For Effective UX Design Workshops, Don’t Be a Lone Wolf
By: Workday Design
Tags: Product Design, Design Thinking, Design Workshop, Collaboration, UX

(Based on a presentation given at Workday Design Week 2018)

Have you run great, effective UX design workshops that you felt were full of fantastic ideas and energetic conversations, only to later find yourself alone in a room full of post-its, wondering how to keep the ideas alive? You synthesize the findings and present exciting new concepts to your team, but despite the good intentions and effort of everyone involved, little of it ends up in the product, and the ideas are never seen or heard of again.

This is a common experience we have as designers. Why?

To find some answers, let’s take a look at how we can make workshops — and the design process as a whole — more effective and impactful.

UX Workshops: Expectations vs. Reality

Design workshops are exciting. The energy levels before, during, and after a workshop often look like this:

Image by Stella Zubeck

Before the workshop, expectations are high as you anticipate what you’ll achieve. You’ll work to make the workshop happen, which takes some energy. The workshop itself is a peak, where everyone participates, generating new ideas. At the end of the workshop, the team is energized and aligned.

The aftermath of workshops is often different. After the workshop, you’re full of ideas, but the energy drops and momentum slows. In the worst-case scenario, little of the output is used in the long run.

The UX Workshop Design Process

Let’s consider the process for designing and running a workshop. The phases look like this:

You make a plan, run the workshop, synthesize what the team generates, and then find ways to share and use the output. Typically, we focus all our energy and thought on the workshop. Instead, let’s take a look at something a little different. A lot of what makes a design workshop successful is how you bring others in before and after the workshop.

Planning and communication early in the process is crucial. After the workshop, there’s magic in the synthesis, sharing, and discussion. Keeping the energy up after a workshop requires thoughtfully bringing in your team. Continuing to involve the team in the design process will help retain some of that energy and vision. You can even make it a personal goal to actively include others in your process, especially after design workshops.

Although there can be an image of the designer as a lone wolf, heroically defending user experience, there’s no good way to “lone wolf” a workshop. As designers, it’s important that we consider ourselves as part of a team, and it’s on us to change the idea of the “lone wolf” designer. Let’s start by thinking about ways to improve collaboration and inclusion — before running a workshop.

Pre-Workshop: Planning

Workshop planning is the time to ask lots of questions. Make sure sure you have a clear reason to do a workshop and actionable goals in mind. These can be as broad or as specific as you like (for example, get to know the team, sketch design concepts or generate solutions for a problem).

Here are some key questions that can clarify early thinking before you start building a UX workshop agenda:

What are the goals of the workshop? What is its purpose? What is the scope?

What will success look like?

Are there specific UX workshop techniques you want to use?

What artifacts do you want to make during and after the workshop?

For more questions to guide you, here’s a UX workshop planning reference guide.

UX Workshop Planning Reference Guide

After collecting your thoughts, you can choose activities to target the gaps in your knowledge and generate the artifacts you want. Then it’s time to bring in your team and share your vision for the workshop.

To include others in a workshop plan early in the process, make the ideas:

Tangible. It helps to get your thoughts out, on a whiteboard or on paper.

It helps to get your thoughts out, on a whiteboard or on paper. Editable. Make sure you create something you can edit collaboratively — a place to collect notes, links, sketches, images, or anything else you might want to refer to later.

Make sure you create something you can edit collaboratively — a place to collect notes, links, sketches, images, or anything else you might want to refer to later. Shareable. While brainstorming, it’s useful to generate something you can use to communicate and get feedback from other designers, PMs and your team.

An outline is a fast and easy way to include others in your earliest workshop thinking. It may seem obvious, but for any workshop you’re planning, it’s helpful to outline:

Goals. What do you want to achieve during the workshop?

What do you want to achieve during the workshop? Deliverables. What artifacts do you expect to generate?

What artifacts do you expect to generate? Attendance. Who, and how many people should attend? Will they be divided into groups?

Who, and how many people should attend? Will they be divided into groups? UX workshop agenda. What activities or methods do you want to use? How much time will you need for each?

Pre-Workshop, Continued: Getting Buy-in

Before building your activities, it’s a good idea to make sure you and your stakeholders are aligned. You’ll want to communicate that workshops take time to build.

Get buy-in from your stakeholders on:

Activities. Is everyone on board with the goals of the workshop?

Is everyone on board with the goals of the workshop? Communication, expectations, and participation. Make sure there is a communication plan for the workshop. Set expectations with participants early on. Let them know their participation is valued, and whether their attendance is optional or required.

Make sure there is a communication plan for the workshop. Set expectations with participants early on. Let them know their participation is valued, and whether their attendance is optional or required. Logistics, partnership, and ownership. Make sure there is a clear plan for logistics. Who will do what? Who is facilitating activities? Who is gathering materials? Do you need to order food, or reserve a space? Make sure all roles are covered and documented.

How do you get this buy-in? Use an outline to go over your proposals for each of these areas. You can set partnership expectations with PMs, get feedback on activities, figure out who will participate, and even align on logistics — all before starting to build any workshop materials.

Building and Running the Workshop

Choosing methods, sequencing activities and building workshops is an art in itself, and a meaty topic. There are many resources available online for advice on planning and designing workshop activities.

Some of our favorite resources on design thinking workshops are available from Ideo’s Design Kit and Stanford University’s D.School. Nielsen Norman Group’s articles page is also worth exploring, with lots of inspirational content and information on user-centered design methods and workshops.

Workshops are fun for the whole team — they’re a peak moment for inclusion and team participation and, therefore, a peak of energy and momentum. While planning and running a workshop takes time and effort, more heavy lifting comes after, when you start to synthesize and share the output.

Illustration by Matt Kistler

Post-Workshop: Synthesis, Refining and Sharing

After a workshop, there will probably be lots of notes, ideas to clarify and sketches to refine. You’ll have more decisions to make — about what to focus on and what to validate moving forward. It isn’t always clear how and when to bring stakeholders into this part of the process. Many people think a workshop is over after participating in the event. As a designer, you provide structure for what happens after your workshop, so it’s up to you to keep your team involved. Designers often hesitate to ask others to offer more time after a workshop. This is a huge missed opportunity for shared understanding and collaboration. Don’t synthesize by yourself, synthesize as a team!

Synthesis methods are another art form. While we can’t cover the world of synthesis in detail here, check out these great methods to help you synthesize and turn data into insights. Here are some thoughts on how to make synthesis activities more inclusive and interactive for your team:

Schedule time for synthesis, and do it with others. Don’t be a lone wolf.

Don’t be a lone wolf. Be open to what the team generates and learns. Document new ideas and developments.

to what the team generates and learns. Document new ideas and developments. Digitize, digitize, digitize. Be sure to translate findings, concepts or sketches into a shareable format.

Be sure to translate findings, concepts or sketches into a shareable format. Share the artifacts produced with participants and stakeholders.

the artifacts produced with participants and stakeholders. Repeat. Don’t be afraid to share out more than once, and via multiple channels. People lose links, miss Slack messages, and don’t always pay attention to their email.

Post-Workshop: Using the Output and More Sharing

So you ran a great workshop and took the time to work through what the team produced. Now it’s time to put that output to work and start refining, reviewing and designing. Have a point of view about how you envision using the output of your workshop, or using it as fodder for design. As with any design process, review and feedback on workshop output should be part of the process. Some of the most effective sharing after workshops is:

Cross-functional. Share widely, not just within design. Tell the story in whatever way you can.

Share widely, not just within design. Tell the story in whatever way you can. Iterative, and interactive. After a workshop is a good time to post deliverables up on the wall or online, and make them accessible to others. Make it a team effort to iterate, comment and edit. This will help clarify what you’re trying to generate, be it a story, experience map, user flow, sketches or vision statement.

After a workshop is a good time to post deliverables up on the wall or online, and make them accessible to others. Make it a team effort to iterate, comment and edit. This will help clarify what you’re trying to generate, be it a story, experience map, user flow, sketches or vision statement. Sketchy, not precious. Working at low-to-mid fidelity is a great way to include others in the post-workshop design process. Non-designers feel more comfortable providing feedback without feeling like the work is “done.” It also helps emphasize that the team’s feedback on the designs is an important part of the process — that design isn’t done until it’s been shared.

Working at low-to-mid fidelity is a great way to include others in the post-workshop design process. Non-designers feel more comfortable providing feedback without feeling like the work is “done.” It also helps emphasize that the team’s feedback on the designs is an important part of the process — that design isn’t done until it’s been shared. Informal. The less things feel like a formal design review, the better. More people will speak up and share good ideas.

Post-Workshop: Wrap and Recap

After synthesis is complete, it’s time to do a final polish on deliverables and wrap everything up with a bow. Try to round up everyone who participated in the workshop and get them together again. Maybe there’s a wider audience that can benefit from learning about the workshop. This is also a great time to pause, look back and celebrate with everyone who participated in the workshop.

Ideas for wrapping up a workshop:

Do a formal recap. Depending on how much time has passed since the workshop, you may want to provide a refresher on the workshop activities and deliverables. When was it? Who was there? What did the team do? Why?

Depending on how much time has passed since the workshop, you may want to provide a refresher on the workshop activities and deliverables. When was it? Who was there? What did the team do? Why? Look back and celebrate the work. Take the time to thank everyone who participated, and show them how their ideas will be used moving forward.

Take the time to thank everyone who participated, and show them how their ideas will be used moving forward. Reflect and share learnings, takeaways or opportunities. Were there any surprises? Reflect back on what the team created and, of course, take the time to share design’s unique point of view.

Were there any surprises? Reflect back on what the team created and, of course, take the time to share design’s unique point of view. Share deliverables both formally and informally. Slack the deliverables to the team, make a folder, or make a quick website or video. Plan to follow up on the work at a later date and let the team know what happened to their ideas. They’ll be excited to share in the ownership and see the forward progress.

Closing Thoughts

As designers, much of the burden of follow-through on new ideas is on us. This means not only sharing ideas right after a workshop, but much later on. It means keeping concepts alive and accessible. It’s our responsibility to keep ideas on the table, to validate, and to share them. This is one of our powers as designers. We make new possibilities come alive through our skills as problem solvers, storytellers, collaborators and prototypers.

It’s also our job to understand when to include others in the design process, and when to move quickly to keep good ideas from fading. How we decide to include others, how we facilitate design, and how we communicate design — ultimately strengthens our output. Actively including others in our design work amplifies our impact, and by doing so, improves the products we work on.

When you share, and when you include others in design, have confidence that what you’re doing adds value. It’s up to you to keep your stakeholders involved, and to make great design come to life.

To learn more about the collaborative design methods we’re rolling out across Workday, check out the Workday Design Playbook.