In summary

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.

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

Video transcript

This transcript was generated using Descript. So it might contain some creative mistakes.

What are different levels of workshop reports?

Workshops are a great tool. But what is even more important, is to ensure that all the information that was created, generated during the workshop can live for longer. That's where workshops reports come into play.

In this tiny video, I'm going to share Four levels of workshop reports.

From lazy and simple, to super brainsy with a lot of work that goes into it, but with more impact.

I'm interested to know what are the other levels of workshop reports that you have experienced.

Let's get into it!

1. Photographic Report

Level number 1. Photographic report.

In my workshops, I work a lot with sticky notes and visual notes.

So it's pretty easy at the end of the workshop to take a few photos with my smartphone and then put them in a presentation.

Even if it's just a photographic report, it's a report, I'm not just dumping my raw photos in a folder, instead, I make sure that the photos are well taken. I add clear titles on the slides so that it's easier to understand what am I looking at.

Because often in workshops, we end up having one piece of the information in one wall, one piece of information in another wall, but then in the report, we can bring it together in just one slide.

So there is a little bit of work that goes in it, but it's still quite lazy

Because there is no extra synthesis, no extra analysis, we just show the results as they came out of the workshop, just in a bit of a cleaner way.

In this type of report, a pro tip is to have also these images backed up somewhere, and then have a link within the report to go back to those high definition images if needed.

2. Visual Synthesis

Level number two. Visual Synthesis.

Let's be honest, the writing of people is not always super easy to read.

Sometimes in sticky notes, the same information is repeated a few times with just different words. That's where Visual Synthesis workshop reports come in.

Here The goal is not so much to create another layer of understanding, but rather to condense the information in a digital format that can then easily be worked on.

If you see something in a photographic report that is super interesting, you can't just copy and paste the text, because it's a photo.

But in a visual synthesis report, you retype all the key elements so that they are easy to copy and paste and then bring into other tools.

The photographic reports are really good for the people who were in the workshop.

Because they can easily fill in the gaps just based on the memories they have of what they saw.

The visual synthesis reports are rather made for people who were not in the room. So it will happen that for a specific sticky note where there was just one or two words, I will add a few more words to clarify the idea behind that sticky note that was shared in an oral matter.

3. Strategic Questions

Level number three. Strategic Questions.

So up until here, we haven't added a new layer of understanding.

We're just giving back what happened within the workshop.

In the strategic question report style, we add another layer. One way I like to do this is to have then a slide with facts and questions.

In the fact part, I will highlight something that I found especially interesting.

For example, in a workshop where we define the types of service that a company does, we could see that most of the services are human interaction and just one tiny bit are places where we offer products.That's a fact.

And then Below that, I will add questions. Questions that point in different directions.

The previous example, that will be something like:

Should we double down on the human interaction bit and leave out the product side, or should we develop the product side more?

So In this strategy question report, I show there is something interesting here. And it asks a question, and I don't know the answer, but the question should be cared about.

4. Interpretation Report

Level number four. The Interpretation Report.

Here I go even further in adding information, and that's where I bring my own point of view. I give answers to the questions that I would have asked in a strategy question report.

In such a report, I'm pointing to suggestions. I'm offering a new way to read the information that came out of the workshop.

Conclusion

Depending on the workshop, I stay at one level or the other. And for some workshops:

I even mix and match these different report styles together.

To me, it's important that for any workshop, we always keep at least the photographic report within it, just to make sure that people can always go back to the source of truth.