Is your team stuck in the weeds? Clear an afternoon and run this simple workshop with them. Informed by Nightingale’s years of experience of supporting teams to deliver and succeed, it will stimulate discussions, unearth issues and unblock your team’s potential, getting them back on track towards success.
Decide who needs to be involved
Generally, workshops work best with a maximum of eight participants, though with a skilled facilitator it is possible to include up to fifteen people. The group should represent the full range of people involved with a particular project or business area - restricting participation to more senior people can result in a limited or biased picture of what’s going on.
Choose a facilitator
Ideally, the facilitator should be someone who provides direction and guidance but doesn’t directly get involved in the discussion - either someone external or from another team. The facilitator’s role is to keep the discussion moving and clarify any key points. If they can also act as a translator between team members who are not quite understanding each other, that is a huge bonus.
Set the scene
To get the best results, this process requires openness and honesty. Participants shouldn’t feel nervous, or worried that there will be consequences for saying the wrong thing. Be clear on the purpose of the workshop - to resolve a particular issue or to move a project or the business as a whole forward - and emphasise that everyone should feel free to share their thoughts and concerns. The meeting works best face-to-face but can be run virtually, using online platforms like Teams and Miro.
You will need:
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Post-its in two different colours
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Pens/sharpies for each participant
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A whiteboard
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A phone to record the session
Task 1: Cards (or post-its) on the table - hopes and fears
Time: 20-30 minutes
This deceptively simple exercise is an excellent way to break the ice and to uncover hidden problems that may have been blocking progress. The discussion should be open and unstructured - the aim here isn’t to pinpoint specific issues or actions, it is to clear the air and set the tone for the rest of the workshop.
Give everyone a pile of post-its in two different colours and ask the question:
What are our hopes and fears?
Assign one colour post-it to hopes and the other to fears.
Reiterate the goal of the meeting, but emphasise that this exercise isn’t limited to the specifics of those goals - it can encompass other issues and aims. Allow everyone around ten minutes to write at least two hopes and two fears - one per post-it. The facilitator puts the post-its on a whiteboard and gives each person a chance to elaborate or explain their post-it if they want to. The facilitator then groups similar post-its together and supports a wider discussion about the hopes and fears, so that they can be considered and examined in the other parts of the workshop.
Task 2: Set a direction
Time: 1 hour
In this task the facilitator asks two key questions:
As a team/company:
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What are we trying to achieve?
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If we achieve that aim, what does success look like?
The facilitator should emphasise the importance of answering these questions from the point of view of the team or the company, rather than each person focusing on their own tasks and goals. The aim is to agree a joint direction for the entire group. When considering what success looks like, participants should be specific - if everything works out well and all the team’s goals are achieved, what will the outcome of that be in practical terms? Will the team grow? Will the company expand to another territory? Will new skills be needed? Creating a vision of success helps to highlight the steps that need to happen to make it possible, from simple actions like procuring more office space, to more complex projects like setting up new departments. It also highlights blockers and areas that are being neglected or overlooked.
This task may produce more questions than answers. That’s not a bad thing - it is far better to uncover issues than to leave them lurking. It is up to the facilitator to ensure topics are discussed as much as possible without participants getting frustrated or bogged down. If something remains unresolved, make a note of it and ensure time is blocked out to address it at a later stage.
Task 3: Identify knowledge gaps
Time: 1 hour
Once goals are set there can be a strong temptation to go straight to assigning projects and setting KPIs. Taking this approach runs a high risk of ending up back where you started. Before moving forward, it’s vital to take stock of where you are, particularly in terms of knowledge, insight and information. Doing this allows you to take full advantage of the work you’ve already done, while also identifying any gaps or points of uncertainty that could cause issues in the future.
The two key questions to ask here are:
Given our goals and our vision of success:
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What key pieces of information do we already know?
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What questions do we need to answer?
This task allows the team to share their knowledge, while also identifying areas in which a lack of information or understanding is holding them back. It requires the team to be honest about gaps in their capability so potential points of failure can be identified before they cause problems. For example, if success means moving into a new market, what does the team know about this market? Do they have detailed insight into the target audience? Are there significant gaps in understanding that could make engaging with this market difficult?
Ensuring the team is equipped with everything they need to make strong, evidence-based decisions will reduce mistakes and make success much more likely to happen.
Task 4: Set actions
Time: 20 minutes
This part of the workshop should be short and sweet. The aim shouldn’t be to create a complex, multi-step plan, it should be to identify core actions that the team can take to move things forward, such as carrying out some research, bringing in extra support, or connecting with another team. Set a time to check in, review progress and update the team’s goals. You’re looking for incremental progress and the opportunity to remove blockers rather than quick, big-bang results.
Ready to take it to the next level?
Bringing in a facilitator who can use their experience to support and challenge the team greatly increases the value of this process, allowing more insights and opportunities to be uncovered. Our roadmap reset workshop, developed from our years of experience of working with organisations like the NHS, LEGO, the Department for Education and a range of SMEs and startups, is designed to unlock the full potential of your team, ensuring that they are delivering to the best of their talent and ability.
