How often do we practise our workshop facilitation?

Running group workshops can be daunting.

At any moment and all at once, you’re:

• listening
• capturing notes
• identifying themes
• thinking about what comes next
• thinking about what just happened
• wondering if you’re still on track
• mindful of who’s spoken, and who hasn’t
• observing body language
• checking everyone’s still engaged
• noticing where you need to respond and adapt

Staying calm while doing all of these can overwhelm you if you’re new to this.

Running workshops at any opportunity is the best way to build your experience, and increase your confidence. However, it’s not always an option.

Practising these skills in private helps me prepare for an upcoming workshop, which in turn reduces my performance anxiety. Honing your technique in the safety of your own space can be easy and straightforward.

I’d like to share three exercises I use to keep my skills sharp, and my nerves low.

Exercise 1: Real-time Summarising

Planet Money’s Anatomy of a Scam episode, summarised in real-time.

In a room (real or virtual) full of opinionated people, capturing everything important can be hectic. It’s hard to listen, summarise, and analyse, all at the same time. And to fellow multi linguists, when it’s in a different language to your mother tongue, it takes extra time to translate and process.

This first exercise is simple. You’ll need sticky notes, a marker pen, and a good ear.

1. Find a short radio or podcast episode with a single person discussing a specific topic
2. As you listen, summarise key information on sticky notes; one point per note
3. Aim to do it in real time — resist hitting pause

Listening to one person keeps you focused. The fixed-size sticky notes ensure you’re concise. And the marker pen forces your handwriting to be legible.

As you grow more confident, repeat the exercise with different episodes. Then increase the number of people speaking together, so two, then three, and so on. And when you’re feeling bold, try a panel speaking event where more than three people are talking consecutively.

Exercise 2: Identifying Connections

My Planet Money episode notes, grouped into themes.

In some workshops, you’ll have others to help group notes into common themes. But when you’re by yourself, it can be stressful and awkward as people watch and wait in silence as you create themes. You can feel pressure to label and link things as quickly as possible, which can affect the quality of your groupings.

Let’s take our sticky notes created in exercise 1.

1. Organise the notes: group them in a way that makes sense to you
2. Describe each grouping with a word or short sentence
3. Repeat 1 & 2, and experiment with different sets of words or phrases for your themes

Replay the exercise with your other sets of notes, trying to go faster each time.

Exploring how you wordsmith each group trains your brain to analyse and make connections.

Once you’ve gained confidence in exercise 2, return to the first exercise. This time, group your notes into themes as you’re writing them. In a workshop setting this saves time, and hopefully avoids that awkward silence.

Exercise 3: Planning Workshops

Rough agenda planning

It takes time to get everyone in a workshop to a point of shared understanding. A well-planned agenda is key. Practising how you structure workshops hones your ability to guide people through activities towards a common goal.

Find yourself a distraction-free surface to work on and have lots of sticky notes ready…

1. Think of a problem / question / objective which needs collective input,
   e.g everyone should ideate scenario X from our customer’s perspective, everyone needs to set a team vision for the year, everyone must prioritise which customer problems to solve
2. Decide on a set of activities that will help the group address that problem / question / objective.
3. Set a schedule which orders your activities: indicate how long they’ll take, and include warm-up exercises, breaks, and time to wrap things up

In any real-life situation, you’ll come across busy schedules and unaligned teams. Practising outlining agendas for different scenarios helps you to be creative and flexible within potential constraints. You can challenge yourself further with extra limitations; what if you only:

• have one day of people’s time…
• have half a day of people’s time…
• have an hour of people’s time…
• can get people together in smaller groups on different days, how do you sync up everyone’s thoughts and ideas…

These exercises are intended to help develop specific skills gradually. The more you train, the more natural it’ll feel when you run workshops in person.

Rehearsing these skills won’t dismiss your insecurities. But it will forge familiarity, because you’re building a habit. Practise until you feel self-assured. That assurance goes a long way in building your confidence.

Good luck!