1. Discombobulation, Fire-Breathing Dragons and Wet Noodles
Creating Productive Workshops in Scary Situations
Beth Koloski
Lead Experience Architect

2. Beth Koloski
Lead Experience Architect
EffectiveUI

4. Today’s objective:
• Get ideas for dealing with
scary situations in workshops
• Feel more comfortable going
in to your next workshop
• Get ideas for design workshop
activities

5. Your tips:
#workshop_tips

6. Scary Things

7. • No one participates
• Only one person participates
• They think this activity is silly
• The ‘boss’ discourages others from
participating
• The mean person
• I can’t control the group or
someone in the group
• No one agrees
• We don’t get through everything we
need to get through
• Everyone is stuck in their mindset…I
can’t seem to unstick them

8. Workshop Facilitation 101

9. Own the
process.

10. +
Own the
Share ownership
process.
for the outcome.

11. Wet Noodles

12. What if nobody participates?

13. Draw out a silent participant
• Direct questions to the silent
participant
• Ask the silent participant to react
to someone else's statement
• Reinforce
• Check in during a break
• Solicit help

14. Provide a structure
• Pair then report
• Stickie exercises
• One minute each
• Simply say, "Turn to the person
next to you and discuss this."
• Design games and activities *
* this is the fun part

16. Still pulling teeth?
• smaller groups
• more hands on
• ask what’s blocking
• check initial
objectives

17. Fire-Breathing Dragons

18. What if one person
dominates the whole
conversation?

19. Dealing with excessive talkers
Avoid discouraging the excessive talker, instead....
• At the start of the meeting, establish equal participation by all
members as a goal
• Interrupt the person with a question directed to someone else
• Pair then report
• Air time limits
• Ask others to react
• Design games and activities

20. What about the mean naysayer
who is poisoning the
collaborative tone?

21. Dealing with Negative Nelly
• special attention on breaks
• validate

22. What if one person
shuts everyone else
down? What if it’s the
main stakeholder?

23. Dealing with Stakeholder Shutdown
Before the workshop:
• Make sure your stakeholder knows what you are planning to
do, that you expect participation
During:
• Restate your need to hear from everyone
• Ask that person to give permission to others to participate
• Suggest a short-term solution “Let’s try this for 45 minutes”

24. Participant Misbehavior

25. “It’s my first day and the
clients are yelling at each
other.”

26. Prep
• know who is coming
• set expectations
• solicit stakeholder’s desires, concerns
• invite participants
• reschedule if needed

27. Opening
• set expectations for
behavior
• get buy in on objective
• working buy in on agenda
• change agenda if needed
• let go of “everything else I
should be doing”
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dmahugh/archive/2009/06/29/wg4-wg5-meetings.aspx

28. Fixed Ideas

29. What if they just say
“That’s the way we’ve
always done it?”

30. Ideas for unfixing fixed
ideas
Don’t attack the idea head on,
instead....
• Have them argue from the other
perspective
• Break down pros & cons,
assumptions, unknowns
• Get the right participants
• Enumerate the ways the fixed idea
has served them
• Explore the consequences of the
fixed idea

31. Lack of Consensus

32. Building Consensus &
Deciding
• Stake in the ground/working
agreement
• Acknowledge and record opposing
views
• Dot Vote
• Thumbs up/down vote

33. “I’m doing all the
activities, but
we’re still not
getting to
consensus.”

34. Ideas for Dealing with Lack of
Consensus
• Ask who decides
• Ask what’s standing in the way of
deciding
• Ask if consensus is needed
• Go backwards

35. Managing Time

36. Managing Time
101
• Parking Lot
• Get the group to help manage
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shawnnap/
5571400637/

37. Managing Time
201
When it becomes apparent you’re not
getting where you thought you would,
decide as a group:
• Timebox the topic/activity and continue
another time,
• This important, let’s keep going (and
reschedule the other stuff for later)
• We’ve gotten what we need out of this,
let’s just move on
• This approach isn’t working, let’s take a
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shawnnap/
5571400637/
different one

38. Everything Else

39. When all else fails
• acknowledge what’s going
on if something is going
awry
• suggest a solution
• ask the group

40. Design Workshop Activities

41. Engaging in User
Research
Go Around the Room
Each participant says what
stood out most from the
usability session, study,
survey

42. Thinking Like Users
Empathy Map
Participants fill in what a
particular type of user is
hearing, thinking, seeing,
saying and doing.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davegray/
2380465521/

43. Thinking About Users:
4 Square
For each user type,
participants help fill in each of
the following:
• goals
• triggers
• would find compelling
• would find disappointing

44. Prioritizing/Choosing:
Dot Voting
Give each participant 3 dots to
vote on their favorite/the
most important (feature,
persona, task flow, whatever).

45. Gamestorming: A Playbook for
Innovators, Rulebreakers, and
Changemakers
by Dave Gray

46. We’re hiring!
effectiveui.com/
careers
Your tips:
#workshop_tips Find us here or email:
Beth Koloski
beth.koloski@effectiveui.com
Elias Parker
elias.parker@effectiveui.com