Workshops are a powerful tool for problem-solving and fostering collaboration. They bring people together, generate ideas, and drive positive change.
In this overview, we’ll show you how to use Bluescape to create an engaging and impactful workshop in five simple steps.
Besides problem-solving, workshops can be really fun. Participants can become more educated on a particular topic or even walk away with a better understanding and appreciation for their customer’s perspective. Whether running a design thinking workshop, a career planning workshop, a social media marketing workshop, or even an agile planning workshop, we’ll cover important workspace setup and features to use. All these tips can also be applied whether your workshop is half a day or a multi-day sprint.
The best workshops have STRUCTURE to help guide participants. They ENGAGE with hands-on activities and INCLUDE everyone’s perspective towards solving the problem. We’ll reference these throughout our setup steps.
Step 1: Planning
Proper preparation is crucial for a successful workshop. Create a structured workspace by organizing canvases based on topics or exercises. Utilize templates, like the “simple meeting” to outline the day’s time boxes and breaks.
Start with an ice breaker activity to set the right mindset. Templates such as “Introductions,” “Share Your Office,” or “Quick Team Icebreaker” are great options.
Ice breakers help ENGAGE your participants.
Next, break out canvases for each activity. Helpful templates to consider are:
- Lots of Medium Notecards (for a stack of notecards)
- Essential Workshop
- Crazy Eight
- Design Sprint
- Expectations Workshop
- Lightning Decision Jam
- Empathy Map
For notecards, decide if each participant should have their own color. If you need more colors, use the color picker to quickly add another color to your group-selected notecards.
Don’t worry though participants can easily add notecards from the toolbar selection or with a quick right click on the mouse if they need more notecards on the fly. Or easily duplicate existing notecards (CTRL+D).
You can also create a custom template. For multiple upcoming workshops, easily reuse custom templates that have custom workshop content.
Step 2: Clarify Workshop Roles
If you have multiple facilitators, clearly define each role. Designate timekeepers and leaders to manage the timer and guide participants to specific areas of the workspace. Assign workspace roles such as ‘Facilitator’ using the user access panel.
Step 3: Final Touches to Workspace Setup and Access
Use the “hide canvas” feature to keep participants focused on the current topic. Hiding a canvas will hide the content for everyone EXCEPT those with the facilitator workspace role or owners of the workspace.
Enhance navigation by creating quick hyperlinks to jump to different areas in the workspace. Send groups to breakout areas in the workspace with this feature too.
Next, Double-check the desired time flow and pin down assets that you don’t want participants to move.
Finally, Invite participants to the workspace beforehand by copying and pasting their emails. You can easily copy and paste multiple emails into the invite field at once to send to a large group.
Step 4: Day of Workshop
Lead participants through the agenda by guiding them within the workspace. The ‘Lead’ feature pulls everyone to your location of the workspace. Participants can still ‘drift’ from a leader to do a quick activity like adding a notecard while not totally losing pace with the workspace leader.
Use the laser pointer to draw attention and provide clarity. Set personal timers to remind yourself to give time remaining updates. Utilize public timers to display exercise durations for everyone to see. These features help ENGAGE your participants’ focus.
Next, have participants use reactions to do quick voting on ideas. Encourage participants throughout the session to use the raise hand feature for assistance or to contribute points. Allowing participants to share ideas in notecards and vote will help you to successfully INCLUDE everyone’s perspective and promote meaningful discussion.
Step 5: Workshop Wrap-Up
Make decisions on the way forward, whether it’s selecting ideas to test, shifting priorities, or scheduling follow-up discussions for a deeper dive. Capture and articulate the outcomes in your workshop workspace.
If you need to perform in-depth analysis on notecard ideas, export the content into a CSV file.
Enjoy your workshop in Bluescape! Engage and include your participants to unlock that next “wow-factor” idea. Here’s to creating meaningful impact together!