workshop the ground rules for the day/week [see Workshop Ground Rules]) Here’s the language I like to use:

This workshop is a structured and intense set of exercises that requires full attention. As such, we have a few rules that we like to communicate to clients (and internal participants) to ensure success:

A. Dress comfortably (seriously…) — This won’t be your typical work day — we will be up and about often, talking, voting, and rapidly sketching solutions (yes, there will be drawing — but don’t worry!). As such, we recommend dressing comfortably!

B. No Devices (SERIOUSLY…) — We know how important our devices are to our everyday work; however, to be successful, we need a room completely free of distractions. We won’t start until 9:30 or 10am so as to provide you some time in the morning to tackle those emails, and if you need to step out to take a call or return an email, by all means please do! But when we are in the room, we will be absolutely laser focused on solving the problems in front of us.

C. No Acronyms — A seemingly easy, but surprisingly tough one. The point of the design sprint is to lay the problem out bare and simplify our understanding in any way that we can; acronyms often do the opposite.

D. Trust the Process — We know it will feel uncomfortable at times, but we encourage everyone to embrace the awkwardness! This will be different, this will be fun, and at the end of the day, we guarantee that you will look across the work that we have done over the course of the day and be wowed by both the quality and the quantity of the insights we have uncovered.

Initial Kickoff Call & Team Briefing

Once the team has been selected, the workshop has been scheduled, and (hopefully) the morning coffee delivery has been organized, it’s time to pull the team together for a quick kickoff call.

Done right, the initial briefing call offers numerous advantages:

1. Using a set of questions (below), you can identify, prior to the session, any issues participants have related to the session. By understanding these issues in advance of your session, you can make adjustments to the process (and your language around the process) to ensure a successful day.
2. The participants can reach consensus on the agenda for the session (an agenda that you’ve already laid out in your Lightning Workshop Brief) and the key “products” or prototypes that you intend to create. By doing this prior to the session, participants feel more ownership over the output.
3. Through discussion of the agenda, participants can identify any steps or information that would be useful for the group to have as your prepare for the session. Most often, we’ve seen this in areas where data is involved in some capacity. By doing this pre-workshop, you will make sure the team is operating from “complete information.”

As a best practice, I recommend a number of things to consider covering in your initial briefing call. They include:

• Describe: The workshop session’s context, its purpose, and the expected deliverables (or decisions).
• Ask: What are the issues that you believe need to be addressed to achieve this purpose and produce these deliverables?
• Describe: The proposed agenda — this again will likely be a walkthrough of your Lightning Workshop Brief.
• Ask: Where in the agenda will the issues that you have identified (above) be addressed?
• Ask: Will this agenda achieve the purpose and produce the expected deliverables? Are there things that you’d change about the agenda, or things that we should be sure to cover/include as we go through the day?
• Ask: How do we ensure that this session is not a waste of time? Is there anything that we should look out for or be cognizant of (e.g., organizational politics, budgetary/fiscal constraints)?

Facilitator’s Note: This is often a question that I will keep for only the decision maker, especially if we have a good relationship. That said, posed in a non-confrontational way to the group, you can learn a lot!

• Provide: The Lightning Workshop Brief, for final consideration
• Provide: A memo with logistical information (e.g., date, time, location, suggested dress [note: casual; always casual!], items to bring to the session, any “day rules” [e.g., no laptops]

Facilitator’s Note: I find it best to simply include this in the body of the event invite that you send through Outlook!

• Request: Agreement from participants that they arrive at least ten minutes prior to workshop start to allow for coffee (lots of coffee..) and greetings before the on-time start.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to the initial briefing call. Each client is different and each team is different in how they respond to questions and embrace the process. Make the briefing your own! If you feel it best to hold a few of the above questions in your back pocket, or address them one-on-one with an external decision maker or an internal account manager rather than pose them to the group, by all means.

As with anything, the more you do, the more you’ll get a feel for what works and what doesn’t! Be confident, be you!

Shopping Time!

In the final days before the workshop, head to your nearest Staples, and pick up the requisite supplies that you will need to assume the role of Master Facilitator.

Here’s what you’ll need to run a successful workshop:

A. Yellow Square Post-Its — The standard, basic 3x3 post-it.

B. Pink Square Post-Its — 3x3; these will be used as categorization markers at the end of afternoon session.

C. Blue Square Post-Its — 3x3; these will be used in the afternoon, to right down opportunity statements.

D. Rectangular Post-Its — Various Colors; good for taking notes.

E. Thick Tip Sharpie — One per person; the thick tip forces people to synthesize their thoughts into fewer words.

F. Whiteboard Pens/Glass Board Pens — Essential to visualizing/mapping problems and opportunities. These die quickly, so always good to re-up on a regular basis!

G. Time Timer (or a Visual Timing Mechanism) — This timer is the gold standard for Design Sprint activities, as it visually shows the team how much time they have left on a specific activity.

H. Voting Dots — At least 2 colors; the design sprint process includes a lot of individual voting exercises, to build inspiration and buy-in. We like to buy one smaller dot, and one larger dot — in different colors.

The Workshop

It’s Workshop Day! Time to have some fun. To execute successfully, you’ll need two things:

→ The Facilitator’s Guide: Although you certainly don’t have to use this, it’s a super powerful for those facilitator’s first starting out. The guide helps you take a deep dive into each of the exercises that you’ve laid out for your one-day workshop, including the day’s flow, specific questions to prompt discussion, and step-by-step exercise guides.

i. Use the Facilitator’s Guide — Template as a place to start!

→ Sprint Guide: The Guide takes as an input the Workshop Brief that you built to socialize client buy-in and align team expectations, and uses this to create a series of slides that will be presented out to the Workshop Team as the first activity of the workshop day. The presentation format forces the facilitator to keep it high-level enough for everyone to understand, but specific enough to guide the various activities that will make up the workshop day.

Post-Workshop

Post-Workshop often involves two different deliverables — It’s up to you decide which work best for your needs:

a. Plan of Action — The Action Plan provides a recap of the workshop day; it typically will transcribe and digitize the map that the team built in the room and lay out the next step opportunities that you co-created together in the room.

b. Sprint Brief — The Sprint Brief is a more detailed version of the Workshop Brief that you prepared for the initial workshop. This would lay out the specific opportunity that you’d like to solve for in a bigger, weeklong design sprint, as well as laying out your vision for what that week may look like.

Have the team complete the Post-Workshop Respective; a quick set of questions that will help you rapidly improve your process, and build alignment across your organization.

Wrapping Up

And that’s it — pat yourself on the back! You’ve just run your team through the perfect one-day workshop, rapidly validating (or invalidating) a series of complex ideas and charting an actionable plan forward. But this is only the beginning! There will certainly be no shortage of great ideas across your organization, and with the repeatable process detailed below, you should now be well-equipped to go forth and seize the day.

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