Workshop templates

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47m

Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ)

Uncover and Solve Problems without Unstructured Discussion

It doesn’t matter where you work and what your job role is, if you work with other people together as a team, you will always encounter the same challenges:
  • Unclear goals and miscommunication that cause busy work and overtime
  • Unstructured meetings that leave attendants tired, confused and without clear outcomes
  • Frustration builds up because internal challenges to productivity are not addressed
  • Sudden changes in priorities lead to a loss of focus and momentum
  • Muddled compromise takes the place of clear decision- making, leaving everybody to come up with their own interpretation.
In short, a lack of structure leads to a waste of time and effort, projects that drag on for too long and frustrated, burnt out teams. AJ&Smart has worked with some of the most innovative, productive companies in the world. What sets their teams apart from others is not better tools, bigger talent or more beautiful offices. The secret sauce to becoming a more productive, more creative and happier team is simple:


Replace all open discussion or brainstorming with a structured process that leads to more ideas, clearer decisions and better outcomes.


When a good process provides guardrails and a clear path to follow, it becomes easier to come up with ideas, make decisions and solve problems.


This is why AJ&Smart created Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ). It’s a simple and short, but powerful group exercise that can be run either in-person, in the same room, or remotely with distributed teams.

It’s based on the same simple, but powerful principles as the Design Sprint:


1. Getting started is more important than being right
Rather than having endless, circular discussions about what the one, “perfect” solution could be, we embrace an action- oriented and experimental mindset and aim to make progress fast, even if it’s based on assumptions.

2. We work together, alone Instead of working in an open forum where the loudest, most extroverted person can push their ideas on the group until they get exhausted and give in, we create an environment where every individual can contribute ideas, without any group discussion or debate. All participants work alone, but aligned on a common goal with the rest of the team.

3. Don’t rely on creativity
Good ideas can come from anywhere. It doesn’t matter if you consider yourself to be a creative person or not, our process will help you to contribute ideas.

4. Tangible beats abstract

If you describe an idea to your team, everybody will have a completely different interpretation of what you were trying to communicate. This leads to a lot of unnecessary confusion. Instead, when presenting our ideas, we make them as tangible as possible, whether through sketching them out, or showing comparable examples.

Since we introduced Lightning Decision Jam in 2017, it has become immensely popular and it is now used by companies and teams all over the world to give structure to meetings, retros and brainstorming sessions. We are pleased to offer this revised and improved edition of the LDJ facilitator guide that will tell you, step by step, how to run your own LDJ session easily, whether it’s in-person or remotely.

AJ&Smart
3h 00m

System Mapping Workshop

A 3-hour workshop designed to help your organization see the big picture. Literally. Gather team members and stakeholders together to visualize the various elements of a system and draw connections. With a map of the territory finally at hand, discuss findings, gain insights, and potentially even define points of intervention for innovation and change.

Some applications of system mapping workshops are:

  • Identifying points of intervention in a large organisation.

  • Facilitating circular economy projects.

  • Landscape and resource management and policy-making.

  • Preparing for multi-stakeholder participatory processes.

  • Helping NGOs and volunteer organizations select impactful projects.

  • ..and more!

At this link you can find a slide deck explaining how the University of Edinburgh used this approach to map a whole production system, using causal loops and identifying points for intervention.

FACILITATION NOTES

You will need a flexible space with plenty of room for people to move around, small-group tables, and space on the walls to stick and organize notes. If you are working online or in hybrid mode, prepare a shared whiteboard everyone can work on.

HYBRID FACILITATION

People who share the same mode of participation will get the most from working with one another. You don't want people who are in the same room to spend all the 3 hours at their computer as if they were working remotely! With this in mind, design for discussions and sharing to happen among people who are in the same location (in other words, ask the people in the room to discuss with one another and those joining remotely to discuss among themselves). Then, make sure everyone puts their map in the same online whiteboard and facilitate comparisons. How can each map enrich the others?

Hybrid workshops notoriously need more attention to the tech setup. Make sure everyone can clearly see the shared map (e.g. with a good projector setup), and that you have great wi-fi in the room.

Deborah Rim Moiso
Facilitation Content Writer, SessionLab
2h 35m

Essential Agile Kickoff Meeting

Effective communication skills are essential for all involved in a project using any Agile approach! A kickoff is a short session for the team responsible for developing a solution to understand the objectives, accept them as realistic, and feel empowered and inspired to deliver a solution. This template has been created considering the DSDM principle "Communicate continuously and clearly" which underpins many the Agile principle of "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools". DSDM is an Agile method that focuses on the full project lifecycle, from Kickoff to Close-Out or Retrospective.

A kickoff is vital for effective teamwork and to ensure transparency. As the name suggests, it kicks off an allocated timebox and outlines the objectives. It is not a meeting to find the solutions, but rather to equip team members with clear objectives to empower them to find the solutions.

The agile approach favors face-to-face communication, and a kickoff can be done virtually or in person, depending on if the team is co-located or remote. The key objectives of a kickoff are to:

  • Review objectives for the timebox and understand what is to be achieved
  • Ensure that the deliverables are still feasible within the time box, and re-plan if this isn't possible
  • Agree on the acceptance criteria for each deliverable
  • Review the availability of all team members who will participate in this time box and decide on roles and take ownership of responsibilities.
  • Highlight any known dependencies

The beauty of templates is that you can adjust them to fit your own team's needs. These are the starting blocks to your Agile kickoff and are yours to move around as you see fit!

Carrin Robertson
Content Marketer & Facilitator, SessionLab
2h 00m

Find your Climate Sweet Spot

Many people are motivated to work on climate issues but often don't know where to start or associate climate action with activism, protesting, or politics. What the world really needs is people working in all industries with many different skill sets working on climate issues. This workshop aims to help participants to help identify their sweet spot for working in the climate space.

The agenda design is for an online version of this workshop, but you can easily adapt the activities to different situations, for example by collecting ideas on sticky notes or a whiteboard instead of using an online chat setup.

Session Objectives

  • Support attendees to identify their climate action sweet spot based on Ayana Elizabeth Johnson's Climate Action Venn Diagram.
  • Allow attendees to connect with like-minded individuals/professionals who are also looking to make a positive impact

Desired outcomes from point of view of the attendee:

  • I felt inspired by all the ways I can contribute

  • I want to follow up with or connect with the people I met in my breakout room

  • I have concrete next steps for figuring out my personal climate action

Roles

Facilitator Tech support (managing breakouts + sharing messages in the chat)

Key resources

Find your climate your sweet spot workbook - check the attachments tab for the powerpoint presentation!

This template was the winner of the "Best use of SessionLab" award in the April 2023 innovative workshop design contest organized by SessionLab and NeverDoneBefore.

Perle Laouenan-Catchpole
Freelance facilitator
2h 00m

Impact on people and planet (with AI)

ESG reporting is coming. You might want to familiarise your workforce with the ESG concept (Environmental, Social, and Governance), so that the transition to a more sustainable business happens smoothly, while also touching on the potential and risks of using generative AI in daily tasks. The ESG framework helps you go beyond the conventional financial success metrics, by pushing you to consider not only the positive impacts that goods/ services and the operations to deliver them have on people and planet, but also the negative ones in order to minimise them.

Goal: Educate employees from different positions within a company about ESG framework (Environmental, Social, and Governance) and its importance, with the help of AI

  • Objective 1: Understand the ESG framework and its importance for product management

  • Objective 2: Identify key environmental and social principles associated with product management

  • Objective 3: Use an AI-generated text tool to answer questions and critically assess the results

Duration: 120 min

Type of activity: remote/ in-person

Participants: 15 to 30 employees

Materials: Laptops & access to internet

Tools: ChatGPT, video conferencing (Zoom/ Google Meet etc.), virtual space for collaboration (Google Sheets/ Miro) This template was the winner of the "Best Virtual Workshop" award in the April 2023 innovative workshop design contest organized by SessionLab and the NeverDoneBefore community.

Catalina Mueller
Product Designer & Facilitator
6h 25m

Marketing Strategy Sprint

The Marketing Strategy Sprint is a step-by-step process for clarifying campaign creation or entire marketing strategies in a single working day. It works well in both remote and live settings and is especially useful for aligning marketing teams and decision-makers.

Who should participate?

This is an ideal exercise for marketing teams. The optimal group size is 3–7 people. Someone from the business side and management board should be included. It can be the director/VP of the business area you are going to cover or in smaller companies the CEO, but it is crucial to have buy-in from the top. As a marketer, there is also the hidden agenda to give decision-makers a better understanding of the role of marketing. This is a perfect way to provide insight into what you do and are trying to achieve.

If the marketing & comms team isn’t big enough, just bring in bodies who are relevant to the topic/business. You need to understand your customer and business to get this to work so sales gals, customer success guys and other people working with the clients are your best bets.

What marketing issues can I clarify with this?

You can do anything from campaign creation to overall marketing strategies. You just adjust your scope accordingly. I recommend starting with something specific like a campaign or a plan to target one audience. Then you can start combining the data into larger entities.

How long does this take?

The whole canvas takes a workday to fill out. When you are working on campaigns or the same segment/product, it’ll take you two hours.

Obviously some problems are larger then others and you may need more time on solving them. That’s why you are the big marketing hotshot or the future unicorn CEO: you are able to use your own judgement on time allocation.

If you are starting your marketing, re-branding, doing a product launch, expanding to a new market etc., you’ll be spending a couple of days defining the cornerstones of your marketing.

What do you need?

People: a facilitator (You?), a marketing team, a decision-maker. Bodies are optional.

Other stuff: Whiteboard/wall space, tons of Post-it notes, Sharpies, sticky dots, a time timer, good coffee, a lot of water, some snacks, energy & enthusiasm.

Prep before the workshop

The participants should be briefed to be on time and to have an open mind.

Everyone has one job to do before the workshop: use 15 minutes to list the competition and their main selling argument.

A voluntary, but preferred task is to watch Simon Sinek’s TEDx talk about understanding your WHY.

During the workshop

The idea of the workshop is to extract individual ideas. This is why for the majority of the workshop, work is done individually in a group. Unless stated otherwise, all of the exercises are done individually in silence.

Discuss only when the facilitator encourages it. This may seem odd in the beginning but trust the process. You will be surprised about the method outcomes.

After every stage the facilitator will photograph the results and add them to a slide deck and/or a physical canvas. A physical canvas is recommended, because this helps on maintaining focus of the end result and it is easy to revise the previous steps.

Voting during the workshop

The voting process is the same throughout the workshop. Everyone is given a predetermined amount of dot stickers/vote. When the time to vote comes, everyone silently and simultaneously places their stickers on the note they want to vote for. You are allowed to vote on your own answers and you can spread your dots on different notes or put them all on one. This is up to you.

Tips for running this workshop online

  • Pick an online whiteboard tool that allows you to use a large, zoomable canvas.

  • If you’re not using an online whiteboard, we’d recommend using a collaboration tool such as Google Docs to collect the information for each step under a separate heading. Invite everyone into the document to share their ideas but be very clear in regards to editing rights.

  • When facilitating group discussion, we’d recommend that participants use non-verbal means to indicate they’d like to speak. You can use tools like Zoom’s nonverbal feedback tools, a reaction emoji, or just have people put their hands up. The facilitator can then invite that person to talk.

  • Use built-in dot voting tools or allocate dot shapes manually in your online whiteboard tool for the voting section. If using Google Docs or similar, have people comment as a vote.

Marketing Strategy Sprint from Karl Filtness at MEOM.

Karl Filtness
Director of Growth, MEOM
2h 00m

Crafting a Key Message Workshop

This short workshop introduces participants to a simple method for crafting the "key message" around which a presentation, elevator pitch, email or conversation (or any other individual piece of communication) will be designed.

This workshop can be delivered as a stand-alone session to build transferrable skills, or it can be one module in a series of short skills development workshops offered weekly/fortnightly over a period of time. It can be delivered as part of a one- to two-day presentation or communication skills programme.

This template assumes that it will be run as a stand-alone workshop and includes time for set-up and conclusions - these can be removed as needed. This template also assumes that participants know each other, so no time has been included for participant introductions - you may need to build this in if you have a mixed group.

Goal:

By the end of this workshop, participants will have learned a 5-step process for creating a key message that they can use in their communication (presentations, conversations, emails, pitches etc.) to tailor their message to their audience and keep their communication clear and focused.

Participants:

Ideal for 8-12 participants in person, or up to 20 online (more than that and you need to factor in more time for discussions)

Templates: (both attached.)

Simple Key Message Planner template (recommended):

Key Message Planner with Example (for use when talking participants through the planner):

SessionLab
SessionLab Templates
3h 00m

Feature Sprint for Startups

Designed for early-stage startups, this 3-hour workshop agenda is a step by step process that will help a team align on company purpose, develop a long-term roadmap, and prioritize the feature set of your app or service.

You'll align on what your MVP (minimum viable product) is and generate customer-centric features you can move towards developing too! This process can help quickly clarify and solve many of the problems young start-ups have, for example:

  • Teams that have been “going in circles” when talking about next steps
  • Have a lot of ideas but don't have a starting point
  • Lack clarity about the specific value proposition for marketing, web, and social content

Tips for running this workshop online

  • Pick an online whiteboard tool that allows you to use a large, zoomable canvas.

  • If you’re not using an online whiteboard, we’d recommend using a collaboration tool such as Google Docs to collect the information for each step under a separate heading. Invite everyone into the document to share their ideas but be very clear in regards to editing rights.

  • When facilitating group discussion, we’d recommend that participants use non-verbal means to indicate they’d like to speak. You can use tools like Zoom’s nonverbal feedback tools, a reaction emoji, or just have people put their hands up. The facilitator can then invite that person to talk.

  • Use built-in dot voting tools or allocate dot shapes manually in your online whiteboard tool for the voting section. If using Google Docs or similar, have people comment to indicate a vote.

Feature Sprint for Startups from Justin Mertes at Crema.

Want more context? Watch this video from Justin on how the feature sprint helped Vera, a plant care app.

Justin Mertes
Coach and design sprint facilitator at Crema
1h 20m

Persona Empathy Workshop

Personas are one of the most popular tools in user research, and are a great way to create shared understanding about users. But they are useless unless people know what they are and how to utilize them.

Designed for research or user-focused teams who want to help others in their organization understand the value and importance of customer personas, this 1-hour 20 minute workshop agenda is highly focused step by step process that is simple and easy to run.

  • You'll demonstrate the power of personas and how preconceptions about users and customers are often incorrect.
  • Your team will gain some of the tools necessary to better empathize with users and employ personas across the organization
  • You'll generate ideas on how to solve problems and meet the needs of your chosen customer persona

This workshop is intended for groups and organizations that are already using or start to use customer personas and who are trying to extend the understanding and use of personas across an organization. You may run this with participants in less user-focused parts of the organization, or to begin demonstrating the value of personas to your team in a concise, effective way.

Tips for running this workshop online

  • Pick an online whiteboard tool that allows you to use a large, zoomable canvas.

  • If you’re not using an online whiteboard, we’d recommend using a collaboration tool such as Google Docs to collect the information for each step under a separate heading. Invite everyone into the document to share their ideas but be very clear in regards to editing rights.

  • When facilitating group discussion, we’d recommend that participants use non-verbal means to indicate they’d like to speak. You can use tools like Zoom’s nonverbal feedback tools, a reaction emoji, or just have people put their hands up. The facilitator can then invite that person to talk.

  • Use built-in dot voting tools or allocate dot shapes manually in your online whiteboard tool for the voting section. If using Google Docs or similar, have people comment to indicate a vote.

Persona Empathy Workshop from Maxwell Forrest.
Maxwell Forrest
UX Research Specialist
1h 58m

Conversation Cafe: A World Dialogue Relay

This template has been designed for hosts planning a World Dialogue Relay event for UN75 on 24 October 2020.

This Conversation Cafe agenda includes a series of step-by-step elements that will help you guide a group through a structured discussion. This template has been developed by the team at X360 for open use drawing on the UN75 Toolkit and the UNA-USA resources. It is available for use by Connected Conversations dialogue hosts and facilitators everywhere

The agenda elements are designed to be delivered over 2 hours, however, please feel free to adapt this based on the size of your group, and your own facilitation and hosting style. You can even adjust the Conversation Cafe format for your own events and needs!

Before your session

  1. Review the hosting and facilitation guide at https://connversations.x360.co/relay/
  2. Register your session on the IdeaSphere at https://ideasphere.x360.co/add-listing/
  3. Encourage participants to take the UN75 survey in advance, to get the conversation going in their minds and online: www.un.org/UN75
  4. Designate a note-taker to capture the key points from your dialogue

Capturing feedback

We will provide you with a link to an online feedback form in a format provided by #UN75 to capture your group's conversation. This form will include the following details:

  1. Main topics covered (from the UN themes + any others)
  2. Dialogue type (online or in-person)
  3. Country where the dialogue was hosted
  4. The top 1-3 ideas for each topic discussed and/or a summary in max 750 characters
  5. Nationality of participants
  6. Education level of most participants
  7. Occupation of most participants

You can choose to complete this feedback process during your session as a group, or summarise notes for submission after the session.

Tips for hosting the session

The facilitator plays a crucial role in these conversations. Some broad guiding principles include:

  • Communicate clearly on why the dialogues are taking place, and where the discussion will go
  • Respect and facilitate the sharing of different perspectives
  • Constructively address conflicting positions and power imbalances
  • Adapt to local needs
  • Ensure some element of recording and feedback (an online feedback form will be provided)

Tips for running the session online

  • Choose a video conferencing tool to host the your group conversation - Zoom, Google Hangouts, Adobe Connect or whatever tool your group prefers is most familiar with is your best bet.
  • If facilitating with very large groups, use breakout rooms to help facilitate productive conversations in smaller groups before bringing them back into the main room.
  • You might want to posit your questions alongside visual resources and collect feedback and notes using an online whiteboard tool. This is great for creating a resource people can revisit after the session. But don't forget that you'll need to share a summary of the group discussion via the online feedback form provided.

  • When facilitating group discussion, we’d recommend that participants use non-verbal means to indicate they’d like to speak. You can use tools like Zoom’s nonverbal feedback tools, a reaction emoji, or just have people put their hands up. The facilitator can then invite that person to speak.

  • Use an online engagement tool such as Mentimeter or Poll Anywhere to get quick feedback at the start of each conversation point, or where it feels appropriate.

Need help?

Don't hesitate to reach out to the X360 convening team if you need assistance or you have any questions. You are also invited to join the online collaboration space for the World Relay at https://ideaspace.x360.co.

X360.co
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