Most workshops end up as a pile of garbage... but they don't have to.
Here are 5 tips to run workshops in a better way:
1) Don’t treat the workshop as the end all be all work - it’s an activity to help you co-create or crowdsource ideas, but you need to reflect, validate with evidence, and then move forward.
2) Work systematically and make sure that the challenge or opportunity feeds into the needs and behaviors - which address the influences and drivers of behavior - which are connected to evidence-based behavior change techniques - if you don't have this salient, then you will lose your focus with the excitement of the post-it notes.
A Logic Model is a great tool to help you here!
3) Create each activity with a purpose, and reflect on what you want to learn from each person you invited to participate and contribute
While your workshops should have fun and engaging activities, the purpose is to gain insights, not to play with post-it notes!
4) Don’t get so excited with ideation that you forget who you are creating the solution for - (This is a biggie!)
Too often, when we ideate we come up with tons of ideas, that sound amazing, and in many cases they are - but in the excitement of ideas teams don't usually stop and validate and include the techniques they were meant to use - be sure to always include this and have teams explain how it addresses the influences.
5) Don’t make decisions in the workshop with DOT voting.
Instead, use scoring matrixes with more parameters that slow down the excitement and activate more reflective and slow thinking.
Also - use evaluation frameworks to account for spillover effects, acceptability, and equity for example.
These are just some of our tips from our consulting work with innovation, design, and change teams that want to apply behavioral science - what are yours?