Lessons I learned during a business workshop

Last week I participated in a full day workshop organised at work by our management team. The whole company is going through this process, with every employee participating in one of the four workshops planned over the next few weeks. The workshops are designed partly to improve cooperation between employees but also to work together on a chosen business case.



We had an external coach come in and facilitate the day, which took place off site in a hotel conference room. The coach had everything organised before we arrived and set us to work in three teams, each consisting of people of different age, department or career advancement.

The day basically consisted of a series of team exercises that would help us formulate a proposal to be presented in front of the management team later on. The exercises were all creative, using various techniques (brainstorming, frenzies, 6 thinking hats methods), all helping us put a proposal to shape with the help of flipcharts, post-its and markers. Being quite creative myself I have to say it was quite a bit of fun.

Lessons we learned  during the workshop

At the end of the day, we had 3 proposals to present to the managers, so that was the first concrete outcome of the workshop, one to the benefit of the company.

But we also spent some time discussing how we felt after such a focused day, and we could all agree that such a workshop was great for anyone to work on the following skills:

• Cooperation
  Every one had a role to play, whether facilitating an exercise, keeping track of time, writing on the flipchart or presenting something.

• Communication
  Since we all had to present in front of an audience at some point, that was a good exercise. People had to remember to speak clearly and loud and organize their ideas.

• Planning and Organisation
  We had to make the most of the short allotted time slots we had for each exercise, and learned a few things along the way: manage time effectively (use time blocks, start and finish on time), define clear roles in the team and be specific in your project proposal: specify deliverables, resources, time constraints, budget, etc.

•  Creativity
  Workshops can be a lot of fun with all the tools available, but we can sometimes run dry of new ideas. Using various techniques to boost creativity is a great way of ensuring fresh ideas coming up all the time. Techniques we used included for example: brainstorming, the 6 thinking hats, frenzies, asking questions on different perspectives.

But what I found particularly amazing was that we ended up with three excellent but very different proposals. Although we all had the same instructions, tools and exercises, our proposals differed not only by their content or the way they were presented, but also by the way they were put together: one was very structured, with clear drivers, action plans and KPIs; another one was very specific, focusing on a particular action to implement while the last one was far more generic and focused on creating a mindset more than actions.

Overall I enjoyed the experience and I am glad that my company organised the worshop. What about you, have you already organised workshops for your staff?

photo credit: pinkpurse via photopin cc