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Bite-sized Workshops for Product Teams

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Workshop Tactics Deck

Workshop Tactics is a curated list of the best agile and design-thinking workshop techniques to ensure your team achieves success.

Designed to guide you through the design process using group facilitation activities, each tactic can be used independently as a mini-workshop, or combined with multiple tactics to create Sessions. You'll find: creative ideation workshops, energisers, icebreakers, retrospectives, root-cause analysis workshops, decision-making matrices and core facilitation techniques.

 

Workshop Strategy System

Do you know clearly what your team is working towards?

GoalsGoals
Do you know the biggest problem you face?

UnderstandUnderstand
Are you able to articulate your problem clearly?

FrameFrame
Do you have a range of ideas on how to solve it?

IdeasIdeas
Have you assessed if your ideas are robust?

EvaluateEvaluate
Have you decided which ideas to test?

DecideDecide
Make a prototype and test your idea.

Categories

Session Session

Various ways to string multiple tactics together to make a longer, more in-depth workshop.

Team TimeTeam Time

Give a new team the best chance of success.

3-4 hours

Project Kick-offProject Kick-off

Get your new project off to the best start.

4 hours

Idea StormIdea Storm

Put a problem through its paces by gathering lots of ideas, then narrowing down and evaluating them.

3-4 hours

Design DashDesign Dash

Get your team from blank faces to a testable solution in a couple of days.

2 days

Get UnstuckGet Unstuck

A way of probing a team or project to figure out what’s going wrong.

3-4 hours

Agile RetrospectiveRetrospective

Look back on successes and failures in order to learn and improve for next time.

1-2 hours

Goals Goals

Agree on a desired end-state to work towards, so daily activity is moving you in the right direction.

G.R.O.WG.R.O.W

Create a plan on how to achieve a specific goal.

1-2 hours

Newspaper HeadlineNewspaper Headline

Think about the company’s future by predicting what the press might say on their front pages.

30 mins

Objectives and Key Results

Create radical focus for your team by agreeing on an objective and actively measuring progress towards it.

1 hour

Sail BoatSailboat

Find out what your goals really are, the reasons behind them and what’s stopping you from achieving them.

1 hour

Sticky StepsSticky Steps

Start with your goal and work backwards to give you a clear path on how to get there.

30 mins

Understand Understand

Unpack problems and discover insights with critical and analytical thinking exercises.

Assumption CollectingAssumption Collecting

Collect assumptions that reflect what you and your team think might be true about the project.

1 hour

Journey MapJourney Map

Identify areas of improvement in a user’s experience by creating a map of it.

1-2 hours

Service MapService Map

Create a map of a service to understand it better, and identify opportunities for improving processes.

1-2 hours

Empathy MapEmpathy Map

Empathise with your audience so you can make better design decisions.

1 hour

Prototype PersonaPrototype Persona

Try to predict who is using (or will use) your product and why, so you can start testing with the right people.

1 hour

Stakeholder MapStakeholder Map

Identify a project’s stakeholders. Anyone who can significantly impact a decision, or who may be impacted by it, needs to be considered.

1 hour

Roles and ResponsibilitiesRoles and Responsibilities

Understand each other’s roles better, and learn who is responsible for what.

1 hour

Skills MarketSkills Market

Learn about each other’s skills, abilities and ambitions, so you can understand how to help each other grow.

1 hour

Hopes and FearsHopes and Fears

Understand your team’s expectations and hesitations so you’re all on the same page before you take flight on a new journey.

30 mins

Five Whys AnalysisFive Whys

When faced with a problem that is affecting a project, ask “Why?” five times to get to the root cause.

30 mins - 1 hour

Frame Frame

Articulate your problem or experiment in a clear way, so as to make it easier to start solving or testing.

Problem StatementProblem Statement

A problem statement that captures the project’s goals, problems and measurable success criteria.

1 hour

Hypothesis StatementHypothesis Statement

Treat your assumptions as experiments by turning them into testable hypotheses.

30 mins

How might weHow might we...

Transform a problem or observation into a solvable question.

1 hour

Value PropositionValue Proposition

Clearly articulate the point of your service or product, who it’s for and what makes it unique.

1 hour

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It's really valuable to have the physical deck. It can be kept on me and browsed, and not hidden away on a website.

Simon Hurst
UX Researcher
Simon Hurst
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Ideas Ideas

Encourage coming up with lots of ideas, then refine the best into more detail.

Mind MapMind Map

Turn all your thoughts into an interconnected map so you have stimulus for idea generation.

30 mins

Crazy EightsCrazy Eights

Generate a lot of ideas, quickly. Eight crazy ideas in eight minutes!

30 mins

Round RobinRound Robin

Evolve each other's ideas quickly.

30 mins

StoryboardStoryboard

Draw your idea as a sequence of key moments and real world interactions to better understand how it works.

1-2 hours

Reverse BrainstormReverse Brainstorm

Think of the worst ideas possible, then reverse them.

1 hour

Evaluate Evaluate

Assess problems or ideas against certain criteria to understand them better.

PremortemPremortem

Think about all the ways something might go wrong, so you can effectively plan to stop it from happening.

1 hour

Rose Thorn BudRose, Thorn, Bud

Evaluate something’s positives, negatives and opportunities. Such as an idea, project or a process.

30 mins

SWOT AnalysisSWOT Analysis

Identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for a desired end state.

1-2 hours

Heart Head HandHeart, Head, Hand

Evaluate the usefulness, emotional resonance and business value of an idea.

30 mins

Idea BeetleIdea Beetle

Evaluate if your idea is strong and has “legs”, or if it needs more thinking.

30 mins

Decide Decide

Prioritise ideas or problems based on your needs in order to decide what to focus on.

Prioritisation MapPriority Map

Find out where to focus based on criteria important to the group.

30 mins - 1 hour

Assumption MapAssumption Map

Prioritise your assumptions based on certainty and risk.

1 hour

Impact Effort MapImpact Effort Map

Group together ideas by how much effort they require to create, and by how much impact they’ll have on your goal.

30 mins - 1 hour

Who, What, WhenWho, What, When

Leave a meeting with a clear plan of goals and deadlines.

10 mins

$100$100

Prioritise what ideas or features to focus on by deciding where to invest $100.

20 mins

Blind Dot VotingBlind Vote

Democratically make decisions as a group. Eliminate all but one thing, or find the top three things.

5 mins

Discuss Discuss

Facilitate discussion to gain a better understanding of a team and progress towards goals.

Democratic DiscussionDemocratic Discussion

Build a discussion agenda together and keep track of what’s been discussed, and needs to be discussed.

1 hour

FishbowlFishbowl

A self-facilitating, inclusive discussion with a large group of people.

1 hour

Start, Stop, ContinueStart, Stop, Continue

Get balanced feedback from a group on a topic or project.

1 hour

Mad, Sad, GladMad, Sad, Glad

Retrospectively consider and discuss a past project or event.

1 hour

Three Little PigsThree Little Pigs

Reflect on what’s going well, and what could be improved with the help of a childhood fable.

1 hour

Technique Technique

Core techniques that are fundamental to facilitating a successful workshop.

Workshop ChecklistWorkshop Checklist

Remind yourself what you need to do before, during and after a workshop.

Session PrinciplesSession Principles

Creating principles for a meeting or workshop is a 5-10 minute investment resulting in an engaged, productive and more effective group of people.

5-10 mins

Difficult BehavioursDifficult Behaviours

Manage behaviour that derails discussions.

Affinity SortTheme Sort

Cluster similar things together to make sense of it.

10 mins

Ice BreakersIce Breakers

Warm up the room to make people more willing to contribute to the session you are about to run.

10 mins

Meeting WizardMeeting Wizard

Set a clear purpose and structure to your meeting.

15 mins

Parking LotParking Lot

Keep meetings and workshops on track by “parking” irrelevant questions or topics.

T-Bar FormatT-Bar Format

Put your ideas into a format that can explain itself.

30 mins

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