Get Set for Success with these Workshop Workouts

Workshops can be referred to in other terms, such as group meetings, forums, conferences and roundtables. Whatever term is used, they are a great way of achieving many tasks including developing strategy, identifying issues and risks, engaging with stakeholders, identifying what change is required and for solving problems.

Facilitating these meetings is not easy but with a few tools in your toolbox, they can be very effective in achieving your objective.

Its important to say at this point, that a facilitator should only facilitate and not participate in the workshop otherwise they will be seen as being bias and not impartial in the outcomes. Whilst external facilitators are expensive to hire, it is useful to outsource due to a lack of facilitation skills within the organisation.

Additionally, any conflict or internal politics within the group will be easier to handle given the independence of the external facilitator. If there is a requirement to demonstrate that the outputs from the workshop were achieved in a transparent open and equitable process, an external facilitator will ensure this is the case.

Additionally, be aware of group think, which describes a common occurrence where the desire for consensus leads to poor decision making. There may be a feeling that the group cannot fail and that there is little to no listening of counter arguments; there is also some stereotyping and peer pressure evident in group think and silence is seen as agreement. The techniques used to counterbalance this include encouraging junior members of the group to express their opinions before calling on the more senior members of the group; seek the views of specialist experts; looking for alternative suggestions and appointing a devils advocate or adopting the 10th man principal, where it is the duty of the tenth man to disagree with the main consensus to challenge the status quo and ensure that of the concept that is being agreed to unanimously is sound and logical and has been tested thoroughly .

In practice you do not necessarily need ten people, only the appreciation that someone will challenge the main reasoning amongst the group of individuals. Not to be disloyal but to ensure that the best reasoning has been applied.

If you’re not sure where to start, consider one (or some) of the following:

Icebreakers to get the group warmed up at the beginning of the workshop. Some examples are:-

1. Two truths and One Lie: Participants share two true statements and one false statement about themselves. Then the group have to identify the lie.

2. The Marshmallow Challenge: Teams compete to build the tallest structure using spaghetti, tape, and a marshmallow.

3. Introduction games: Participants share personal information or fun facts about themselves.

4. Team-building activities: Collaborative tasks or challenges that require teamwork.

   
   

Questioning techniques to use when Facilitating

Its important to include in your arsenal a range of techniques designed to get to the cause of an issue or the problem to be solved. This includes knowing that using open questions which encourages a descriptive response, this can be followed up with more open questions in order to get to a point where you can fully understand the problem or issue at hand. And then summarise your understanding with closed questions.

The Five Whys

The five whys is a technique used in problem solving and it is designed to get to the root cause of the problem, primarily it is used in manufacturing. The example given to Change Managers is:

Why did you get up late? Because the alarm did not go off,

Why did the alarm not go off? Because it reset at midnight.

Why did it reset at midnight? Because there was a power outage.

Why doesn't it have a battery back up? It does but the battery failed.

Why did the battery fail? because I haven't replaced it for years.

The root cause to this problem is the fact the battery hadn't been replaced.

A warning, sometimes, depending on tone and who is being asked, asking why things are done can come across as aggressive so be careful not to get too beligerent in asking these types of questions.

Kiplings Six Servants

There are six basic questions that can be used in many situations.

I keep six honest serving men

They taught me all I knew

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who

from Rudyard Kipling

What Would That Look Like?

I usually use this tool to get the group to envisage what the world looks like in the future, however, I like to ask them to write a Postcard from the Future in answering this question.

Group Exercises

Splitting a large group up into smaller groups each with a different problem to solve is called syndicate working. Each syndicate takes a problem and is asked to discuss it together and come back to the main group and present their ideas.

Brainstorming sessions including previous blogs such as SWOT analysis sessions and Mind mapping sessions.

Once you have ideas captured it is important to affinitise the ideas and remove any duplicates.  An Affinity Diagram is a tool that gathers large amounts of data (ideas, opinions, issues) and organise them into groupings based on their natural relationships. The Affinity process is often used to group ideas generated by Brainstorming,

You can then start to Prioritise the ideas/problems as sometimes there are too many issues/problems/ideas for the group to consider and so there is a technique that can be used to reduce the number into a more manageable list.

Dot Voting

Each person in the group is given three votes and these votes are used in the form of a dot on the idea/problem/issue which is most important to them. They can put one dot on three ideas or three dots on just one idea if that idea is really important to them. This is not a show of hands and so there is little risk of group think with this method, the five most voted for ideas are then the ones to be further considered. There will be some with few votes and some without any votes. Either way, nothing is lost, the ideas are all captured for later reference if needed. But by using this method, the group will be able to focus. From this condensed list, action plans can be worked through.

High Impact/Low Effort Matrix

The high impact low effort matrix, also known as the Impact and Effort Matrix, is a tool used to evaluate tasks based on their potential impact and the effort required to complete them.

• It helps identify tasks that yield the greatest benefits with the least amount of effort, allowing for effective prioritisation.

• Tasks are plotted on a matrix with impact on one axis and effort on the other, helping to visualise which tasks to focus on first.

• By categorising tasks into four quadrants, you can prioritise high-impact, low-effort activities to maximise productivity.

  This matrix is particularly useful in project management and decision-making processes.

  
  

  

  
  

These are some of the techniques that I use to get a successful outcome from facilitation of a workshop.

Its not easy to 'conduct' a large group of people and so I would advocate the use of an experienced external consultant to do this for you. That way you can focus on participating in the workshop.