25 Design-Driven Workshop Tips

Zach Hill
Zach Hill
Sep 7, 2018 · 10 min read
There is definitely some design thinking going on here.

I don’t know the exact count but I am pretty sure that I have facilitated around 50 design driven workshops. If you don’t know what a design-driven workshop is, go to google images and search for UX workshop and you’ll probably see a ton of images of smart looking millennials gathering around post-it notes. I am the guy that herds all those smart people to look at these sticky notes. There is more to it than that(kind of) but in short, I get a lot of talented and accomplished people in a room together and ask them through a series of exercises to work with me and each other to discover ideas and solutions. Typically these solutions are for the most challenging problems a business is facing, and usually, design leads the way for these solutions.

For my 50th(ish) workshop anniversary, I want to share 25 insights I have learned as a design facilitator. Enjoy!

1. Asking people to work together to solve problems is hard work.
Running a design-driven workshop is not brainstorming and it’s more than just putting sticky notes on the wall and staring at them in wonder. As a facilitator, your role is to get smart powerful people to work together in a constrained amount of time. This takes preparation, patience, and being mentally agile when unexpected conversations or situations arise.

2. There is always an alpha in the room, let them have their time.
It might be a CEO or another executive or a marketing manager, it doesn’t matter what title they have, what is important is that you allow some time to let them be heard at a high level. They are alphas and leaders in their business for many reasons and one of those reasons is because they know how to command a room, give them time to do that and empathize with what they discuss. Then when they are done go ahead and(politely) take over the room.

3. Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.
Do your homework. Review your exercise schedule, review how to execute it and review the business you’re doing the workshop for. To use a sports analogy(don’t worry more to come), have a practice or a walk-through before the big game. I typically spend the majority of the day before the first day of a workshop to prepare for it.

Sorry Kobe haters

4. Collect frameworks, have a playbook but be ready to improvise.
Most of my tools, frameworks, and exercises are based on CORE and the Design Sprint. I consider these my playbooks, but sometimes during the game, something unexpected happens so don’t be afraid to change up an exercise or even go to a new one in a middle of a workshop.. again be prepared.

5. Trust the experts in the room, you don’t know everything.
Sure you know a thing or two about design and maybe even a few things about tech and business but the stakeholders you are serving know more about their business than you do. Don’t come in expecting to have all the answers because you won’t. Your job is to listen and surface potential solutions from everyone else in the room that isn’t you. Of course, there will be times where you are expected to guide and contribute to solutions but that’s all. Being the leader of the room doesn’t make you the smartest person in the room.

6. Have all the right tools.
Don’t expect a conference room to have everything you need and make sure the conference room you are using has the whiteboard space necessary to collaborate with everyone in the room. Bring your own sticky pads, whiteboard markers, sharpies etc. Again… you guessed it, be prepared.

7. Eat well. Be energized. Mind your health.
This goes without saying for most but as a recovering junk foodaholic make sure you eat a healthy meal the night before and have a healthy snack or super light breakfast before the start of the workshop. Drink coffee or tea or whatever form of caffeine you prefer but don’t over do it, you don’t want a caffeine crash during the second half of the workshop day.

8. Stand your ground.
Remember, for all of this to work, you have to control the room. Be flexible but be firm when the time and rules demand it. You are going to have some very smart and successful people in the room eager to contribute but make sure they contribute within the constructs of your exercises. You are running the show, you have the power.

9. Enforce the no device rule.
First of all, make sure you have a no device rule, and then make sure you strictly enforce it. Remind participants they can step out to check an email or answer a phone call. Nothing distracts participants more than facebook notifications or buzzes from text messages or emails.

Don’t let your workshops look like this

10. Assure shiny objects are to come.
Stakeholders might be new or not fully understand the positive influence a design-driven workshop can have on the end product. Assure them that the website, app, logo etc. will be built or if you are just engaged to do a workshop ensure them that this discovery work will lead to better outcomes for the design artifacts they want to create.

11. You can’t repeat an outcome of an existing workshop.
This again goes back to being prepared, no one workshop is the same as another. Sure you might have two tech-driven clients or you will be doing multiple workshops for the same company, but that doesn’t mean you will use the same exercises and it doesn’t mean you will extrapolate the same data. Anticipate everything, assume nothing.

12. Don’t lose sight of the goals.
There will be a lot of ideas flying around and a lot of temptation to chase new directions or ideas that might not be part of a workshop goal or part of the overall goal of the engagement. Write primary goals on the whiteboard and keep them there. Frequently refer to them if a debate arises or the workshop team gets stuck somewhere. Everything worked upon during the workshop should be accomplishing the primary goals.

Don’t be this guy.. focus your workshop on the goals.

13. Create as much agreement and consensus as possible.
- You won’t always get 100% consensus but try to.. have someone ready to break ties or finalize exercises(this is where that alpha CEO comes in handy!)

14. Don’t forget to take a break.
- Plan your breaks and stick to them as much as possible, there will be the temptation to skip breaks if the workshop is going well or falling behind on time and sometimes that is okay. but keep in mind that fewer breaks mean less energy from the team at the end of the day.

15. Timebox everything! Seriously everything.
Time everything! Time breaks, time lunches, timed exercises, time intros, outros etc. Have a time timer visible at all times. Time is your greatest ally in the workshop environment. Without timeboxing, nothing can be structured.

This will be one of your most important tools

16. Document everything.
Whip out your smartphone(facilitators may break the no device rule) and photograph all the exercise results. Translate them somehow post-workshop. We use a creative brief to document workshop results. Let the stakeholders know that this workshop is valuable enough to use long after the workshop is over.

17. Learn how to bridge the workshop results to project goals
- This is the hard part for many workshop facilitators and I am still not perfect at this part. That being said this has become easier for me the more I focus on achieving goals as part of an engagement rather than a deliverable.

18. Focus on goals, not deliverables.
On that note, workshops and projects that focus on deliverables(website, logo, app) never work as well as goal-driven projects(increase user retention, increase brand awareness, engage a new user base). I know instinctually designers want to focus on making awesome things just as much as stakeholders want to focus on seeing and using awesome things but primarily focusing on the making just doesn’t mix well with workshop facilitation. There are times to talk about color, typography etc. But for the most part, that time doesn’t happen during a workshop.

19. Limit discussion focused exercises.
It’s good to have a few time slots for open-ended discussions, especially at the beginning of the workshop, but have as many exercises as possible that limit conversation. You might do this through sticky notes or limiting answers to one or two words. Keep in mind limiting open-ended discussions is not just about efficiency(although that is a big part of it.) There actually are psychological benefits for forcing participants to be focused in their responses to queries that come up during exercises.

No one in the room should feel like this

20. Always discuss next steps, refer to the process.
First of all, have a process, don’t just say “you’ll get your design soon” let them know what the next steps are. Almost 100% of the workshops I have run has led to positive feedback from the participants but again they usually also want to know what will come out of it. Let them know how the workshop fits into the whole process before, during, and after the sessions.

21. Have a partner(or two).
You can run these workshops on your own and I have done so successfully. That being said I am lucky to have a talented team at Toi who has the intelligence and experience to bring great ideas into the room. Design is a team sport so try to assemble a great team.

These guys are pretty good alone but unstoppable together.

22. Have a pre-game call.
This goes back to letting the leaders of the business have time to be heard, and again they deserve that time. They are leaders for a reason, they’ve earned it and if you are working with them I assume you have a great amount of respect for them. Having a pre-game call and truly listening to the stakeholders can give you cues on what to expect during the workshop as well as give you valuable insights on the goals that need to be focused on during the workshop.

23. Try to have a diverse array of voices in the room.
The best workshops I have been a part of have been where a leader or a member of the business team, the technical team, and the design team have been in the room. The diversity and level of empathy go up 10 fold when all voices of the business are in the room. It’s not to say that you can’t have a great workshop with just the CEO in the room but in general, more voices from more backgrounds yield better results.

This is straight from Jose Caballer and his course which is a great intro to CORE

24. Have Fun
This isn’t a standard meeting or brainstorming session, most stakeholders hate typical meetings and typical brainstorms can be even more frustrating. Remind participants that this is better by having fun, have jokes(even if they are bad), laugh, play music during exercises that don’t involve talking and remind them that there are no wrong answers. You are going to be in a room with a bunch of people you probably don’t know that well.. the worst thing you can do is be uptight and serious all the time.

25. Just Do It
At the end of the day just learn some design driven exercises or frameworks and just start. Run workshops for free at first and go from there, run them with your family at first(I did my first card sorting exercise with my brother and his friends). Forget this list you just read, do some workshops and create your own list. Your experiences will be different from mine.

Seriously…

Bonus
One of the best things I have been taught as a design facilitator is that this is all more of a mindset than a set of tools. Have the mindset, in general, and as a designer, to listen, to surface ideas and solutions, and translate what you discover into actionable tactics. You might find different ways to make that all happen other than what I’ve found but if you have the right mindset you can be great at facilitating design solutions.

That being said…

It doesn’t hurt to have a great set of tools and that playbook I wrote about earlier. These two resources have acted as the foundation for my facilitation practice:

Jake Knapp and his team created a great recipe to discover and test design driven solutions. Check it out here

Jose Caballer and his former partner Chris Do of The Futur created CORE, a frame and philosophy that created the spark that led to a shift in my career from production designer to design-driven strategist. Check out the kit here

Cheers!
Zachary is the head of creative strategy with Toi, a design and innovation agency specializing in UX/UI and branding for the digital environment. He also co-hosts and writes articles for Creative Honey, an online journal for the creative professional. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two cats.

Zach Hill

Written by

Zach Hill

UX Strategist/Designer. Husband, Cat Dad, Adult League Basketball Player.

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