by Gabrielle Sheehan, Senior Consultant
We’ve all been there. Time crawls. You eat so many mints the enamel wears off your teeth. You drink large volumes water in an effort to stay awake…then are annoyingly kept awake by the need to wee.
Yep, it’s another workshop.
Not surprisingly, workshops often get a bad rap. It’s hard to get all the elements right, however they are very useful tools for tapping into collective wisdom and knowledge, and determining future directions. Well planned and run with the right participants, workshops can deliver clarity on complex topics and achieve considerable progress in a short space of time. However, they can easily backfire and become quite torturous for all involved – facilitators as well as participants.
Once I had the experience of opening a workshop with an executive team on how to improve their company’s communications. Five out of six participants had their laptops open and were checking their emails. I knew then we had a way to go…
However this week we had the privilege of running a workshop for a highly engaged and motivated group, and as a facilitator, it was actually – fun!
Here’s a few reasons why it worked well.
People – We had the right people in the room to be able to contribute their different but highly relevant experience and perspectives. All participants were very motivated to assist with the task at hand (and had good manners).
Goal – We determined what needed to be achieved and received a collective view endorsing this at the beginning of the workshop. A gap analysis at the end identified areas where further work was needed.
Process – It was a small group, so we kept the processes simple. Different devices were used to mine information from the group – visuals, a matrix, a Brownlow count, and yes (oops) butchers’ paper. Clear decision points were included so that participants could contribute to concrete progress. There were a couple of stumbling blocks, but the framework provided ways to get beyond these for some solid outcomes.
Food – The danishes were fresh and the coffee hot. Some healthy alternatives prevented our clients getting ill from too much sugar.
Oh, and I tripped over the whiteboard a couple of times, which the participants enjoyed immensely.
So next time you see butchers’ paper, don’t let your eyes well up – instead think about how you can contribute to making it a positive experience for all.
