How to run ‘shift and share’ for 200+ people
Without causing chaos
At the end of September 2023, I helped Social Care Wales to design and run an all-staff conference for 200 people.
Before getting started we brought together a group of 30 staff to understand what they wanted the event to accomplish. At the top of the list were two things:
- A better understanding of how the work of different teams fits together
- A shared understanding of the impact the organisation was having on the people it serves
Leaders at Social Care Wales were determined to avoid using the conference as an opportunity to broadcast information. They wanted the event to make it easy for people to participate and to build informal relationships with one another.
We decided to see if we could design the conference using a string of Liberating Structures. As Lisa Gill outlines in her excellent primer, “Liberating Structures are 33 alternative structures for facilitating meetings and conversations”. At their heart, Liberating Structures try to include everyone in sharing information, collaborating on ideas and shaping the future.
We trained a group of internal staff and constructed the string together. We decided that the centre-piece of the event should be an en masse, Shift and Share (aka World Café).
Shift and Share gets rid of long large-group presentations and replaces them with several concise talks given simultaneously to multiple small groups. Teams set up small stations where they share the essence of their work in 10 minutes (we shortened this to 8). Participants move from one station to the next and because of the size of the groups, it makes it easy for people to connect, learn and ask questions that are relevant to them.
I’d previously run Shift and Share about 10 times before. The largest group I’d worked with was about 60. I knew in practice it would be possible to run the structure for such a large group, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t anxious about the practice.
On the day, it was incredibly successful. For many, it was the highlight of the conference. This didn’t happen by accident. We put a lot of thought into what needed to happen to ensure the process didn’t become confusing. In advance and on the day we did a few things that helped ensure that presenters shone and that participants had the best experience possible. If you’re thinking about trying Shift and Share with a large group, some of these lessons might be helpful.
Give people enough time to prepare, but not too much
Spider-Man fans know that with great power comes great responsibility. In some ways, Shift and Share is a double-edged sword. By removing the norms and social conventions of a traditional presentation (I talk, you listen and, if there’s time, you’ll ask polite questions), a different dynamic emerges. The pressure of standing in front of a large audience is removed. However, the small group format means it’s obvious to those visiting a station whether or not presenters have put effort into thinking through their presentations. This creates a different kind of pressure. People need time to work out what they are going to share and how they are going to share it. But Parkinson’s law applies here. Work expands to fill the time allocated, so do give too much time. In our case, we gave people three weeks to get ready.
Give people examples of how they could present their work differently
There are tons of ways of conveying information creatively. But at least in a professional context, most people will only be familiar with slide decks and formal reports. It’s helpful to let people know that it’s OK to break the mould and do something wildly different. Some of the ideas we shared were:
- A storyboard to demonstrate the impact of a piece of work
- A poster presentation that emphasises the most important findings from a piece of research
- A quiz that colleagues can participate in to boost their knowledge of your work
- A timeline setting out the impact you’ve had over the last year
- A sketch highlighting the key moments from a recent project
- A game of charades and get your audience to guess to put the puzzle together.
- A prototype that colleagues can interact with
On the day people came up with amazingly creative ideas. These ranged from a carnival-style guessing game with the winner announced in front of the whole audience to a movie trailer complete with a musical score, voiceover and rolling credits.
Have several people who can do the presentation for each station
One of the benefits of running this structure to the letter of the law is that with repetition, presenters are able to refine their message. This is great. But what if you want the presenter to be able to visit other stations too? Ahead of the conference, we asked teams to ensure that at least four people in each team could present. This meant that everyone attending the conference could go and visit at least a few different stations themselves and feel included in the process. For some of the larger teams, it would have been helpful to have more than 4 presenters. In some cases, it was still tricky for everyone to explore the room.
Allocate stations in advance
This one sounds obvious, but we didn’t think about it until the morning of the event. We knew who was going to be presenting, so we allocated tables beforehand. We used stands that made it easy for people to see at a glance where they needed to go. When it came to time for teams to set up, despite having 200 people in the space, people were ready to go in less than 10 minutes.
One bit of feedback we got following the event was that it would have been useful to have shared a list of the talks in advance to help people plan their visits strategically. Think Clashfinder but for facilitated events.
Give clear instructions and demonstrate what you expect to happen
When facilitating for any size group, if people are unclear on what’s expected of them, things go sideways in a hurry. This risk is amplified with a room of 200 people. Not everyone will be paying attention to the same degree when you explain what you expect to happen. Being at pains to explain the process clearly is important. In practice, I repeated the steps a few times. I also found it useful to actually walk around the space (I had a microphone) to demonstrate what would happen. This seemed to help ensure everyone knew what was expected.
Make sure there is an even distribution to begin with
On the day we had 18 teams presenting at the same time. This meant that each station would have about 10 visitors per round. We knew that if people didn’t spread out evenly, some stations would be overwhelmed with demand. So at least to start with, we gave clear instructions to self-organise and distribute evenly across the stations. The people involved in designing the day acted as stewards to move people around a bit but this was fairly unobtrusive. Throughout the event, we also encouraged people to find stations that weren’t super busy.
Remind people when their time is coming close to an end
I gave people a one-minute warning to wrap up their presentations in every round. This meant that when it was time for people to move to a new station the presentations were actually at an end. Moving people around the space, despite the numbers was easy. Stragglers were few!
Get in some practice before trying this with 200 people
With a little bit of practice and bravery, anyone can facilitate Liberating Structures. But if you are new to facilitation, don’t give this a go with 200 people on your first try. I’m a pretty experienced facilitator but I still needed every trick I had to ensure everyone knew what we were doing, why we were doing it and didn’t get frustrated or confused during the activity. Nonetheless, with a bit of practice, I’m confident that anyone can run this activity, even at scale.
Sharing your learning
If you are planning on running Shift and Share with an even bigger group than this, I’d love to know what lessons you learn too. Drop them in the comments below or share them with me @Dyn_Drwg on X.
