Guide to do a Product Workshop

Andrea Fernández
Nov 7 · 5 min read

A few days back we had our first Product Workshop, and I was thinking how to best share what we learn, since we learn a lot and after a few moments to reflect the best thing for me was to make a guide on how to do this, because we couldn’t find out something online that could guide us in the beginning, so this post is to help you whit that.

Our (first) Product Workshop was with all our tech people like devs, QA, UX/UI, product, project managers and payroll to discover the work of what others do in the company, have a better understanding of what we do together and to know our product as a whole.

More about the team behind our workshop

Fabi (Product), Leo (PM), Odilón(Payroll), Yochua (QA) and (DevOps) where on the side of the client, since it was the team who made the idea and the whole project a reality. A special congrats to our Happiness Manager and our Office Coordinator for their help in this activity.

Do you need a product workshop?

We decide to make a product workshop because we found a few issues, one of them was that we were taking extra time in each meeting, especially about the roles and definition of who does what?. We are a fast-growing startup and that means new roles, new people and new ways of working, to a point when each meeting we were having the same discussion of whom should do what?. We start asking the managers to define their task and even in middle-level management we had so many confusion, but what was the thing that really move us to do some work was we feel like we weren’t living our values, we were on the way to stop collaborating and that we wouldn’t let happen, that’s when we decide to take some action.

First things first

What is your goal with this activity? Do you want to improve collaboration? Do you want to get to know your team? Do you want to introduce a new way of thinking or doing things? Add a process? Defining your goal or goals is important to start brainstorming ideas for your workshop. For us was clear what we want to accomplish but since we were only 5 people planing an activity for more than 70 people, we knew that we should be creative with our idea.

In the end, we learn a lot and we find out what we wanted because we have our goals in mind, which were the following:

  • Make the product teams know each other.
  • Define the role of everyone involved in the process.
  • Make them thing in the shoes of other persons.
  • Collaborate.

Before you start

Be careful because each person is a whole new world, so take in count that you are planning an activity to make this workshop the best, and no matter how strong your idea was, this hypothesis is gonna be tested and most of the time changed. So try to stick to your agenda and at the same time be flexible enough to adapt to changes. You know, like real life!

Plan ahead but expect changes.

Leave some room to adaptation and flexibility as we said before but you can plan out the whole day (as we did) to have some control in the room, since is going to be necessary. Remember at the end your team is bigger than the team that is planning out everything, so things are going to change and adapt to shine the best and worst of your team. Don’t be mad about this, for the contrary, this activity is to actually get to know them. If you plan out everything in detail, and everything when ahead as you plan, It’s a good sing? Did you find out something new? Did the purpose of this activity was accomplished? So, give the people some space to figure things out, let them surprise you with their best and worst, we are here to learn about each other. After everything, you can have a retrospective with the heads or managers once it is over. You are gonna gets lots of opinions and that’s what we want!

Through some curveballs.

Keep them in their tose, with goosebumps, like any normal client would do, or don’t go far away, typical changes in the office, to reach our goal as a team and then a bug, hotfix, error in production or even thing that you have no control like a natural disaster or the lights go out or even if like us, you are doing something physical they can be changes in color, sizes, material, destination and so on… be as creative as you can because the team has to be ready to take on changes and know how to apply them in their current job, or how we wanted if they can apply the changes in a different role of what are they used to. This is important so you can know if your team is really agile and learn how they communicate with each other. What I want to say is that in your planning, make some changes in the middle of the activity, ask for more requirements, documentation, etc. It is your plan and in the end, should be enough proof to make some changes to your company if necessary.

Document

Take pictures, videos, notes and everything necessary to remember what happened days after the workshop end. After all, we are doing it for a reason, those reasons can change but this is not a simple day of collaboration, we want a special goal to achieve, no matter if it’s only between managers, everyone in the workshop should have been heard. Don’t forget to take some time to talk with the participants, how they feel?, What they learn?, Did we miss something? Did something go wrong? Did something went really good?. Let them speak and hear everything they have to say, even if you don’t agree, that’s for later. Make a safe space so the participants in the workshop feel free to express what they are feeling and them, take some time to think about it and make your retrospectives. A lot of things can happen, good and bad, the importance is to learn and be proactive to what you have to change, dismiss, delete or implement in your work.

Remember that in the end, is all about having a good time!

RunaHR_Engineering

Runa means “people” in quechua, the andino language in Peru. We believe that all companies should bring smiles to their members.

Andrea Fernández

Written by

👩🏽‍💻 Geek nerd 💁🏽‍♀️ Proud millennial 🌐 Tech Content ⚡️ Harry Potter Fan 💻 Writer @RunaHR_Engineering

RunaHR_Engineering

Runa means “people” in quechua, the andino language in Peru. We believe that all companies should bring smiles to their members.

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