Opening doors. Opening minds.
The Value of Workshops
A Workshop. For some the word sends shivers down the spine. For others it’s an opportunity for inter-departmental feuds to be settled. But for us, Workshops are a key tool within our methodology in order to help move a brand development process forward.
Well run, structured Workshops bring together diverse stakeholders inside an organisation to assist them in defining objectives and identifying unseen or unknown opportunities to help shape new ways forward. Moreover they create engagement and a genuine sense of ownership around the project and the process.
Gathering the right people together in one place and focusing for a defined period on what needs to be done is also a really efficient use of everyone’s time. It’s the perfect forum to share learning and insights from the project to date, and to agree what the implications and requirements arising are. In short, it helps to get things done; to enable a project to move forward to the next stage.
We tailor each of the Workshops that we run to meet the needs of that particular Client, and that specific project. But there are a number of principles that we use that act as the ‘rules’ for how to get the best from a Workshop session;
1. Set clear objectives
It sounds obvious, and it should be – understand exactly what you need to get from a Workshop session. And yet, sometimes, we’ve come across situations where a Client has brought together a team of people without defining just what they are seeking from this gathering.
- Be clear
- Bring precision to the room
- Have a clear goal in mind (not a multitude of goals/objectives)
2. Have a timetabled agenda 
From the objectives should come the agenda, and this should have timings attached so that progress through the day can be monitored by the moderator.
That said, there is a need to be flexible on occasions, and to allow more time to those pivotal aspects of the session that need to be agreed or resolved before a project can properly move on. Make sure you recognise the elements that absolutely have to be completed, and those that are less vital (or that can be addressed on another day).
– Be timely
– Build in breaks
– Don’t let attendees ‘run out of steam’
– Our experience tells us that 4 hours in the morning is more productive than a full day
3. Free minds
Workshops can simply be a helpful way to share information within the Client and Agency team, but they invariably become more valuable when they are used to spark new ideas and initiatives.
In order to do this well there is a need to free the minds of the delegates from their daily routines and responsibilities. Role-play and creative brainstorming exercises can be really good tools to help achieve free thinking, but make sure you give thought to the most suitable approach to marry with the characters in the room.
We’ve found that making any such exercises time-limited, and having 3-4 people within each mini-group is the best way to generate helpful outputs. A relatively short time to develop ideas means they can’t be argued about or edited, and those immediate, ‘is this a bit crazy..?’ thoughts are often the ones that lead to breakthrough initiatives.
- Choose your exercises carefully
- Be challenging and imaginative with your choices, but also be prepared to explain what is required
- Be agile in your approach – pivot on an exercise if you feel you are not getting the output required
- Always have a back-up approach if you feel something isn’t working on the day
4. Capture everything
Make sure that all points and contributions are written down. You can always edit them later to put them into a more helpful order, or to re-phrase anything that isn’t as clear as it could be.
It can also be helpful to have a set of Post-It notes handy to allow for more random or ‘off-agenda’ points to be captured and saved for debate later in the day, or at a follow-up session.
– Annotate and capture everything
– Capture words, but also any pictures or scribbles that are helpful
– We circulate our workshop notes no later than 48 hours after the event as a record and reminder of required actions
5. Agree next steps
As suggested earlier, a Workshop is a good vehicle to help move a project forward, but in order to ensure that momentum is retained there is a need to identify a clear set of next actions.
- Make time in the agenda to allow for next steps to be agreed
- Identify when the next steps need to be completed by, and by whom
- Ensure that the next steps feels like a vital stage in the process as opposed to creating extra workload
6. Outside expertise
You won’t be surprised to hear that we believe there is real value in engaging the help of external experts to facilitate your Workshop!
There is a skill to moderation (but also to note-taking and capturing key points, for that matter) and that, in itself, can be enough to justify employing the services of an outsider.
But we also believe that including objective outside contributors to the Workshop from within our team is a valuable resource – we will often have lots of experience of brands and businesses that face similar challenges to yours, but that operate in other sectors or different territories.
– We are the ‘what if’ people
– We are the ones who will ask the ‘naïve questions’ that the business may be hesitant to consider
– We help propel debates that can open up new possibilities
