Listeners
Updated July 29, 2020
A listener is a special role that not does not appear in every workshop. Listeners are not facilitators, collectors, or participants. The listener's job is to be quiet and listen. Although all workshop participants are expected to ask and answer questions, listeners are encouraged to hold back and only interject when necessary.
Usually listeners come from the broader project team, and they attend the workshop because everyone on the project team should attend the workshop. They're there to hear what participants are saying.
Listeners often have a set of specialized skills and will answer specific questions related to those skills. For example, in my workshops, a technical architect usually attends who can answer specific questions about a solution's technical capabilities. For example, if during an interface workshop, a participant asked, "can we even do that?", the technical architect can chime in with a yes or no.
If you plan to have additional team members facilitate specific activities, then they will act as listeners until its their turn to facilitate. And while you take a breather and relax, you will be a listener until it's your turn to facilitate again.
Do these things
Listen
Answer questions directed toward you
Take notes (but they will not be included in the workshop outputs)
Don't do these things
Frame and manage discussion
Ask follow-up questions
Generate or manage participation
Collect workshop outputs
Participate
How each role compares to the others
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).
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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