Making workshops work for you

Designing and facilitating a successful workshop is not just about avoiding or managing conflict, or completing the agenda items on time. Great facilitation is about ensuring that at the end of a workshop, participants feel something useful was achieved which they could not have done alone. The following, while by no means an exhaustive list, provides some ideas on achieving that end.

Progression: Great facilitation is about engaging and involving all participants so that they feel they have a stake in the outcome. It’s about helping the conversation progress, so that the group feels they are further along at the end of the workshop than they were at the beginning, and that their time was well used. 

Managing negativity and conflict: In any workshop there are negative elements – either individuals who are inclined to respond negatively, or just topic areas that generate negative input. And in some workshops there is the potential for conflict.  Facilitators need to hold a neutral space, so that negative or opposing views are not allowed to grow or entrench. However, negativity and conflict are not always bad – and sometimes they have an important role to play in workshops. The role of the facilitator is to make good decisions about what to allow and what to challenge; what to give space to, and what to move away from, and then have the skills to shape and direct that conversation.

Great design: Getting the workshop format right is critical to ensuring the experience is productive, positive and safe.  One of the most important aspects of workshop design is understanding what the “journey” is.  (Where do we need to “go” with the workshop, and how will we know when we get there?)

Boundaries:  Facilitators need to clearly understand their boundaries: what the workshop is and is not for; what input is and is not in scope; what they as facilitators can and cannot engage with or comment on.  Facilitators also need to feel confident in enforcing these boundaries.

The right approach:  There are many different models for facilitation and workshop planning. One is Open Space Technology, which begins without a set agenda beyond the overall theme and gives a group permission and support to surface difficult, challenging, or confrontational concepts or views. These are then explored further so they are properly understood. However, this approach requires time. Alternatively, brainstorming can be used when a lot of ideas need to be generated quickly.  Appreciative Inquiry, an approach borne out of the science of positive psychology, is another good way to generate positive input that focuses on benefits and strengths, rather than problems and deficits.  It is useful when time is limited, and is relatively easy to apply.  

Care with tools and techniques:  Interactive techniques – using visual imagery, cards with verbal prompts, specially designed games to get people engaged and thinking – can be very powerful in facilitated workshops, particularly when there is restricted time, or a disengaged audience. Interactive techniques must be developed carefully though, to suit both facilitator and workshop participants; otherwise they can fail or engender cynicism.