What are best practices for opening online workshops?

Full transcript

Intro

Elaine: Because at the end of the day, like we're all human and we all work together and we all create together and you wanna know things about each other, hopefully. Right, and we're all here to do good.

Jay: Elaine Schwartz is a digital enablement leader at IBM. She facilitates all sorts of workshops and sprints inside of IBM, working with a broad makeup of teams. And what Elaine is gonna come and share with us today are ideas to help shape the most important part of the workshop, the opening. Which is even more important when your workshop or sprint is remote.

Elaine has three of her best practices that she uses to open her online workshops. And then she's gonna share her go-to tip for when you get pushback on spending time on anything other than the agenda at hand. So this is Facilitator's Q&A and we're answering the question today with Elaine's help, "What are best practices for opening online workshops?"

Today’s question

Jay: So Elaine, we're talking about the upfront part of a workshop or a sprint or something. And you know, what I used to do, is just have my agenda and just kind of jump into it and be like, "Is everybody ready to go? Because I'm running out of time and I wanna get into it." And I didn't think about how much time you should spend thinking about the opening of that conversation. So you're gonna talk to us today a little bit about how you design and open up workshops.

Elaine: Yeah, I'm really excited about it. I think like you said Jay, people lose interest pretty quickly. Just like I'm sure as you read articles or play with an app, if you don't like it in the first five minutes, you're not gonna come back to it. It's pretty much the same when you're talking about a workshop, especially a virtual workshop, where people can much easily multitask without you seeing. So the opening is really, really important to get people excited and to get people to realize what we're about to do together in the next, hopefully just two to three hours, nothing longer.

Jay: So what are your big tips? How do you open up your workshops?

Elaine: So I like to start with a little of who I am, why I have a stake in the success of the group. Sometimes I'm facilitating for teams I know, sometimes for teams I don't know. So I think that's a really important step upfront. I always love to start with an icebreaker. So a lot of the times, you know, people will come from different parts of the business and not know each other or not know each other's roles or why they're there.

Pro tip, I love to ask people what song brings them joy 'cause it's really funny to see the mix of music but then I also actually build a session playlist live. So the next brainstorm they go into, they actually hear one of their joyful songs.

Jay: How does that change the narrative and sort of like the energy and the vibe of your workshops?

Elaine: I think it really puts the attendees at the center. So you know, in design thinking, we're really putting the user at the center of what we're creating, but in any sort of workshop or space where you're bringing people together, you really have to think of those people, right. They're coming here to solve a hard problem or create possibilities. And so, what would make them feel most comfortable? What would make them feel safe?

Then I get into the tool. So because we're in a virtual setting, we're using all different types of tools. And so depending on what you have access to, you know, it could be different but we use Mural pretty frequently for workshops. You know, the tool playing and spaces just to say, "Hey, this is a safe space and we all don't have this figured out, so at any point, you can raise your hand and say you don't know." That's an intimidating thing for people to do that and so giving them space for the questions, giving them space for the experimentation is really, really helpful.

I like to also then go into why we're here. So hopefully before people are together in the virtual session, they know, but reiterating what are some of the outcomes that we're gonna walk away this session? And so what I like to do upfront is say, this might feel very rapid-fire design thinking and we might move you on without feeling like we've finished, and that's okay. You know, we'll decide in the closing of the session, if we need to have a follow-on conversation or if there's more to discuss but I kinda try to set the intention in the beginning, to say, I am gonna wrap it up when we need to move on.

And then kind of showing them the navigation of where to go on the board, guiding them to know where the agenda is, so that they can go back to it themselves. So they don't rely on you for ABC housekeeping, 'cause you're very busy facilitating.

Jay: Interesting because you're helping people feel safe by showing them the process and the structure and the agenda, you're telling them and giving them a sense in both pre-work as well as at the outset of the workshop, this is how it's gonna feel. This is how the conversation's gonna go. I'm gonna do these things, so be ready for it. So you're really setting a lot of expectation for them to feel like, okay, this is just how it's gonna be and I feel good about it or I have questions and I wanna talk about it now.

Okay, but here's the thing, when you and I design our workshops and we put them back in front of leadership, right. That's kind of their meeting, but they want us to show up and make sure that it goes well. And then we design the agenda. You and I put all this, we put pre-work in there. We put intention setting and checking in and maybe that's like 30 minutes of the three hour workshop or even 20 minutes or 15 minutes. And occasionally we get pushback to say, "No, no, no, there's no time for this stuff beforehand. No one's gonna do that, and we just gotta get right into it" Do you have a tip for the person that's already feeling the pressure of their agenda being too boxed in, to add more time upfront?

Elaine: I've actually dealt with that myself, as I'm sure all of us have in different ways. The reality is that you're coming in as an expert to say, I'm being realistic about what we can get done. And you're telling me the outcomes that you want, I'm shaping them and on creating the agenda. And so I'll try to push back in the conversation with the leader. Of course, as much as I can. I'll try to make pre-work as easy as possible. Right, and so creating structure and templates and like, you know, going outrageous with, you need to spend 15 minutes in here. Like that's all, so really also time boxing that pre-work, to try to convince the leader that, hey, it's 15 minutes, but look at the template, look at all the information we'll get and look at what that will afford us in the session.

Frankly, you know, it's one of those things where icebreakers gets a lot of beef and some people really hate them, some people really like them. I think if they're intentional and they're about getting to know the people on your team, they're so important because at the end of the day, like we're all human and we all work together and we all create together and you wanna know things about each other, hopefully. Right, and we're all here to do good.

Jay: Okay, so you talked a lot about icebreakers is a good way to set that opening intention. Do you have any good resources or places people can go and find icebreakers to experiment for themselves?

Elaine: Yeah, so Mural has a really great energizers and warmup article. You can just Google that and you'll find it right away. They also have templates, which is awesome. But if you don't have that tool, there's actually online questions that you can go find, like digital icebreakers and it'll actually be random questions that can pop up. So that's something to use. You can either pull a question and pop it, you know, wherever you have your session or just use that tool in general and randomize questions for folks around the room.

Jay: Thanks Elaine, we'll put some additional resources and links from Elaine in the comments below. This is great, thank you so much, Elaine. These are great tips, powerful tips. I hope that it helps you open up your workshop and sprints to be more successful. It will certainly lead to better outcomes in the long run. So thanks again Elaine.

Elaine: Yeah, my pleasure and good luck.

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