My top 5 types of workshop activities
battle-tested, well worn, "not-going-anywhere" techniques you can apply in your own workshops
Bruce Lee could probably kick the butt of any living man of his time.
He famously said he'd not fear a man that had practiced a thousand different kicks.
What Bruce Lee feared was the man that practiced one single type of kick, a thousand times over.
To be honest, I'd fear both, but I'm not Bruce Lee.
Workshop activities are bit like this.1
5 types of activities that will serve you well
Mapping the Space
Useful to figure out things like assumptions, what we know about the context, objectives and expectations. These set the tone and create a foundation.Certainties, Assumptions and Questions; Mindmapping
Diagnosing a Process
This is not always necessary, but if you're dealing with how something functions (including a team of people), this can be very useful.5 Whys; Process timeline and Fishbone diagram for root cause analysis
Thinking of Alternatives
Most people think this is just brainstorming and assume that means “just go wild with ideas". Thinking of alternatives can be a much more structured process (and a more fruitful one).Brainwriting; Crazy Eights and How Might We
Filtering options
When you intentionally generate ideas to solve a problem, you'll probably end up with more than what you need. Having disciplined ways to judge and select the most appropriate is crucial.Affinity Clustering; 2x22; Ordering of options and Voting
Defining next steps
A common critique of poorly planned workshops is that they are fun and insightful but don't translate into real change. I like to give people time to explicitly define next steps while they are still energized by the workshop.I use mostly the 5W2H framework and sometimes throw in a RACI matrix.
Repetition breeds excellence
These 5 types of activities can hold several different exercises and each of them has their own secrets. An obvious example is "Voting”, that falls within the “Filtering Options” type of activity. There are many ways to apply it, with nuances on how people vote, how to distribute votes, how to avoid group bias, etc.
If for every workshop you try completely new tools, you'll remain at the starting levels of the competence curve for all of them. Not good.
Isn't there something missing?
The way I come into workshops is mostly from the path of engineering and problem-solving and my favorite tools reflect this.
One thing you won't see on this list of mine are social activities for connection, bonding and energy management ("Ice breakers", "Energizers", "Cooldowns”, etc).
They are important but not something I feel extremely competent at ( I need to learn more about this ). And for large groups these are absolutely crucial.
I did not include them on my list not because I don't like them, but because they are not currently a significant part of my toolkit.3
What do want to know?
In this post you did not see much in the way of me explaining what the exercises are and how they function.
That would make this a giant post that nobody would read and the algorithm would penalize me and I'd have zero views and I'd feel shitty about it and I'd flirt with the idea of starting to smoke again. We do not want that.
So I've made a shorter post with a poll. You decide what's next!
You've noticed I don’t explain any of the specific activities on this post. Each deserve their own post. Check out the poll to help me figure out which activity I can explain at lenght in the future.
A personal favorite of mine.
I admit my own shortcomings on this. But I'm studying more about these sort of activities and will come back to you with what I learn. For the time being I recommend you follow Jan Keck on LinkedIn and check out his upcoming book: https://www.jankeck.com/book/