Five responsibilities for workshop participants
Updated July 29, 2020
To achieve the good, collaborative environments that workshops provide, each role must play their part. There are five responsibilities each role can be accountable for (table 1).
Own the clock
Manage participants
Collect findings
Ask questions
Answer questions
Own the clock
The facilitator is responsible for making sure all necessary activities and discussions are completed within the time allotted for the workshop. Facilitators own the clock.
Good workshops include participants from different backgrounds and organizational silos with a stake in the project and who can make decisions. You invite these senior people to step away from their jobs or several days and work wth you. Time is a premium and cannot be wasted.
This means that facilitators start on time, end on time, extend time for activities that need more time, and cut discussions short when they stop generating valuable insights.
Manage participants
Only the facilitator owns the clock. However, both the facilitator and co-facilitator manage participants. As the facilitator controls the clock to start and stop activities, both facilitator and co-facilitator must help groups stay on task, help participants who are floundering, and minimize side conversations.
In order to own the clock, your must be able to manage each attendees participation.
Collect findings
Every workshop needs someone to collect the information that participants generate. In a good workshop, participants collaborate to generate concrete outcomes. Interface workshops end with wireframe sketches. User workshops end with ad hoc personas.
You'll waste your time in the workshop if outcomes aren't collected. And outcomes need to be collected, so they can be shared and analyzed after the workshop.
Ask questions
Workshops, like conversations, require participants contribute to each discussion. Facilitators and co-facilitators will lead and spark conversations with specific questions. Good workshops require other participants also ask questions as well.
Answer questions
Just as facilitators and participants propel conversation forward with questions, everyone must also contribute answers and responses. Good collaboration requires everyone is included and that everyone respond to each other and contribute to the conversation.
Learn more about workshops and collaboration
Collaborative Product Design collects 11 practical tools and hundreds of tips from the trenches that help teams collaborate on strategy, user research, and UX, ideally suited for agile teams and lean organizations.
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