Inchoate Curmudgeon

A workshop is a focused set of meetings, designed to speed the advancement of a business or technical initiative. The success of a workshop understandably hinges on the ability to accelerate the process of designing, developing or implementing an initiative, over alternative approaches, such as a number of meetings, con-calls and document exchanges over time.

Although there are many categories of workshops, based on various kinds of initiatives, there are a number of general, typical factors that can greatly influence success.

You are Jumping on a Moving Train

I’ve never been involved in a workshop where the sponsoring stakeholder wasn’t in a hurry, otherwise there is no point to the effort. This almost always implies there is some level of prior effort leading to a workshop exercise.

Adequate preparation is the only way to ensure that the workshop is properly placed in the context of this prior work. It is a waste of everyone’s time to rehash excessively what has already been done or decided prior to the start of the workshop. Workshop discussions of the context should be structured to quickly get all participants aware of the current context and understanding of the situation.

Typical preparation activities include:

• Remotely interviewing key personnel, particularly the sponsor.
• Reviewing all documents related to the effort.
• Developing preliminary documentation based on document reviews and interviews (e.g. risk management plans, goal enumeration, etc.)

Other preparation activities deal with simple logistics. Make sure you have simple things like food, breaks, flipcharts, markers, conference dial-in and so forth covered.

Managing Expectations

There is nothing worse than delivering workshop content that isn’t what the sponsor wanted or expected. It is critically important to build an agenda based on interviews with the key sponsoring stakeholders, including full details of any expected deliveries or other key resolutions from the effort.

Big red flag: You are responsible for putting together a workshop, and you aren’t allowed to have direct conversations with the sponsor. If you can’t set expectations prior to the workshop, you are at risk of a sub-standard delivery.

A Workshop is Rarely a One-Way “Transfer of Information”

Beware of workshops with excessive delivery of readily available content, such as training material, marketing slides and prolonged presentations. The sponsor can get this sort of thing elsewhere. In order to truly accelerate initiatives, workshops almost always consist of highly interactive working sessions.

Workshops Imply Change Initiatives

Workshops that are not conducted in the context of significant organizational change initiatives are rare. Any initiative or action requiring the cooperation and coordination of more than two departments with independent budget authority should be treated like change initiatives.

With this backdrop, and using John Kotter’s framework for managing change, many aspects tasks of successful workshops become clearer:

• Establish a sense urgency.
• Create a leading coalition.
• Develop a clear vision.
• Share the vision.
• Empower obstacle clearing.
• Secure wins quickly.
• Leverage momentum.
• Anchor the changes.

Workshops will be focused on early phases of change initiatives. Typical issues related to workshop success in relation to change management include:

• Lack of sufficient sponsorship to create and hold a coalition, develop a vision, or clear obstacles.
• Lack if a vision with quantifiable goals and the desire to communicate them to affected stakeholders.

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