by John Brooker | Apr 11, 2012 | Facilitate meetings, Innovate
YES! AND… Creative Gorilla # 101 When running creative workshops, balance quality of outcome against time by keeping it simple… “So much to do, if I only had time,” Lyric by P Delanoe, Jack Fishman & Michel Fugai Do you want to achieve more in your meetings? Recently, I spent some time with a client to review an agenda they had designed for a creative idea generation and evaluation workshop. I was not facilitating but they asked for feedback. The design had very clear outputs, with good ideas to ensure participation. However, instinctively I sensed that they would not achieve all they wanted to because the design was too complex for the time available. We therefore spent time looking at ways to simplify the design, so they could achieve the desired outcomes. So In essence you can simplify three factors in a workshop, (although reducing the number of people attending is another option): The Input – The information that people require before they can start the creative thinking session The Activities – What the group does to process the information and achieve the output The Output – What the group produces at the end of the activity, e.g. a set of evaluated ideas Here are some suggestions for ways you can simplify them. Treat these as general principles as there are always exceptions. Input Identify work that could be done beforehand so that you do not waste time in the meeting e.g. (A). Before a process redesign meeting, draft the current process and validate it during the meeting. (B). Before an evaluation session, identify the criteria that you will...
