Making workshops work

If you’ve ever held an office job you’d have seen a familiar scene play out. A group of colleagues bundle into a meeting room because an unmissable calendar invite called dibs on a precious hour from their day. Stories of the weekend are shared. Management gives a talk. People mostly listen then ask the necessary questions. They get some half answers to which an opinion is raised and noted. Someone digresses about their cat. Then the buzzer sounds, and it’s off to another box to start over again.

Maybe you’ve been questioning the whole game. Who benefits from these interactions? Is there a way we can get more out of the time we spend together? What do better meetings look like? 

Meetings vs workshops

Where a meeting might be ideal for information sharing and discussion it’s not ideal for getting things done or for solving problems. That’s where workshops shine. They got popularised along with the advent of IDEO’s design thinking process in the early 1980’s. They are collaborative gatherings designed around a series of interactive exercises. A facilitator plans and runs the session - guiding participants through the process. Helping everyone work together to build understanding, define goals, explore ideas or refine solutions. 

Generally speaking, workshops have three key benefits over a regular meeting. First, they build trust by establishing a collaborative working relationship. This creates a shared understanding and a strong foundation for the project moving forward. Second, workshops lead to better outcomes. By gathering broad opinions, ideas and critiques they inherently ensure stronger solutions are put forward and developed. And third, workshops help your team accelerate their pace. They enable you to fail fast, make rapid decisions, and quickly build consensus to ensure project momentum. 

But the real beauty of workshops is their flex. By combining different exercises targeted to specific outcomes – they are able to adapt to any number of challenges you are seeking to solve.

Discovery workshops

Let’s say for example, you’re looking to wrap your head around a complex problem. It’s big. It’s daunting. You don’t quite know where to start. You’ll need to run a discovery workshop. They are designed to build understanding by unpacking the projects challenges and opportunities. Discovery workshops help you identify and empathise with those who you are designing for. What are their frustrations, needs, desires and worldviews? What are their behaviours and driving motivators? By understanding the people who use your products, you'll ensure you’re designing something they actually want and need. Discovery workshops are also an opportunity to deeply understand your brand. Why does it exist? What makes it unique? What’s holding it back? Lastly, discovery workshops can help build understanding of the wider sector. How have others have solved similar problems? What industry tropes do we match? Which will we abandon? How will we be distinct from the market? Within a discovery workshop, these types of questions provide valuable insights that help drive the work forward.

Defining workshops

Let’s shift gears and assume that your problem is you know too much. You’ve discovered all the things and it’s hard to know what to do next. With so many potential paths to go down it can feel overwhelming. If that’s where you’re at then it’s time for a defining workshop. They are designed to transform chaos into clarity. They help teams struggling to make decisions, big or small. Use them to replace muddy briefs with specificity. Defining workshops enable teams to first pinpoint project challenges and goals, then to dig into them, and then to map them out and prioritise them. This exercise provides a shared understanding of what you are setting out to achieve as a team. Defining workshops are also useful for making confident decisions that bring focus. Use them to make a series of choices that transforms a complex, fuzzy collection of thoughts into a well defined strategy.

Ideation workshops

Another common challenge is translating a strategic vision into a created reality. How do you bridge the gap? How do you gather a breadth of ideas? How do you then make them outstanding? If you find yourself asking these types of questions it’s time for an ideation workshop. They are designed to explore possibility. You can use them to quickly create and develop ideas, combine thoughts, prototype and experiment with new directions. One way they do this is through rapid conceptualisation in response to structured exercises and creative prompts. Ideation workshops are also an opportunity to provoke and inspire lateral thinking, helping participants push past expected outcomes to create novel solutions. By running exercises that shift perspectives or introduce unexpected inputs they enable innovation.

Refinement workshops

The ability to go from good to great relies on analysis, feedback, and a willingness to craft the details. So at numerous times in this process it’s necessary to take a step back and reflect. Are we achieving what we set out to achieve? If not, why not? How do we get back on track? These are the types of questions you will unpack in a refinement workshop. They are designed to facilitate this kind of critical thinking. Refinement workshops act as a counterpoint to the creative thinking of ideation workshops. Use them as an opportunity to review and improve every aspect of work. Refinement workshops help people to seek and provide honest feedback. They do this through deliberate exercises that draw out constructive insights and takeaway actions. Refinement workshops help teams get to better faster. They use the structured application of synthesis and analysis of ideas and information to identify risks and opportunities so you can further improve the work.

Summary

If you’re feeling boxed in by meetings, it’s time to give workshops a go. Use them to power up your time together. Get better understanding. Set clearer goals. Develop more innovative ideas. And refine how you execute on it all. And best of all, do it all faster with workshops.


This article was originally published with Silverstripe.