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Workshops and Brainstorming Sessions are all about thinking collaboratively to move something forward. Whatever format they take, they’ll usually involve reflection, generating new ideas or creating clarity from existing ideas – often all three.

Almost every workshop or brainstorming session should involve working together with some visual tools. In an office, this might be whiteboards and sticky notes. In a remote environment, it’ll probably be an online tool like Miro or FigJam (see Intro to FigJam).

The simplest brainstorming session might just involve a bunch of people in FigJam with a single problem statement on a sticky note. At the other end of the scale is a highly-structured day-long workshop with loads of pre-prepared boards.

Example of a prepared FigJam Board (in this case, for a retrospective workshop)

Example of a prepared FigJam Board (in this case, for a retrospective workshop)

Hard Rules

Whatever the form, workshops and brainstorming sessions should always…

• Have a facilitator. For larger workshops this person should only facilitate, and not take part.
• Have a clear goal, written down and clearly visible to everyone.
• Use some form of visual tool to think collaboratively.

More Tips

• If the sessions requires participants to have some background context, send out a pre-read document or video so everyone arrives prepared.
• Start with a checkin (Meeting Checkins) and a bit of grounding to get everyone in a creative state of mind.
• Have a clear structure, even if it’s very simple (See Fundamental Workshopping Tools)
• Use timers to keep folks on track.