4. Today’s objective:
• Get ideas for dealing with scary
situations in workshops
• Feel more comfortable going in to
your next workshop
• Get ideas for design workshop
activities
7. • No one participates
• Only one person participates
• They think this activity is silly
• The ‘boss’ discourages others from
participating
• The mean person
• I can’t control the group or someone in the
group
• No one agrees
• We don’t get through everything we need
to get through
• Everyone is stuck in their mindset…I can’t
seem to unstick them
13. Draw out a silent participant
• Direct questions to the silent participant
• Ask the silent participant to react to
someone else's statement
• Reinforce
• Check in during a break
• Solicit help
14. Provide a structure
• Pair then report
• Stickie exercises
• One minute each
• Simply say, "Turn to the person next to
you and discuss this."
• Design games and activities *
* this is the fun part
15.
16. Still pulling teeth?
• smaller groups
• more hands on
• ask what’s blocking
• check initial objectives
18. What if one person dominates
the whole conversation?
19. Dealing with excessive talkers
Avoid discouraging the excessive talker, instead....
• At the start of the meeting, establish equal participation by all members
as a goal
• Interrupt the person with a question directed to someone else
• Pair then report
• Air time limits
• Ask others to react
• Design games and activities
20. What about the mean naysayer who
is poisoning the collaborative tone?
22. What if one person shuts
everyone else down? What if
it’s the main stakeholder?
23. Dealing with Stakeholder Shutdown
Before the workshop:
• Make sure your stakeholder knows what you are planning to do, that
you expect participation
During:
• Restate your need to hear from everyone
• Ask that person to give permission to others to participate
• Suggest a short-term solution “Let’s try this for 45 minutes”
25. “It’s my first day and the clients
are yelling at each other.”
26. Prep
• know who is coming
• set expectations
• solicit stakeholder’s desires, concerns
• invite participants
• reschedule if needed
27. Opening
• set expectations for behavior
• get buy in on objective
• working buy in on agenda
• change agenda if needed
• let go of “everything else I should
be doing”
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dmahugh/archive/2009/06/29/wg4-wg5-meetings.aspx
29. What if they just say “That’s
the way we’ve always done
it?”
30. Ideas for unfixing fixed ideas
Don’t attack the idea head on, instead....
• Have them argue from the other
perspective
• Break down pros & cons, assumptions,
unknowns
• Get the right participants
• Enumerate the ways the fixed idea has
served them
• Explore the consequences of the fixed
idea
32. Building Consensus & Deciding
• Stake in the ground/working agreement
• Acknowledge and record opposing views
• Dot Vote
• Thumbs up/down vote
33. “I’m doing all the
activities, but we’re
still not getting to
consensus.”
34. Ideas for Dealing with Lack of
Consensus
• Ask who decides
• Ask what’s standing in the way of deciding
• Ask if consensus is needed
• Go backwards
36. Managing Time
101
• Parking Lot
• Get the group to help manage
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shawnnap/5571400637/
37. Managing Time
201
When it becomes apparent you’re not getting
where you thought you would, decide as a group:
• Timebox the topic/activity and continue
another time,
• This important, let’s keep going (and
reschedule the other stuff for later)
• We’ve gotten what we need out of this, let’s
just move on
• This approach isn’t working, let’s take a http://www.flickr.com/photos/shawnnap/5571400637/
different one
41. Engaging in User Research
Go Around the Room
Each participant says what stood
out most from the usability
session, study, survey
42. Thinking Like Users
Empathy Map
Participants fill in what a particular
type of user is hearing, thinking,
seeing, saying and doing.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davegray/2380465521/
43. Thinking About Users:
4 Square
For each user type, participants
help fill in each of the following:
• goals
• triggers
• would find compelling
• would find disappointing
46. We’re hiring!
effectiveui.com/careers
Your tips: Find us here or email:
#workshop_tips
Beth Koloski
beth.koloski@effectiveui.com
Elias Parker
elias.parker@effectiveui.com
