#Alternatives for creation workshop how to#
#Alternatives for creation workshop series#

Similar to your goals, this will help you clarify how to structure your workshop later. List the tangible outcomes from your workshop that you want to share or report on afterward. What do you want to take out of the room? It’s also helpful at this stage to bring in folks with different perspectives, especially if the session is around communication or generating solutions, so keep that in mind as you comb through your invite list.

Optimize for in-person participation since there’s a certain effect that physicality can bring to working through problems, but there are ways of making remote participation work if needed. I’ve found that small groups of 5-8 people tends to be big enough to amass varying ideas, but small enough for everyone to still participate fully.

Draft up key principles we should consider in approaching upmarket support projectsĮveryone in your workshop should actively contribute, so it’s best to keep numbers relatively low.

To brainstorm & design “north-star” concepts for our Support offering.

Come together as a team to discuss our vision for Intercom Support.

For example, these were the goals of the workshop I ran: Then, try to articulate concrete goals in the form of actions. In a few sentences, write out why you’re holding this session as if you’re sending out a calendar invite for it. I like to do this in a Google doc that I can share with key stakeholders and get feedback on as I’m planning. Get the bare-bones, high-level plan of your workshop in place by answering these basic questions. Here are my tips for running a successful design workshop (though this advice can be applied to problem-solving workshops more generally).īelow, I elaborate on how you can incorporate each step into your own workshop. How to create and structure a productive design workshop When done well though, workshops are invaluable to jumpstarting your team’s progress on any project by uniting diverse opinions and getting people on the same page. As the organizer, it’s your responsibility to ensure everyone’s time is spent wisely and you uncover the insights needed to move the project forward. It takes clear and deliberate planning to run a kickass workshop. There’s nothing scarier than giving someone a blank piece of paper and saying, ‘Go, give me all your ideas.’ Most recently, I ran a multipart workshop about the vision of our support products that we repeated across design, product management, engineering, and marketing in both Dublin and San Francisco. Workshops are about getting stuff done, and are often used as milestones to start things or make decisions.Īt Intercom for example, we like to run workshops to kick off big projects with the broader team.

#Alternatives for creation workshop series#

Too often, a discussion can go unfocused, brainstormed solutions end up scattered and lacking direction, or the session dissolves into a competition of who can assert their ideas louder.Ĭollaboration comes in many flavors, from small informal working sessions and group critiques to full-blown workshops.ĭesign workshops are an opportunity for a team to untangle a problem together by going through a series of group exercises designed to get to a specific outcome. But beware: that alone doesn’t automatically guarantee creative outputs and ideas. When we want to discuss problems, imagine new ideas and brainstorm solutions, it’s best to bring people together. As a product designer creating digital experiences, it’s equally important to obsess over the physical ones too.ĭesign and collaboration go hand in hand.