Figure 1.
Example room layout for an interactive workshop.
This bird's-eye view shows the setup for supporting group-based, facilitated activities around a specific topic, problem, or project. The moderator oversees the workshop with the help of facilitators, who are briefed in the aims and methods of the activities. Alternatives include “circuit training” layout, where each table is an activity station and the participants move around the room.
Figure 2.
Example of a workshop artefact: The output of the “Speed Boat” activity.
The aim of this activity is to identify improvements that need to be made, for instance, to a product or service. The boat and anchors are drawn on paper as a template before the workshop. During the activity, the groups add their ideas in pen: they write the goal of the workshop on the boat and the challenges to achieving this goal by the anchors. We also include “positive forces for change”—things that are moving the project towards the goal—as “wind arrows” flanking the boat. The sticky notes have been added after the activity by the facilitator during the presenting-back stage and group discussion. The sticky notes have been labelled with the letters A to E for reference; note that a labelling scheme may be helpful for the analysis and report. This activity was adapted from p. 206 in [5]; also watch this video for more hints: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwVbcioYvdM.
Figure 3.
This was created for an internal workshop held to gather ideas for a website redesign process. Visual agendas are useful for setting the creative tone needed for successful interactive workshops.