Facilitation & Workshop Design — Examples

Example 1 — Designing the agenda back from the decision

A group of six has been meeting weekly about onboarding and has never chosen a flow. The next session is booked for 90 minutes. Turn the topic list below into a designed workshop: a decision statement at the top and a timed agenda with one activity and one output per block.

Invite list: product, design, three engineers, support lead
Meeting title: "onboarding workshop"
Topics to cover: research so far, ideas, technical constraints,
support tickets, next steps
Room: booked for 90 minutes

Solution

Decision: choose one onboarding flow to build this quarter.
Owner: Maya. Needed by: Thursday. Participants: 6. Room: 90 minutes.

00-05  Frame      Read the decision aloud; no discussion.
05-20  Evidence   Walk the five support quotes; silent read, then dots.
20-45  Diverge    4 groups x 2 sketches; prompt: "one screen, no words
                  you would not say aloud".
45-70  Converge   Silent dot vote, then one minute each for one dot.
70-85  Decide     Choose, name the owner, name the first build, read back.
85-90  Close      Confirm check-in; photograph only the decision board.

Outputs: dot tallies -> groups -> sketches -> decision board.
Parking lot: technical constraints, captured but out of scope today.

The decision is written first and dated, so the agenda can be cut against it — the technical constraints disappear into the parking lot rather than eating fifteen minutes. Every block names its activity and the artefact the next block consumes, from quotes to dot votes to the chosen flow. The usual mistake is an agenda of topics: “onboarding” is not an activity, so it expands to fill whatever time it is given and the session ends without a decision.