How to Make Workshops Not Suck - Part #1

I’m always on the lookout for effective tools & methods that help me facilitate better workshops. While a lot of people cringe at the mere idea of games or exercises in a workshop, I love them. I think they’re an incredibly useful tool to create a safe environment for ideation, spark creativity, and ensure quality - all of which lead to building better products, services, and businesses. I’ve collected a lot over the years, so I thought it was time to share some back.

Stages of a workshop

Most workshops and meetings generally follow an overall set-up consisting of three stages:

1. Introduction (pave the way)
2. Core (get cracking)
3. Closing (wrap things up)

Of course, these stages will vary, depending on the length, set-up, and objectives of the workshop. In this article I want to focus on nailing stage #1: Paving the way for an amazing workshop.

Stage #1: Paving the Way

As the name suggests, this is the stage in which you create the basis for the entire workshop ahead. That makes it an extremely important stage and I’m often surprised how little attention is given to it. Here, you don’t only frame the content, you also set the tone for the mood and mindset the team will be in.

You can split it into two parts:

1. Warm-up, in which you will:
   • Settle in and get to know each other.
   • Build a positive workshop environment creating confidence and trust.
   • Get into the right mindset for the challenges ahead.
   • Manage expectations by either sharing or jointly defining the agenda and objectives of the session.

All these points emphasize why it’s crucial to be intentional about this stage. So, make sure to explain to the participants why you’re doing a specific warm-up exercise and how it will benefit them. Something along the lines of “Today we want to understand our potential customers, this is why we’ll kick off with an exercise that prepares us for listening to understand rather than answer.” Along with that, don’t forget to reflect on the experience afterward. What did we learn doing this exercise? How did we feel? What do we want to take forward in the workshop?

1. Setting the Context, in which you will:
   • Frame the main challenge you’ll be tackling today.
   • Ensure that everyone is on the same page and has a common understanding of the task/project/challenge at hand.
   • Give everyone the necessary(!) background information they need - and by all means, this does not mean a 30-minute monologue, but just a summary of the most important context.

To help you successfully pave the way for a great workshop, there are several tools & exercises you can leverage. Here are a few, which I like to use frequently.

Tools to Pave the Way For a Great Workshop (Opening Exercises a.k.a. Ice Breaker for a Workshop)

On a Scale of…

This is a staple workshop method. Yet, it remains incredibly powerful as it’s easy to do, does the job well, and can be easily spiked with some fun, if appropriate.

What to use this method for?

• Start the workshop with a first success - it’s a very simple first task everyone can complete.
• Give people time to arrive “physically” (an exercise like this also helps late-comers with an easy way in).
• Help people to arrive “mentally” by giving them a chance to reflect and focus.
• Get people to open up and talk about how they feel.
• Have participants pick avatars or colors they can keep throughout the workshop.

How to prepare it?

• Define a scale, e.g., from 1-10 or you can get very creative with the ends of the scale (check out the examples below).
• This works both virtually as well as during an on-site workshop.

How to facilitate it?

• Let participants choose an avatar/color/emoji (of course, you can also keep this more anonymous with simple sticky dots).
• Ask participants to place their marker on the scale depending on how they feel.
• Facilitate by picking up on common themes (“I was expecting everyone to still be a bit tired from their travels, but it looks like you’re all excited to start, so let’s get right into it” or “Mondays seem to be a bit of a challenge for some of you, does anyone want to share why?”).

What could it look like?

Park and Ride

Many of us run from meeting to meeting and need to switch contexts all the time. This is hard! Who doesn’t know the feeling of your head still being stuck in the last meeting? This little exercise can help us to focus on the topic and task at hand.

What to use this method for?

• Support your team members to switch modes – no matter where they come from.
• Enable everyone to focus and center their attention on the meeting.
• Giving people a space where they don’t need to multi-task, leaving much more room for creativity.

How to prepare it?

• Create a park and ride space for everyone’s to-dos.
• You can do this on a digital whiteboard, poster, or flip chart.

How to facilitate it?

• Set a timer for 2 minutes.
• Ask everyone to write down the to-do list that’s meandering around their mind.
• Now ask them to move the post-its to the Park and Ride lot. If you’re in a physical space together, it’s nice to have this parking lot outside the room or at least outside the space you’re working in. On a digital whiteboard, have it in a visually different area.

What could it look like?

Story Lines

I mean, who doesn’t like story time? While it’s great to listen to a good story, it can be quite hard to tell one. Here’s a cool framework to make this easy and fun for everyone. It also surprises me every time how much I learn about people I’ve known for years through this exercise!

What to use this method for?

• Create personal connections by helping participants to get to know each other (better).
• Set the stage for bringing your whole self to the workshop and sharing something about yourself.
• Get people into a creative mindset.

How to prepare it?

• Define a few sentence starters for participants to complete (ideally you start with a simple one and make them a bit trickier with each step).
• Create a digital whiteboard or printed paper version of the sentences.
• As a bonus you can already start getting everyone into the right mindset for the workshop challenge if you choose the right sentences.

How to facilitate it?

• Ask participants to complete each sentence individually. Don’t forget to set a timer at 2 min.
• Once the timer’s up, ask each participant to share their sentences. It shouldn’t be necessary, but if you have a very talkative group, you can set a timer at 30 sec each.
• If it doesn’t flow naturally, facilitate the order in which people share their sentences.

What could it look like?

Alright, that’s some of my favorite methods to kick-start a workshop creating a positive, trustful, and creative workshop environment. I hope you’ll find them useful! Next, I’ll share some tools and exercises to get cracking at stage #2 of a workshop.

Do you have any other tools or exercises that help you set the scene in your workshops? I really, really, really want to hear about them! Feel free to send me an email or message me on LinkedIn. I’d love to connect and have a chat.