How do you design and facilitate effective meetings and workshops?

During a workshop: 1) Tell participants what they will learn 2) Teach them 3) Tell them what you taught them The objectives should come full circle.

Understanding The Purpose And Goals Of The Meeting Or Workshop. Before designing and facilitating a meeting or workshop, it is crucial to first understand the purpose and goals of the gathering. This involves clarifying what the desired outcomes are, what issues need to be addressed, and who needs to be involved. By having a clear understanding of the purpose and goals, you can tailor the agenda, activities, and discussions to ensure that they align with the overall objectives. Additionally, understanding the purpose and goals will help you determine who should be invited to participate in order to achieve the desired results. Without a clear understanding of why the meeting or workshop is being held and what needs to be accomplished.

To design and facilitate effective meetings and workshops, start by clearly defining the purpose, objectives, and desired outcomes. Create a detailed agenda that allocates time for each topic and encourages participation. Use engaging techniques like brainstorming sessions, breakout groups, or interactive tools to keep attendees involved. As a facilitator, ensure the discussion stays on track, manage time effectively, and address any issues promptly. After the meeting or workshop, follow up with a summary of key takeaways and action items to ensure accountability and continued progress.

Prioritize identifying and analyzing key stakeholders relevant to the meeting's objectives. Understand their perspectives, interests, and influence to tailor the session effectively.

The 'why' is the event's foundation, and all planning decisions should connect to that why. To achieve a clear purpose (why), I love using a variation of the Five Whys technique, and in problem-solving, asking 'why' five times can help a group drill deeply toward the root cause of a problem. For meeting planning, I like asking why three times. This can help you or your planning group establish a clear purpose. Channel your inner toddler, and establish a great foundation for your event.

Creating An Agenda And Setting Clear Objectives. Creating an agenda and setting clear objectives are essential steps in designing and facilitating effective meetings and workshops. The agenda serves as a roadmap for the session, outlining topics to be discussed, time frames, and desired outcomes. By establishing a clear structure, participants know what to expect and can come prepared with relevant information. Setting clear objectives helps focus the discussion on achieving specific goals and ensures that everyone is working towards a common purpose. When creating an agenda, consider the priorities of the group, allocate sufficient time for each item, and allow for flexibility to address unexpected issues that may arise.

Embrace the flexibility of hybrid formats to accommodate diverse participant needs and preferences. Blend in-person and online elements seamlessly to maximize participation and interaction while leveraging the advantages of both modalities.

As you consider the format and tools available, make sure you're familiar with best practices for your specific type of event (i.e., virtual, mixed) and workshops/meetings in general. For a successful event, utilize a range of tools and approaches to encourage engagement and participation and meet the needs of all attendees. (However, make sure all participants have access to those tools ahead of your meeting!) Center on your goals and objectives for the event - are you seeking buy-in for a project w/a challenging schedule or are you kicking off a new task force? What tools/format will help you achieve this? Don't lose focus as you plan! Bells and whistles (unnecessary tools) are useless if you don't achieve your objectives.

Tailor your meeting or workshop with the right format and tools. Choose based on objectives: brainstorming, presentations, discussions, demonstrations, or hybrid. Select suitable platforms like video conferencing, whiteboards, polls, and collaboration software for seamless engagement.

When choosing the right tools it is also important to consider the time needed to facilitate these tools. Otherwise there might be the problem that time is too short to reach the conclusion phase.

Engaging Participants And Fostering Collaboration. Engaging Participants and Fostering Collaboration is essential for designing and facilitating effective meetings and workshops. To engage participants, it is important to create a welcoming and inclusive environment where everyone feels comfortable sharing their ideas. Encourage active participation by asking open-ended questions, soliciting feedback, and involving everyone in the discussion. Use interactive activities such as group exercises, brainstorming sessions, or role-playing to keep participants engaged and focused. Foster collaboration by emphasizing the importance of teamwork and collective problem-solving. Encourage participants to work together towards a common goal.

Curate relevant materials including slides, handouts, worksheets, and resources aligned with session objectives. Ensure accessibility and clarity to facilitate participant understanding and engagement throughout the meeting or workshop.

Agendas are key to a successful meeting and often overlooked. I recommend setting expectations with those who will be involved in covering certain topics or activities. Include the timing and if they should involve the audience. I think it’s also important for the facilitator to know to strengths of each speaker if you plan to have multiple ones so you can break up the topics accordingly. For example if 2 of your speakers love presenting slide decks, you may want to put another speaker in between or even show a short video to break things up.

A well-planned agenda, complete with roles and responsibilities, as well as a clear schedule, is critical to achieving a productive event. To ensure success, create a succinct project schedule: preparing a workshop IS a project. Pre-meeting activities include not only the development of the agenda and defining required materials but also establishing ownership of and setting clear deadlines for the development of materials. Request slides ahead of the meeting and send reminders to attendees regarding any pre-meeting activities. A run-through will help ensure your plan and timing are accurate and adequate, as well as confirm materials are complete and appropriate and that technology is working effectively.

The most retentive part of a workshop is the demonstration and storytelling parts. Involving your audience in your workshop to share their opinion, answering open-ended questions, group and individual feedbacks are all necessary for effective meetings and workshops.

Engagement is important, but know your audience! Adjust engagement strategies: Does anyone have accessibility needs? Who are your introverts? Who are your talkers? Some attendees will need time to process information, and will not respond well to be called upon unexpectedly. Some attendees will need to be re-directed so they don't dominate the meeting. It is imperative that you are prepared to navigate your audience and facilitate effectively, to achieve optimal engagement. I strongly disagree with ice-breakers; we have learned these are not effective, so I'd ignore that. Hopefully, you've established a short but varied list of tools to use for your event, ones that allow everyone to participate comfortably.

A pre-requisite to "engage and involve" is relevance of the meeting to each attendee. The #1 meeting problem for software companies is over-inviting, which is negatively correlated to how inclusive the meeting feels. Before the meeting, critically think about who actually needs to participate. Everyone else can be caught up through async communication and distribution of meeting notes.

If you're new to facilitation or have a challenging topic or audience, 'seed' your event with a handful of attendees who are prepared to re-direct the conversation, drop a key question, or provide clarification. These people can also help watch for troubling behavior that needs attention. Running an effective meeting requires a team approach sometimes! Make sure to delegate note-taking and time-keeping, so that your focus can remain on your audience and objectives. Practice a script for when you need to rein in an adjacent topic or conversation and re-direct attendees to the purpose of THIS meeting. The script should include a clear commitment to follow-up, whether that's scheduling a separate event or simply providing notes later.

I agree that surveys are a great way to gather feedback from a large audience quickly. I recommend sending the survey no later than 2 days after the meeting because it will be fresh in their mind. Having a nice visual and timelines of how they can implement is key to your participants success.

I agree that sending an detailed summary with defined tasks and timeline to the participants to keep the momentum. It also offers the chance to discover if there are any misunderstanding regarding the conclusions.

Timely follow-up is crucial to capitalize on the momentum while information is fresh in participants' minds. If possible, distribute a concise summary within 24 hours, including agreed-upon action items with clear responsibilities and deadlines. If using surveys for feedback, keep them brief to maximize response rates. Include a mix of multiple-choice and open-ended questions to gather both quantitative and qualitative insights. In addition, consider saving 5 mins at the end of your meeting or workshop for immediate feedback. Encourage open dialogue in this setting, and also provide options for more in-depth feedback through 1:1 meetings or an anonymous channel for those who prefer privacy.

Like others have commented, relevant surveys to obtain key feedback from attendees are critical. Leaders generally rate their own meetings 3x better than any other participant, making this a true blindspot that needs to be addressed. However, one-off feedback only scratches the surface. Any growing organization that doesn't want to fall into the "meeting madness" trap as they scale has to implement a system that captures and measures meeting effectiveness just like any other investment in the business.