How to run a 130 participants workshop

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Swiss Innovation Academy

Hi lovely human 👋

Here is the overview of all the new Service Design content I've created in the last week:

3 new videos

Service Design Principle: In this 3-minutes video I share how to get clear guidance in your sustainability journey.
Workshop activity briefings: In this 4-minutes video I share two tips that make it possible to have 130 workshop participants understanding a workshop activity easily.
Workshop reports: In this 4-minutes video I share the four level of workshop reports I usually use or mix together.

1 backstage blog articles:

No virtual coffees: In this tiny article I'm sharing 4 reasons why I refuse most invitations for a virtual coffee and my template to say no, while making sure people who need help, get help.

As a bonus you'll also find at the end links to positive news from elsewhere to end on a high note.

Greetings from Basel, Switzerland,

Daniele 🧔🏻‍♂️

p.s. As always, you'll find all below 👇 for when you have the time to read this newsletter.

Service Design Principles series

I'm writing the fifth book in the series Service Design Principles, where I explore simple tips, tricks and provocations that can help us make services a little bit less shitty for the people who use them and the planet that hosts them.

The one sentence summary

Use certifications like the B-Impact Assessement to think more broadly about sustainability, learn from others and see how you make progress.

Action question

Ask around in your field, in your industry: What are the certifications that exist already today that give an overview of your whole organization?

From all of these certifications that you find out, including B Corp, which one fits better your goals and your wish to make your service nicer for humans and the planet that hosts it?

Going further

Thanks to Igor Jimenez who inspired this Service Design Principles.

Watch the 3 minutes video

Service Design Q&A

I'm slowly building a library of answers to the most common questions about Service Design. Here are the new ones:

How to make workshops exercices easier for participants?

A few months ago I ran a two day strategy workshop with 130 people. Here are two tips that helped me onboard the participants and make the exercices clearer for them:

Use or build a canvas: so that people don't start with an empty sheet of paper and have clear guidelines about what they should do. You can use an existing one like The Buisness Model Canvas, Empathy Map, Value Proposition Design, etc. or build your own.
Show a detailled visual briefing: a slide that stays visible during the whole exercice that shows:
- the description of the task
- the timing
- where on the canvas people should fill the information
- examples and counter examples
- a reminder of the key ground rules

Watch the full 4-minutes video

What are the different levels of a workshop report?

I've noticed that there are 4 levels of workshop reports that I make. These go from super quick to make without any additional information, to very long to make with additional strategic insights.

Photographic Report: The photos of the workshop results put in the right order, reframed and with clear titles and labels for a good understanding. Best for people who were there during the workshop.
Visual Synthesis: A condensed and digital version of the workshop results, with text that people can copy and paste. If needed some elements that were shared only orally are added in written form. Perfect for people who weren't there during the workshop.
Strategic Questions: A few slides that show where are the most interesting learnings. Each learning is made of a fact that describes what can be observed as neutrally as possible. And a set of different questions that show what could be questions that decision makers should ask themselves.
Interpretation: A synthesis which goes further and gives already a few answers to the questions that would be asked in the "Strategic Questions".

Depending on the workshop I'll stay at one or the other level, or will mix different levels.

Watch the full 4-minutes video

Backstage Blog

I love to explain how I'm building educational content. I'm trying to be as transparent as possible so that it might motivate others to create such content too. These are the latest blog posts I've written:

Why and how I refuse most virtual coffees and live meetings?

In this tiny article I'm sharing 4 reasons why I refuse most invitations for a virtual coffee and my template to say no, while making sure people who need help, get help.

Read post

Positive news from elsewhere

I’m an optimist and as there is so much bad news out there at the moment, I want at my scale to rebalance things by sharing also some positive news for service owners and creators.

Best 15 minutes city: Zurich is the best "15 minutes city" with over 99% of people who have access to key services within 15 minutes.
No smartphone rule at school: Many schools are putting in place a no smartphone rule in England and around the world.

If you want more positive news make sure to checkout the website positive.news that offers more in depth articles.