Plan, communicate and run great workshops
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Plan, communicate and run great workshops

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Content should flow both ways. Curate information + exercises both.

Make it Interactive

Strive for a 1:2 ratio of content shared to hands-on doing: the best sessions share a balance of power. 20 minutes of taught content should be balanced by 40 minutes of practice, reflection or application. Design moments throughout the session to generate interaction. Get creative and go beyond asking questions!
Break up the day with teaching, practicing, then applying: A method I like to use is
Learn-Play-Apply
⁠
. Do this in cycles, batching related topics together to achieve this rhythm.
Don’t underestimate the power of an off-site social hour or dinner: this allows the attendees to unwind and reflect on the day. It’s ideally something walkable from the venue to avoid travel logistics.

Great Workshops

Build something tangible that solves a real problem: ensure the intent of the workshop is to both learn + create. This offers professional development and practical value.
Use a secret weapon: get rapid feedback on the thing that the team is building. This is often done with real peers of attendees or end users in short, rapid interviews. This will motivate the team to be very focused, and create a sense of ownership and emotional investment to continue the work post-workshop when they get real feedback.
Infuse inspiration everywhere: This is usually in the form of stories offered through videos, images with voiceovers, podcast clips, customer quotes, reading and highlight reels. These get the attendees emotionally relating to and remembering the things they’re learning as they seek to apply it.

Use Ice Breakers & Post-Its

Harness in-person interactions: when a group is all in-person, lean into it (e.g. use real post-its over FigJam, physical ice breakers over digital ones).
Use ice breakers to built trust and a positive atmosphere: it’s best to tie the ice breaker to a point you want to make.
Create structure when sharing out on post-its: human instinct is to throw every post-it that one person created on a board rather than sharing the floor - but this has limited impact. Create structure for the share-out instead.
Gather everyone in a circle around a whiteboard or wall.
Ask 1 person to share a post-it + give a 10-second pitch.
Ask another person to share a post-it that feels related to the first post-it. And so on.
Re-start with a new post-it topic when the first thread has run its course.
As the facilitator, cluster the ideas that are being shared into categories as the share-out continues This will help the team make sense of everything that was shared when done.
Example ice breakers:
Problem Solving
Pipe cleaner tower
Yes, and...party planning
Information gathering
Scavenger hunts
Ideation
Squiggle bird
Innovation Baby
Visual Thinking
Draw an icon...
Monetization
I am a tree
Make money from a cow


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