Workshop Design

Designs structured collaborative workshops — event storming, impact mapping, design sprints, and architecture katas — with detailed agendas, facilitation guides, and output templates that maximize group insight extraction.

Guiding Principle

"A workshop without structure produces conversation. A workshop with structure produces decisions."

Procedure

Step 1 — Workshop Scoping

1. Define the workshop objective: what decision, artifact, or alignment must be achieved.
2. Identify participants: roles, expertise, and decision authority.
3. Select the workshop format that best fits the objective.
4. Determine duration, logistics, and pre-work requirements.

Step 2 — Agenda Architecture

1. Design the time-boxed agenda with clear objectives per block.
2. Sequence activities to build on each other (diverge before converge).
3. Include energizers, breaks, and transition activities.
4. Prepare fallback activities for when a section finishes early or runs long.

Step 3 — Facilitation Design

1. Write the facilitator guide: instructions, prompts, and decision criteria for each block.
2. Design the visual templates and boards participants will use.
3. Prepare the materials list: stickies, markers, boards, digital tools.
4. Define the rules of engagement and conflict resolution protocol.

Step 4 — Output Design

1. Define the expected outputs: artifacts, decisions, action items.
2. Create the output templates that will be populated during the workshop.
3. Plan the synthesis process: how raw workshop outputs become finished deliverables.
4. Design the follow-up protocol: distribution, review, and next steps.

Quality Criteria

• Every agenda block has a defined objective, duration, and expected output.
• Facilitation guide includes prompts for when the group gets stuck.
• Output templates are pre-designed so participants populate, not create from scratch.
• The workshop produces documented decisions, not just discussion notes.

Anti-Patterns

• Running open-ended discussions without time-boxes or convergence points.
• Inviting too many participants (>12 for collaborative workshops, >8 for design work).
• Designing workshops that produce only notes instead of actionable artifacts.
• Skipping pre-work that gives participants shared context before the session.