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Definitions

A small and petty discussion led to the question of the difference between a meeting and a workshop. As BA’s, we often call for both for different purposes.

• A meeting may be an FYI, a one-sided presentation or at best a discussion, whereas a workshop generally ends with an artefact of some kind; maybe a whiteboard and post-it note collection, maybe a process model, different sorts of brainstorm, sizing, design exercises, maybe just a document with a list of requirements they told you about the whole time.
• Workshops are important as they imply more engagement with stakeholders, with naming convention step 1 to telling the difference in level of engagement required.

In either circumstance, both are time consuming to run and organise. Individual may try to rule the forum, and it can be difficult to get required level of authority in one place (as things either tend to escalate quickly or incorrect people are engaged). But the intention and benefit remain: Both of these are collaborative forums where issues can be discussed much faster than individual meetings, covering a wide area of knowledge with collaboration stakeholders are more likely to buy in to the process.

Preparing for Workshop

• What do you want to achieve? Try breaking down requirements into individual components.
• Make sure attendees are invited, and representative of what you are trying to achieve.
• Interests of participants are understood, and their viewpoints considered.
• Structure of the workshop needs to obtain the results you need and the people present (think STOP and social issues).
• Arrange a suitable venue, safe from workplace politics or issue.
• Select appropriate techniques (below), and plan/procure appropriate supporting materials and resources (like Post-It Notes or facilitation software like Miro).

Workshop Techniques

• Brainstorming: Ideas and evaluation are conducted simultaneously and points recorded usually on a flip chart of similar device
• Brain Writing: Participants write down their thoughts and then these are collected
• Break Out Groups: Smaller groups work on the issue then present findings
• Collaborative Games: used to develop a better understanding of a problem or to stimulate creative solutions.
• Concept Modelling: used to identify key terms and ideas of importance and define the relationships between them.
• Data Mining: used to identify relevant information and patterns.
• Data Modelling: used to understand entity relationships during elicitation.
• Document Analysis: used to review existing systems, contracts, business procedures and policies, standards, and regulations.
• Round Robin: Participants are asked for their opinions in turn
• Stepwise Reinforcement: Where we take a statement and keep asking “Why?” until we get back to the heart of the situation
• Focus Groups: used to identify and understand ideas and attitudes from a group.
• Interface Analysis: used to understand the interaction, and characteristics of that interaction, between two entities, such as two systems, two organizations, or two people or roles.
• Interviews: used to ask questions of stakeholders to uncover needs, identify problems, or discover opportunities.
• Mind Mapping: used to generate many ideas from a group of stakeholders in a short period, and to organize and prioritize those ideas.
• Observation: used to gain insight about how work is currently done, possibly in different locations and in different circumstances. Not typically done in workshops.
• Process Analysis: used to understand current processes and to identify opportunities for improvement in those processes.
• Process Modelling: used to elicit processes with stakeholders during elicitation activities.
• Prototyping: used to elicit and validate stakeholders’ needs through an iterative process that creates a model of requirements or designs.

Facilitating the Workshop

• Discuss the objectives and try to obtain buy in, try using the business sponsor to open the discussion.
• Ensure that the conversation and discussion does not go too off track from the objectives.
• Keep notes of key points of the discussions, make sure non-verbal clues can be recorded.
  • You may wish to have a second person take notes if you are facilitating interactive activities.
• Summarise all the points made for further buy in and follow up by sending participants the information.

Resources:

Some guides to running workshops using Human Centred Design principles: https://www.vic.gov.au/download-human-centred-design-playbook

Cynicism

On the cynical side, “if it’s a workshop, we can get catering in. Get some coffee, maybe a nice lunch out of it, slices/biscuits for afternoon tea, etc”. Whilst some say “if it’s just a meeting it lacks pizzazz”, others argue “if it’s just a meeting it lacks pizza”. Take from this what you will.

Stefan Carton, Mr Dapper from the Discord

Last updated: 4/03/2023