Case Study

Customer

An experienced and individually specialised small team.

Occasion

Workshop focused on ideation and product design as well as introducing two new employees to the company values and mission.

Timeframe

2 Work Days.

Goals

1. Experience working together

2. New team members having a good understanding of the company's character and direction

3. Gathering 1-2 Ideas in terms of good Value proposition

4. Generate 1-2 possible workflows and discuss with an interviewee

5. Refine the Vision and Values together

Before the Workshop

My work starts in the organisational stage of the workshop. The first consultation meeting is designed for the workshop organisers and myself to propose the structure of the workshop.

We discuss the goals for the workshop and run through any uncertainties in how they should be met. Afterwards we focus on prioritising these goals so that we are better able to set up the items on the agenda to reflect outcome value. We also discuss the roles team members will take on as we go through different exercises. 

I offer different communication tools ( from scrum, liberating structures, non violent communication)  to give a frame to the topics worked on and we agree together on the time boxing and agenda of the workshop days.

Once we have a planned agenda we share it with all participants.

During the Workshop

My role is to facilitate a successful workshop. I lead us in with an introductory exercise called impromptu networking and moderate the progress using time boxing. Throughout the workshop it is up to me to keep structure and focus on the team’s pre defined goals, stay in tune with the progress being made and suggest modifications to the structure if something isn’t serving us as we need it or when new ideas or directions of value emerge from the work. For the ideation part we use a brain-writing method called 6-3-5 that we adapted to the specific needs and restrictions of the team. We decide to use dot voting throughout the workshop to prioritise themes.

I focus on communication in the team and make sure everyone is heard and receives a stage to express thoughts and ideas. 

Closing the Workshop

I facilitate a retrospective which is an event taken from the Scrum framework, using a liberating structure called What?, So What?, Now What? Where all team members are asked to reflect on the work done in the workshop, with key takeaways to implement  in future work. The retrospective opens up an opportunity for feedback on working together as well as on the product and results.

Result

This 2 day workshop resulted in all the goals being met! We made some adjustments and modifications to the agenda to accommodate needs that emerged during the work which enabled the team to stay focused on their goals and find more direct ways to approach these in the time frame allotted.