When is it best to force a on-site workshop?

When is it best to force a on-site workshop?

I love remote workshops because:

  • they save a shitload of travel time

  • the results are already digital and can be easily and quickly shared after the workshop

  • they are often as efficient and impactful as on-site workshops

But in my experience, here are a few cases where I would rather recommend doing an on-site workshop:

Workshop with participants who aren't digitally savvy should be done on-site.

Some people, regardless of age, aren't comfortable with a computer; a bit of training can help, but in some cases, that's not enough, and it's just simpler to do the workshop on-site.

Workshop with highly emotional elements should be done on-site

When things can get pretty emotional, I recommend doing the workshop on-site because it allows:

  • Read the full body language of participants: you don't just see a blurry face, but you can see that there is an emotion and can more easily adapt the workshop to the emotion that is experienced.

  • Use the breaks to sort out stuff: it's always impressive to me how people during breaks fix some of the emotional issues and share key information that then makes it possible during the workshop time to be efficient. In a remote setting, such breaks would be individual and wouldn't allow people to share these emotions and facts outside of the structured exercises.

Q&A: Workshops and facilitation with Service Design

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  • How do you combat workshop fatigue or survey fatigue?

Preparing a workshop like a service designer

  • What does it take to create a workshop?
  • Where can I find workshop templates and ideas?
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  • When is it best to force a on-site workshop?
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  • Are homework exercices before workshops a good idea?
  • How to transform a workshop schedule in slides in one minute within Notion?

Custom workshop Canvases

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Running and facilitating a workshop like a service designer

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  • Can You Break Down a Workshop into Small 5-Minute Moments?

Creating focus

  • How do you help people stay on topic during a workshop?
  • ▶️ How can I manage conflicts in workshops?
  • ▶️ How to create common ground between teams that have a lot of disagreement?
  • How do you ensure people can get unstuck in a workshop or meeting?

Decision making

  • How can you accelerate decision making and workshops?
  • How can I avoid group think and biasing in remote workshops?

Creating a workshop report like a service designer

  • ▶️ How can you be quicker and more efficient when you have to create a report about a workshop?
  • ▶️ What are the different levels of a workshop report?
  • What do I include in a workshop report website?

Mass participation workshops

  • How can you align people in mass participation workshops?

Synthesis in Service Design workshops

  • How do I manage to do live synthesis in workshops and stakeholder conversations?