what's up everyone in this video today I want to share seven tips with you to run a killer Workshop whether it's a product Discovery Workshop an objectives and key results goal setting Workshop or a strategy Workshop or any other sort of Workshop I want to help you absolutely crush it now I've run thousands of these over the years and I've made every mistake in the book and I think I've got it down to a pretty fine art so these seven tips are going to help take you to the next level tips six and seven are my absolute favorite so hang around to those at the end where I'll run you through group The Gold that makes you close strong first tip number one it's actually not part of the workshop it's preparation for it now you know you need to do your own preparation I don't think I need to tell you that but you want to send a preworkout get people thinking about what they need to be either researching reviewing coming up with any sort of action items as part of it so they come in strong and ready to hit the ground running that's number one and I like to get that out with at least 7 days notice particularly when you're dealing with busy executive teams they're not going to have time to check this stuff out bonus if you send a reminder before the workshop to make sure they're on top of it number two now this is really important is you want to kick off strong there's a theory called primary recency bias and it's something that's used a lot in education because we know that people remember a lot from an experience at the beginning and a lot from the end but often the parts in the middle people forget and so if you're running a lesson you want to make sure that the key piece of information at the start and at the Finish but for your Workshop people are going to remember how great it is based on the start and the finish so think about how you structure your Workshop to make it strong so let's focus on the opening part to make it really strong first I like to get expectations from everyone for the day so in the leadup to this session I probably had interviews one-on-one with people who are attending the workshop but in the day I want to make sure that we're all clear on what we're here to achieve and sometimes people like to put up bit of a list of stuff that they're expecting or planning on doing I like to have an agenda but to be honest I like to go and create a new list what's everyone expecting from this Workshop today and I can either decide in that moment are we going to be closing that off and actually helping achieve that expectation or do I need to reset that expectation say actually we're not going to cover that today so kickoff really strong I also like to get photos at the start of a session now this might be before people turn up if you don't have time otherwise you can do it with everyone there great to get a selfie as well while people are in high energy in the start of the day this photo is going to come in real Handy later on in the workshop if you're on a zoom call you can do the same thing just do a group screenshot that's also really cool number three is one of my my most favorite techniques now through the day you're going to have a bunch of activities the most important thing is you get everyone in the room talking a big part of that is making sure there's an equal share of voice but there's a facilitation technique I want to share with you that I use in pretty much every single Workshop I run it's called think pair share it's a really dead simple format and it's something that allows you to have a lot of freedom whil it's also putting some nice natural constraints in think you give people a few minutes to think on their own you might put out a challenge you might say to them you know what is the most important strategic challenge for us to focus on this year or what's the biggest customer problem we need to focus on right now give them a 2 to 3 minutes to reflect on that have a think about what that is everyone must do it in silence I promise you people are going to start talking you need to shut that down everyone needs to stay quiet and listen think through an answer this means we're going to get into some deeper thoughts ages but it's enough to go a little bit deeper than what we otherwise would then we want to pair this is where we get it peirs and have bit of a group based discussion to talk about okay what does that mean you know and and do we have shared ideas do we have different ideas and off the back of that you're going to have a really rich conversation now sometimes if you're trying to come up with a single idea out of a whole group rather than just have uh a really good conversation you might actually ask that pair to come up with whichever answer they think is the best between the two of them then we get the groups to share and this is where we share in the entire room each pair shares with the entire room and says right this is this is what we discussed these what were were what our key insights were now that little Golden Nugget there is how we start to get alignment across the room now if you have a really large group you know I've done this up to probably groups of a few hundred people then what you want to do is maybe rather than sharing with a whole room they're going to share with a larger group so you might go from a individual that think going into the pairs then going into the sharing maybe you're sharing with a group of five or six and then from there you could even then get two groups at five or six to share in a group of 12 and you keep stepping it up one level at a time so that is a really nice way to scale and have equal share of voice lots of Engagement lots of discussion tip number four is have an equal share of voice now that's really important because you want to be having everyone in the room talking so that think pair share technique I just talked about that's going to help you get that equal share of voice but through the whole day you've got to make sure that everyone is contributing and talking now be respectful some people don't like talking in large groups so you want to be able to sit sit down with that person and have one-on-one conversations to find out why they're not talking but sit down with them and try and bubble up some of their ideas if you feel like it's really important for them to share an idea or something that they've said then ask for their permission ask them can I get you to say this in front of the whole group are you comfortable saying this in front of the whole group and if they say no that's totally cool say can I say it on your behalf make sure that you're getting everyone talking and being part of that interactive activity now that we've got that equal share of voice it's really important to get regular energy checks in the room now if this is virtual to versus in person it's going to look very differently the same Concepts apply what I like to do is do a bit of an energy check how is the pace for everyone that's a nice general term that makes sure people are feeling like we're moving in the right direction there's enough momentum we're talking about the right things so I ask a question are we on Pace give us a thumbs up if yes it's looking pretty good or off to the side or thumbs down if you're not happy and if anyone has a thumbs to the side or thumbs down just ask them hey how do you think we can do a little bit better what do you think we're missing how can we speed it up a little bit ask them those questions and they'll have a really good discussion and to be honest if one person's feeling it probably the broader group is this is putting them a little bit back in control so that you can redirect that energy to really push it in the right direction another one I like to do is regular check-ins on what's been most insightful or useful so far this is an easy thing to do whether you're in a room or whether you're getting people to drop that down to the comments on a zoom chat that is a great way just to keep that engagement make sure you're having those reg conversations throughout the day now this is one that scares a lot of people but this is I said there was two big ones at the end I wanted to share with you this is the first the next one's coming this for a lot of people is hard but I want to tell you it is one of the most impactful things you can do be a Storyteller you don't need to be a great Storyteller you know one of the first times that I found out that this is such an important skill was when I was working on a mobile app project it was pretty dry and pretty boring it's for a bank but the executive in the group he came in and talked about his experience when he lost his father as a child he died to a disease and that left the family without any income he's a little bit older so was that era where his mother wasn't working and they were basically looking at Financial destitution they were going to be losing everything they're looking at losing the house Dad wasn't a great communicator and what came through in the end was once the bake realized and was notified of the death they told the family that he had a life insurance policy and that is the thing that got the through that period and eventually got this executive into University and these sort of things so that he now has the job that he has today and this was such an powerful impactful moment to me it wasn't using any particularly complex or Advanced storytelling method he just told a story that was relevant to him and the impact it had on him and that has now taught me how important it is to include story so my tips for you there's loads of different videos on this in fact I'll leave a good video on this in the comments that you can check out but the simple version is is use a story that is relevant to you that is based on your personal experience that had an impact on you and use that to convey a message now look this point you should have had an incredible Workshop you've had lots of Engagement good share of voice you've had lots of activities that got people bubbling up ideas but now you've got to close it strong I talked about this at the start kick it off strong close it off strong and I told you get a picture at the start that you can use well here's how you're going to use it you're going to wrap up on the session by simply making sure that you've summarized all the key decisions and actions let's do a bit of a recap on the day right what are the key things that we've decided what are we going to do afterwards that is quite an administrative type thing make sure that every action has an owner someone's going to do it but then this is game changer I leared this from AJ and smart they're a great facilitation training company what they talk about is doing a bit of a recap on your agenda now what this is is you go through each item of the agenda and ask people what was the highlight of it so now you're actually chipping away at that recency bias and you're actually getting people to think about the entire day what was the highlight for each of those sort of topics what was their key takeaway during that discussion now it does sound a little bit weird but believe me this is absolutely gamechanging you might find people a little bit quiet when you first start out doing this cuz I can tell you no one does so this is going to be a first time people have been through this they love it and you get this really great closeout discussion at the end of the day what you want to do at that point is then show the pictures that you took earlier again if you're in a room in person get photos of the room you probably got post notes and all sorts of stuff over the walls now people can look at the photos from the start of the day and look at it at the end of the day or if you're in a Miro type situation where it's a virtual whiteboard just get a screenshot of the miror board as it was at the start and then share it with everyone as it looks now and they can see all the great work that they've done this means that they're going to absolutely love you as a facilitator if you do this as a job they're definitely going going to hire you to facilitate workshops in the future and they're just going to have a great time and they most importantly they're going to get the outcomes that they came to achieve because you're not just walking away from this going well that was fine you're actually walking away with energy engagement a clear set of actions reflection on how great the day was they're going to want to take it forward this is how you have the most impact as a facilitator I'd love to know in the comments which of these techniques were most useful to you if you do want to learn a little bit more about objectives and key results setting I'm going to include some of the training down there that you can get for free and if you do have any questions along the way we have an okr Community where we use goal setting and facilitation techniques to improve your team's success and execution so check that out in the description below otherwise have an amazing day