Make sure that all the participants have a clear understanding of their next steps, and that they know how their tasks play into the bigger picture. Step 1: Pat yourself on the back! After the workshop, the participants should understand two things: 1 the big picture, 2 their role in getting there. In the beginning of this article, I advised you to think of the workshop as a three-week process. While others would advise you to ask for feedback immediately after the workshop, I find it more useful for everyone to ask it once the whole process is coming to its end.
Topics workshop facilitation. The number of virtual events is growing at a pace, especially because of the restrictions and challenges associated with organizing physical events. This means that a growing number of Facilitation is a craft that requires many very different types of expertise. The best facilitators know how to pick and choose the right skills and methods for any situation, which often happens Howspace is based on 20 years of change management consulting experience.
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Howspace is already trusted to drive engagement and impact in hundreds of organizations across the world. With love MEOM. Choreographing the project process includes designing key components, clarifying the role of workshops in a healthy process, and identifying what you call them and who should attend, among other things. An early design workshop and a collaborative design process go hand in hand. Part of the workshop was focused on structure, and Petterson says that the structural engineer wanted to use a box beam.
The mechanical engineer and the plumbing engineer had a place for ducts and pipes inside the beam. The lighting designer was happy at the prospect of a clean ceiling.
The design moved to a more conventional solution for Portland: a post-tensioned slab. But the idea of integrated HVAC and structure stuck around. In the end, the whole project was shelved, but the viability of the solution has been proven out on other projects that have used it, according to Petterson. However, a number of people we spoke to for this article prefer to call an extended design meeting simply that—a meeting, or, more often, a workshop.
The frenzy and anxiety of that scene, as well as the focus on the realm of the designer, is not what we need when we bring together project teams, she argues. If anything, the evidence is that having a workshop moves a project along quickly and to a high level of performance. And there is a trend of projects that do multi-day events to dedicate day-long workshops to sustainability-related topics like daylighting and biophilia.
As discussed throughout this article, the time invested in building a team and exploring key issues pays off over and over again. The professionals we spoke to for this article agreed universally on the importance of dedicated facilitation in a design workshop or charrette. An architect at a firm can be a skilled facilitator, but there are advantages to bringing in a third party, says Josie Plaut, associate director at the Institute for the Built Environment, which provides facilitation services.
Without a facilitator, the emotional intelligence and inclusiveness in the room drop, says Plaut, or the conversation gets centered around the person who is most powerful but who might not contribute the most. A white paper, The Social Network of Integrative Design , from the Institute for the Built Environment, argues that a third-party facilitator is in the best position to create an effective team environment because that is their sole agenda.
The paper defines a third-party facilitator as either someone from outside the design firm, who may be a consultant on high-performance buildings, or a member of the design firm but without design responsibilities.
They may have specialized training or tools. According to the paper, dedicated facilitators offer three key benefits to design teams:.
Exercises like this one elicit the needs and values of stakeholders, leading to a shared vision of success for the project.
Referring to research contained in the white paper, Josie Plaut also emphasizes the need for a champion to support the kind of integrative design process found in workshops. To create the right kind of space, the designer considers a multitude of things—view, solar orientation, context in the plan. To get the kind of input you need from stakeholders, ask open-ended questions. Discovery happens there, says Preston. They provided a variety of images for inspiration, and talked about qualities of light and space.
It was not about them designing the building but articulating the qualities of value to them. We could hold onto the things we were expert at, and they could hold onto what was of value to them. Cohen, a negotiating specialist who does training and facilitation, explains that his background is in mediation.
Workshops are not that different. You need to give them this sense that no matter how chaotic things are now, everything is going to be all right. Even if you tell the same story over and over again, you tell it differently depending on your audience. The same is true to plan or design a good meeting agenda. And it takes thought and input and discussion.
In post-Katrina New Orleans, three congregations had to merge in a restored facility. Using accessible tools and exploring what kind of values the groups held and how they would worship, this workshop helped them become one. One common way to prepare is to interview participants about the coming workshop and what they want to get from it. Fears might be in red and hopes in green. You write down everything and then ask people to vote on their strongest sentiments. This approach worked well on a project that involved a renovation of an existing building and a large addition.
Numerous facilitators emphasize the utility of a shared understanding of what success looks like. Cohen credits Interaction Associates with a useful framework for that: desired outcome. Outcomes are nouns. It can take asking a few times to get to the heart of the matter. What do we have in our hands at the end that makes it worth having?
To bring the agenda to life, incorporate outcomes into it. Depending on the workshop, you could establish trust, put specific topics on the agenda, and guide specific discussion topics in one fell swoop. Richard Crespin of CollaborateUp is facilitating a series of workshops, through a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to look at how businesses can play more of a role in community health.
With people sitting around tables, and a slate of speakers on a dais, Crespin gives the audience the first word. He asks the people at tables to introduce themselves to each other and name what they think is the number-one barrier to a healthier city.
Each table confers and agrees on one item, then shares it with the whole room, generating about 20 items. Then every single speaker has to get up and speak to one of those topics. The rest of the workshop goes back and forth between the stage and the small groups. The workshops wrap up with commitments—something each attendee is willing to do within a short period of time. But there are miserable processes to go through, [and] there are more fun processes to go through.
But different groups have different priorities. Do they want to move around? Do they want small chunks? Do they want to break things up with pecha-kucha style presentations? Different groups will name different preferences that can be used in designing a workshop. Of course, keep in mind that the facilitator, as with the role of the architect discussed earlier, is a translator.
Look for what the group wants the day to feel like, not necessarily what the specific activities are. Then, work backwards so your plan really gets you there. At each moment of the day, you should be able to picture exactly what you do with your audience.
The more people in the room the clearer you have to be. This is also the moment to ask yourself who should attend the session. You should also identify what state you want the group to be in, e. The Developing phase is about creating the content you will need or sometimes, finding it, if you already have a log of content and exercises.
This will allow you to remember what happened and have other team members run similar workshops. Both activities require you to focus on different things:. They require two different mindsets. You need a clear focus on one or the other. Rehearsing is a good way to gain confidence and sense-check if there are any issues in the plan.
Fortunately, you can get your team ready just by going through the plan ahead of the session. Make sure everyone is clear on what they have to do and say. You can evaluate the workshop and the process with your team or by yourself. Share a clear vision of what you to want to achieve this workshop. It will help onboard the participants and make sure that they understand what you will expect from them.
Explaining these three elements to the participants will ensure that everyone is aligned with the agenda and the outcome of the workshop.
As you go off and do your planning, make sure stakeholders stay involved throughout the process. Share the workshop agenda, insist that they should be present or send a delegate to make decisions on the day, and definitely, definitely share the outcome with them. This will get more specific on the day based on the input of your workshop team. Your task is to enable other people to pool their knowledge and come up with the best solution. Figure out who needs to be in the room: we recommend 7 people or fewer.
Depending on the scope of your workshop, you might not need everyone on this list. Who brings the decision-making power? Product manager, marketing manager, head of design, CEO etc.
Who brings the subject matter expertise? Researcher, customer service assistant, consumer insight, sales etc. Decide on a template you want to use and customise it for the subject of your workshop.
We recommend running a simple minute brainstorm first. What are you going to need on the day? A whiteboard with markers and ten thousand post-its? A digital workspace with accounts for the whole team? Prep them ahead of time. Add a slide or physical poster with the agenda, including the breaks, and stick it somewhere clearly visible. Incorporate the cost of tools and refreshments into your fee or expenses.
Learned this the hard way We all hate it but it only takes a few seconds: go round and say who you are, what you do and what you hope to get out of the workshop.
Display a timer and keep to the agenda - activities as well as break times. Your minute buffer will come in handy when the coffee machine runs out of water or a discussion is hard to wrap up. If you sense some doubt or resistance, ask them to suspend disbelief for an hour or a day.
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