How To Run A Creative Workshop That Won’t Make People Want to Die Inside
If your first reaction to “let’s run a workshop” is a groan of despair, then chances are you’ve been victim to some pretty tedious and pointless group exercises. When done right, workshopping can be an unrivalled way of making major breakthroughs with clients. When done badly you’ll leave people losing the will to live.
Designing a workshop takes great thought and care. This guide outlines a best practice approach based on numerous failed attempts and mistakes. Use it as a guide, not a manual; it’s important that you bring your own personalisation and creativity to your session. Follow these steps however and you can’t go far wrong.
The eight steps to a successful workshop
Objective – what do we want to achieve and why?
Cast – who do we need and what do we want from them?
Space – where will we achieve it?
Energy – how do we ensure everyone is in the right frame of mind?
Stimulus – how do we inspire participants?
Exercise – how do we get everyone to work collaboratively with focus?
Feedback – how do we ensure that everyone has a chance to feed back on that work?
Output – what is our clear plan to take that work forward?
The objective
The first and most important step is to understand what you want to achieve from the session. This sounds obvious but too often we rush into workshops without truly understanding what success looks like. Clear, specific outputs are best and don’t be over ambitious with what you want to achieve.
An example of a good session objective is:
· 4-6 varied concepts that can help us identify the right direction for a project
This has a specific, tangible output that participants can work towards. It is not overly ambitious and doesn’t put too much pressure on a single session. It uses collaborative work to agree a direction rather than solve all problems.
An example of a bad workshop objective is:
· A solution to the key problem we face on the project
Quite often workshops are called because problems arise or projects are floundering so this is not an unlikely objective. It’s a poor one however as it’s intimidating and vague. It will put additional pressure on the session and gives no real assistance as to what that solution will be. It is a Hail Mary objective and as such will unlikely pay off.
Not only do you need a clear objective that everyone is working towards, but you need to understand that different stakeholders will have more specific and personal sub-objectives. Understanding these will help you manage the session better. If members aren’t getting what they personally want from a session they will begin to get distracted and agitated. It’s worth mapping these out in a simple chart before the session.
Casting
Once you have a clear objective you need to think carefully about the people you need to achieve it. Considering the potential output of a session is dependent on the participants, this should be one of the most carefully deliberated parts of your planning, but too often it isn’t.
Picking your team
Admittedly there will be elements beyond your control, but take charge of attendees as much as possible. Imagine yourself as Danny Ocean assembling your team of 11. What skill set do you need? Who is best qualified to bring that skill?
Inviting them
When you’re inviting participants it’s worth making that invitational personal and explain why you want their skills. It will mean they turn up to the session feeling confident and clear on what their role is in the session.
Size of the group
There are no rules about how many people can be in the session for it to be successful. As long as people have clearly identified roles and you can break the main group into smaller working sub-groups when necessary then theoretically there is no limit to how many people you can include. Bear in mind however that the more people you have the more difficult it will be to control the session and time.
Co-facilitation
One final thing is to make sure you recruit a co-facilitator. No matter how confident you’re feeling ahead of a session, having a partner will be invaluable in helping you control the pace and atmosphere of the session.
Space
It can be tempting for a workshop organiser to ask someone else to pick and organise the location of the workshop. It feels fairly insignificant but it isn’t. Everyone needs to feel comfortable and cared for in that environment. Here are some classic mistakes when picking a space and the consequences it can have:
· Too small or cramped, not enough chairs – participants feel unwelcome. It creates a sense of disorganisation.
Too uncomfortable – participants are frustrated
Too comfortable (bean bags etc) – participants are disengaged
Too familiar - participants feel uninspired
Too noisy / busy – participants are distracted
These sound trivial points but they can make a big difference. What you’re looking for is a space that:
Offers a different environment to the day to day – ideally not a standard meeting room
Has enough space for people to move and break out
Is comfortable but not too comfortable
Has natural stimulus (windows are nice) but is not distracting
Has the right facilities for discussing ideas – wall space, flip charts etc.
Energy
The no. 1 reason why people dislike workshops is that they usually start off with some disastrous from of icebreaker. Controlling the energy of the session is probably the most challenging but also most important job of a facilitator. Energisers are a game-changer when done well – the problem is people don’t understand why we need to do them.
Understanding energy
You know that feeling where your mind is on fire, everything is just clicking, you’re in the zone? That feeling is called being ‘in state’. It is when you are at your most productive creatively. To be in state you need to be energised in four key ways. You need:
Physical / kinetic energy
Mental energy
Emotional energy
Social / spiritual energy
Physical or kinetic energy
The simplest form of energy to understand and enhance. If you’re physically tired, hungry or digesting you will feel lethargic and this will affect your thinking. There are some quick wins here in terms of making sure participants are well nourished but it’s possible to jump-start people’s physical energy with some kind of kinetic activity. If you can get people standing or moving you’ll be amazed at how quickly some of that physical energy will reappear.
Mental energy
The part of your brain that deals with stress, email build-up, deadlines and other work pressures is very different to your conceptual side of your brain. You need to be able to shut that side of your brain off and fire up your creative side. To do this you can create exercises that get your brain thinking fast and creatively. On top of that these exercises remove you from what you were thinking about when you entered.
Emotional energy
Some participants who enter your session will be feeling emotionally sensitive. It probably has nothing to do with work but they will be feeling insecure, sad, upset or a number of other negative emotions. Your job as a facilitator is to make people feel as welcome and comfortable as possible. This is why the ‘tell us something about you’ icebreaker is so bad because it makes people feel even more insecure and self-conscious. You have to be sensitive to emotional energy throughout the session. For example if someone feels like their point has been rubbished or ignored they will disengage and you will lose that participant. You have to be vigilant enough to recognise when people are feeling like that, and be very careful with the language and tone you use.
Social energy
More commonly known as spiritual energy this is how connected you feel to the people in the room. There’s a reason why creative teams who have worked together for years find it so easy, and that’s because they share a powerful social connection. In a workshop environment you don’t have that luxury. You are almost guaranteed to have strangers in your session. Your job is to get them to feel a social bond as quickly as possible. If you can get them laughing together and comfortable with each other the difference in output will be incredible.
This is the best energiser exercise I have ever used.
Instructions
Ask everyone to think of two objects you can buy in a shop
Write each object on a separate post-it note
Put them in a hat
Each participant pulls out two objects at random
Based on those two objects, they have to invent a new super-product and pitch it to the rest of the group
For example: FOOTBALL + TV = the new super Football TV. Full HD 360 screen but when your team loses you can kick it in frustration across the room and it will be absolutely fine.
Here’s why this energiser works so well.
You get people standing and doing stuff which increases kinetic / physical energy
You are kick-starting the creative side of their brain by making them think fast and instinctively
It seems difficult but everyone is capable of doing it. When they succeed they feel good about themselves and confident in their ability.
It makes people laugh as a group and because you have all experienced this together you feel a bond
You can have fun inventing your own games. The more relevant they are to the session the better. But remember they have to help with at least two types of energy (preferably more), and most importantly test and practice them beforehand to make sure they work. When you’re explaining a game don’t underestimate how hard it is for people to grasp the rules. Make it simple and explain every step clearly and slowly. Finally – always make sure you go first to demonstrate the game and lead by example.
Stimulus
There are different types of stimulus you can use to keep creativity flowing throughout the session.
Introductory stimulus
You shouldn’t ask participants to help you achieve your objective without arming them with the key information and knowledge. Setting up the session with a strong introduction is highly recommended. Having worked so hard to generate the right energy this introduction has to be short, emotive, and exciting. If you’re facing a business problem – reframe it in an interesting way. Don’t show complex charts or any lengthy presentation – it will kill the energy. It should leave participants itching to get stuck-in.
Injection stimulus
Injection stimulus can be anything that can kick-start creative thoughts during a session. Have some options up your sleeve and use them when energy or momentum is stalling. Examples of injection stimulus could be:
An image, fact, film, piece of music or object that gets people thinking in a different way
Another short energiser exercise or game that resets the energy
A new challenge or limitation that you can add to the task – e.g. what would this look like if we had all the money in the world?
Exercise
The majority of your session is going to be spent running one or more exercises. If you’re looking for creative output these exercises have to make it as easy as possible to come up with conceptual ideas. As a result it’s a very bad idea to give people a blank canvas. You have to be very leading in your task setting. Give people half of the answer already and let them piece together the rest. Phrase your challenge in a way that makes it impossible for them not to come up with ideas. If people are faced with too open a brief there is a very real chance they will struggle, creatively freeze and then deviate off brief as they run with the first idea that comes up.
Here’s an example of a great exercise to run for a brand looking to make a name through disruption.
Imagined futures exercise:
The year is 2020 and xxxx brand has topped a poll of the most rebellious companies in the world. What did we do to achieve this?
This exercise works well because:
It is provocative and forces people to think big
The outcome has already been identified, all we’re asking people to do is fill in the blanks
Reframing the problem to three years ahead takes away current limitations – anything is possible.
Take your time to design exercises. Be creative yourself. Get secondary opinion and help. Practice.
Feedback
The biggest mistake in workshops is that exercises overrun and there is no time for feedback. It is in the feedback stage where the best, most collaborative work is done. If you are working in groups it’s imperative that each group gets a chance to present back to the wider group. These are some of the problems that can arise at this point:
One member of the team becomes overly dominant and presents back all the work
People switch-off and stop listening to other presentations as they plan theirs
There is no discussion just presentations
These are some of the rules you can use to control the feedback environment:
Every team member must speak in presentation
Presenting back = maximum X minutes
Other teams have to feed back on what they liked about the ideas (positive feedback only)
Other teams can build on the ideas (negative feedback without a positive build should be discouraged)
Output
One of the biggest frustrations of workshops is that people sacrifice their time but the outcome of the session often disappears. Walls of post-it notes and flip charts get crumpled up and stuffed under a desk until the next office clear-out. If you’re lucky someone will type them up and send them around but usually that’s it. Make sure you have a clear plan for the output of the session. This should fall into three parts:
1. Agreed principles / outcomes
Wherever possible get participants to agree or vote on the output of a session. This will make the session feel like a collective effort and make it feel like decisions are being made. An example exercise would be to get participants to vote on their favourite ideas / areas.
If you can’t reach a decision or you don’t feel the objective has been met that is ok. What you need to discuss and agree is whether another session is required / beneficial and if not what are the other alternatives.
2. Next steps & summary
Give a concise recap of the things that have been discussed and the key decisions made. This will reinforce the idea that progress has happened.
List out all the things you’ll do next and how you’ll use the work from the day. If the work will be taken on and finessed by another smaller team then that’s great. People want to see how their contribution has helped and what it will be used for.
3. Supporting documentation
As painful as it is having just finished a tiring session, try and capture the output as quickly as possible while it’s still fresh in your head. Ideally if you can share that clear, concise documentation with participants in the following 48hrs it will be much more effective.
Summary
If you think carefully about every step of this process you will design an excellent workshop. Never underestimate how hard it is to communicate complex tasks to people. Practice them beforehand and practice explaining them. You should never find out that an exercise doesn’t work when you’re in an actual workshop. Be sensitive to your participants. Make sure everyone feels welcome, and that their voice can be heard. Be careful of the power of language. You will exude huge influence in the session, your behaviour will dictate how others feel. Plan well, practice a lot and you will run a kick-ass workshop.
