1. Prioritise purpose
Once you’ve decided – or agreed/been convinced – to run a workshop, it can be easy to focus on the task of ‘running a workshop’ instead of the original purpose that you wanted to use the workshop for. Here are three questions I like to ask myself to get back on track:
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What outcome do I/we want from this workshop? (Usually, it’s either a decision, gaining or sharing knowledge, or relationship-building).
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What information will be exchanged? (What information do I want from attendees? What information do attendees want from me or each other?)
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What can we get from this group of people being (virtually) together, that we otherwise couldn’t? (sometimes you know who’d attend specifically, sometimes it’s a more abstract grouping of people e.g. experts in a particular field)
2. Match your purpose with structure
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Making an invitation – what you’re inviting participants to do or contribute
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Arranging the space – what environment do you want to create? What resources?
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Distributing participation – the answer shouldn’t be 100% of time to the presenter; but what should it be instead?
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Configuring groups – what’s the right unit of people to work on this problem/discussion?
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Sequence and time allocation – thinking about balancing timing, energy and intensity.
3. Try new formats
Another Zoom breakout, another Google Jamboard. It can be easy to rely on old favourites – formats that require less planning because you’ve done them before. I find it helpful to test new formats on colleagues or friendlier audiences before unleashing them on a bigger workshop. Here are a few lesser-spotted workshop formats:
4. Make sure everyone can participate
5. Identify ways to deliberately practice facilitation
A lot of the success of a workshop relies on the environment you create in the (virtual) room.. So how can we practice the facilitation skills we’ll need on the day?
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Look for mini-facilitation opportunities – whether it’s a project meeting, part of a class, or just you and your favourite three research colleagues thinking through a problem. It doesn’t have to be a whole workshop to be useful practice – I really liked Alix Dunn’s suggestions of trying out different ways to close a meeting.
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Pair facilitating – try pairing up with another facilitator so you can swap in and out of facilitating when you reach your limits and have a safety net for trying new things. If they’re a more confident facilitator, consider planning a secret cue to swap over if you feel out of your depth, or offer this to a facilitator you want to support.
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Shadowing – workshop feedback from attendees can be quite generic: try asking a peer to shadow your facilitation to give you specific feedback, or attend a workshop by a facilitator you admire solely to observe how they do their craft.