We’ve all been in good and bad day-long workshops — ones that left us energized and ready to go tackle the problem, and others that left us drained, checking our phone, wondering when we were going to get out of there or what we missed.
What’s often missed in any kind of Workshop — whether it’s remote, on-site or hybrid are the metrics — i.e., Did we hit the mark? Did we swing and miss? Do we need to have a follow-up?
Most times we don’t want to ask, because if we don’t ask, well then we never know what we did well and what we did wrong — we just know that we did it.
There are many ways to run a great workshop — some I’ve documented here for whether you are remote or on-site — for hybrid, mix and match what works for you and put it out there.
Whether your workshop is for a group of 5, 25, 50, or more — there are many metrics you can take advantage of to not only track how you did but also how you are doing during it (the most important metric of all).
Device Checks
Whichever the workshop you are doing, make the point, yes the point, that laptops and tablets are closed and phones are put to the side. Reassure people they will have a chance to check them and get started. When I’m in a meeting and I find my attention drifting to my phone, I immediately throw it across the room to the nice fluffy chair that is waiting for it — that means if I want it — I have to make an excuse to get up and go get it.
Encourage note taking, reassure people they can do this, and track how often people are breaking your rule by checking their devices. This is a sure signal that their attention is elsewhere and not on what you’re discussing.
Engagement
For a workshop to rock, you need engagement, otherwise it’s a training seminar and no one woke up the morning of your workshop wanting to have an 8 hour presentation. Workshops are about question/answer and engagement, not with singular people who like to talk but with everyone. You need to pull it out of them, and invariably you will have to do this at the beginning of the session, but then you need to track what happens next.
Is everyone jumping in? Are people discussing the content back and forth? This is…
