You are standing in front of the participants, wondering where it went wrong. Why aren’t they saying anything? What is this big silence? Running that workshop seemed to be an easy job – at least earlier. And then you wish you had had a magic guide to prevent this situation.
At UX studio, we facilitate and participate in many workshops, so we have that kind of experience, which could be helpful for someone searching for the how-tos. Here comes your guidance on how to run a workshop and how not to.
Workshops are designed to solve a specific problem. In an interactive meeting like this, a group of people collaborate and participate in different activities to achieve a common goal, a specialized outcome.
According to the Facilitator School’s article, the purpose of a workshop is to have a space for deep discussions, letting the participants create meaningful work during their session with each other. This way, “people can meet to discuss questions, brainstorm ideas, identify problems, make decisions and develop solutions.”
As product designers, we commonly love workshops. I’d risk saying that they are essential to our work. We often run workshops to deep-dive into specific topics and questions, starting from the very beginning of the project – or even before – until the very end of it – or even later.
We choose what fits our project best. We understand the value of workshops and use them to gather information, gain more and better ideas, and make decisions. We have a general go-to collection of workshops to choose from to achieve the desired results.
We should handle workshops flexibly – you can adapt them to your current task, scale, or combine them, always considering the different aspects of the project you work on. Of course, you can either facilitate the workshop online or offline, but the main features of the sessions won’t change too much because of space constraints, be it natural or virtual space.
With each type’s purpose in mind, we can categorize UX workshop types into discovery workshops, strategy workshops, prioritization workshops, design workshops, empathy workshops, critique workshops, and retrospective workshops.
The short answer is whatever is the most beneficial for reaching our goal. That’s quite a general answer, but it works like that. However, there are a few ones that we usually go for, and because of that, we have a massive experience with them.
First, we always facilitate a kick-off workshop when a project starts. At this event, we meet the client to gather all the information needed to establish the work. This way, we can think together and decide which way to go, what goals to set, and how to reach them.
Several methods can be part of a kick-off workshop, such as activities about assumptions, jobs-to-be-done, feature prioritization, and brand persona. This is a more extended session, and it can take a few days if you want to dive deep.
Another favorite of ours is the journey workshop. Be it a user or customer journey, it aims to map out the user’s or customer’s entire experience of using the product or service, pointing out the critical parts of the whole process.
Last but not least, we often do a product strategy workshop. With the product design goals and the business strategy in mind, this kind of workshop aims to get a clear and accurate understanding of the bigger picture: the current situation and our opportunities within the project. Long-term goals are to be set, knowing and summarizing everything we know about our work.
We regularly do and have done many workshops so far, so we know what we are talking about – running them is not always as easy as it seems. Believe it or not, we have experienced how a workshop should not be facilitated and have quite a list of what we should avoid.
Facilitating a workshop depends considerably on how much you prepare. If you put your plans for the session together well, it is easier to achieve success. Of course, it’s only easy to say.
I have had some moments when I could have run the workshop better, and even our colleagues with the most workshop-facilitating experience have had something to improve. Well, practice makes perfect, as the saying goes.
Taking advantage of our experience, let’s see the 7 most typical mistakes in running a workshop you can avoid in the future.
It might seem easy to arrive in the workshop room – or on the screen -and let things go their way. You might feel that this flexible approach will bring the desired outcome as people will feel comfortable and think openly. However, you might lose focus and make participants feel the conversation is going nowhere.
Correct approach: To avoid situations like that, you should always plan the activities done in the workshop beforehand, deciding in advance what exactly you will do and how you will facilitate the sessions in the allocated timeframe.
People like to bring every question to the table and discuss whatever bothers them or any idea that pops into their minds. Unfortunately, the session can get chaotic this way, blocking the chance to achieve the desired result because of running out of time and losing focus.
Correct approach: Limit the number of activities and focus only on the main questions. This framework for the session allows the participants to think comfortably and dive deep into a few topics instead of just scratching the surface. This will bring more value to the work.
Jumping right into the middle of the activities and topics without seeing an outline of what’s ahead might feel stressful for the participants. They may want to prepare a bit, but they cannot if you don’t clearly outline the day ahead.
Correct approach: A simple bullet-pointed agenda of what will happen is perfect enough. Highlighting the objectives, main activities, and the time planned for each activity gives everyone an overview of the workshop they are about to attend. Participants can prepare, get their thoughts together, and bring anything they might need if they feel like it.
Letting everyone participate in the workshop won’t give you more or better results. Imagine you have 20 people in the room; even your boss brings their nephew, who also invites his best friend who only wants to join if their assistant comes. That could result in a total mess. People won’t get the chance to be heard if there’s no time for that and there’s a crowd in the workshop. It’s good to have different views in the sessions, but you won’t be able to focus on the exact necessary expertise with so many participants.
Correct approach: Limiting the number of participants will pay off. Bring the right amount – usually 4 to 6 – and the right ‘types’ of people to create a suitably diverse group. They should have some knowledge of the topic but can come from different backgrounds to have different perspectives. It is essential to have people in the workshop who can provide valuable input, so make sure you invite those with the right kind and amount of knowledge. This can be incredibly beneficial.
So you have everything planned out, shared the agenda with the participants, and finally got going with the workshop. People start discussing the results of the first activity, and suddenly, you find out the time set for that activity is running out. The worst thing you can do is kill the conversation when valuable thoughts and ideas emerge. Rushing people to end the discussion stresses them, which quickly causes further frustrations in the workshop. That won’t help to achieve the desired outcome for sure.
Correct approach: Don’t worry about keeping things so strictly. Plan with some extra time for each activity. 20-30 percent of the planned timeframe will do. Let the participants express their views and ideas. Also, plan with breaks after one or two activities, allowing participants to continue the chat if they feel like it – this gives some extra room for flexibility when things don’t go as planned.
Of course, you’d love it if you could close the session with the outcome you planned the whole thing for (hopefully not having a specific result in mind – that’s a no-go in the workshop universe ). Go to the workshop, do the activities, and leave the room with great solutions and decisions at the end of the day. However, it will sometimes go differently. Sometimes, too many ideas are born in workshops, and you don’t have the time to prioritize and choose the best ones. You may feel frustrated about this, but luckily, not coming to a result doesn’t mean the end of the world.
Correct approach: Leaving the workshop without an exact decision is okay. In these cases, you will still have open questions and unprioritized ideas on which someone can work following the session – the final say will be up to them, and that is all right. You did the hard part of the job. No one could debate the value of your workshop. If you still feel like you should have something tangible to end the session, you can organize a small voting activity. Also, make sure to provide a small summary of the workshop – this will show the participants all the great things they did during the session and give an overview of the possible following steps based on the current situation.
The last but definitely not the least essential mistake you can make is not to create a comfortable environment for the participants. This may seem trivial compared to the previous points, but creating a positive atmosphere is crucial. If participants don’t feel comfortable, they won’t be able to generate their best ideas. Also, in general, it is crucial to have a relaxed environment at work so that employees will be more productive. So why not consider this when preparing a workshop?
Correct approach: Give the participants good vibes. You can do this easily – bring snacks, water, and soft drinks if you facilitate the workshop offline. Provide enough breaks if they need them, even when you haven’t planned with them. Consider organizing small icebreaker games at the beginning to break the silence. This is especially important when running the session online, as it can be more challenging to create a cozy environment in a virtual space. Make the whole experience easy-going, let people have fun discussions while laughing, and whatever you do, make it relaxed. Let them engage with your workshop to make them feel that they can be heard. This is one of the main ingredients for an efficient session.
Running a workshop is not as easy as it might seem for inexperienced eyes. Sometimes, you must be strict about your rules. While other times, you need to practice flexibility. You must find the right balance and always be prepared to react to a specific situation.
There are a bunch of workshops you can choose from when you are about to plan the session, but you should always keep this guide in mind whatever you do. You can now learn from experts’ mistakes, turning them into superpowers.
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