Workshop Planning

Who this is for

14 tasks for planning a workshop or training session — objectives, materials, exercises, logistics, and the follow-up. It fits anything from a half-day internal session to a paid public workshop.

Write the outcome before the agenda

The objectives task comes first for a reason. What will people be able to do at the end that they couldn't at the start? is a harder question than what should I cover?, and answering it cuts about a third of the content you were planning to include.

Everything that doesn't serve the outcome is material you're presenting because you know it, not because they need it.

People learn by doing, not by watching

The exercise-design tasks are the ones worth the most preparation. A workshop that's 80% presentation is a talk with chairs arranged differently. Aim for participants working — individually or in pairs — for at least half the session, and prepare the exercises in more detail than the slides.

Time each exercise generously. They always take longer than the version you ran in your head, and being rushed through an activity teaches nothing.

Logistics quietly determine the mood

Room layout, whether people can see each other, the temperature, when the coffee arrives, whether the power sockets reach. None of these are the content and all of them affect how the session goes. Arrive early enough to fix them.

The follow-up is where retention happens

Send the materials, the exercise outputs, and one concrete next step within a couple of days. Most of what people take away is what they revisit in the week afterwards.

Timing

Three to four weeks. Add due dates if materials need approval or printing.