Workshop Planning
Workshops are a significant investment of the time and intellect of the stakeholders involved - team, customers, leadership and others. It is essential that we strive to get the best outcomes we can achieve from every workshop that we execute. Effective workshop planning can give us a sequence of activities to lead participants from problem to solutions and prioritised actions.
In A Nutshell
An effective workshop plan must cover all aspects of the workshop - both context and content.
Workshop Context
Audience
Scheduling and duration
Location
Equipment and other logistics
Known inputs
Outcomes to be realised
Preparation plan
Workshop Content
Ice-breaker
Set of activities to move from inputs to outcomes
Sequencing of activities
Timing of activities
Timing of breaks
Closure activity
Specific roles within the workshop
The preparation plan defines the tasks and responsibilities that must be completed to ensure that the workshop will be ready to run at the scheduled date and time.
Workshop planning can be a time-consuming activity. Given the cost of running a workshop and the potential value that can be created, this investment in planning is rarely wasted.
References
There are many online resources to help identify effective activities that contribute to the outcomes of the workshop. For retrospectives, Retromat provides a wide range of activities to fit the 5 Step retrospective pattern.
Liberating Structures provides a wide variety of workshop activities that focus on encouraging equal participation from everyone in the room - Including and Unleashing Everyone. The activities focus on building an environment of psychological safety from which everyone can fully participate.