The hidden value of workshops for a manager
Or how to squeeze the most out of a workshop! 🍋 🍋 🍋
As I’m finishing my second month at Monzo, I’ve already organised two team workshops. In this article, I want to touch on the different lenses managers can take when it comes to running a workshop. I will then talk about the hidden outcomes managers should try to achieve in these events. Finally, I will also give some tips on how to successfully run a workshop in order for managers to focus on the outcomes that matters.
And what better fruit to compare this to than a lemon 🍋! Lemons are versatile in that you can use them for multiple reasons: drink its juice, use the zest in your dishes or bake them for some nice tarts. Like workshops, they can provide many different benefits. Let's see how we can squeeze all the juice out of a workshop!
The three lenses of an Engineering Manager
As an engineering manager organizing a workshop, here are the three lenses you will need to look through at times.
#1 - The Participant
As a participant, your goal will be to be present without being omnipresent. You need to voice my opinions like everyone else but as an equal and not as someone who is the boss. There is also the possibility that you are the least technically knowledgeable in the room! Use this to your advantage: listen actively, learn from others and ask challenging or clarifying questions: it's easy to come with good intention in such situations.
#2 - The Facilitator
In an ideal world, you would always have an external party as a facilitator. But we're not in a hyper growth world anymore, and they have become somewhat of a rarity, meaning you as a manager will often have to facilitate. Being a facilitator while participating is always tricky. It’s very distracting to balance out the strict time keeping with your participants duties. You will also want to create a safe space and make sure you don’t skip on the important parts. This can be very draining and it’s easy to stop facilitating and just participate.
But facilitating can also be very rewarding. You are in full control of how the workshop will progress: if you provide strong guidelines for how it should flow, you’ll be driving a very successful team event!
#3 - The Manager
Finally, the manager lens. This is probably not obvious, but a workshop is a fantastic place for a manager to observe, as you can capture a lot of information about your reports, in work situations. It will allow you to directly assess things like behaviour, soft skills and collaboration. You can also identify first hand the individuals who cares about the growth of the team and those who keep the company goals in mind for example.
However don’t use this as a way to assess performance overall. Be conscious to not over judge. You will get a lot of data at once, but very raw. Keep in mind someone might be an introvert / not comfortable sharing in these types of forums, or simply not feel well on that day.
Picture the workshop as an observation pod where you can see one facet of your team.
The hidden outcomes of a workshop
There are clear, visible outcomes to a workshop: the ones you will have defined for that specific event. It can be about coming up with new ideas, reviewing a complex technical design or reflecting on some team health results for example.
But there are also hidden outcomes for an engineering manager and that is to gain first hand signals on your team dynamics. You will be in a unique position to see the flow in action, in front of you. Make the most of it!
Remember that you won't have time to take notes on your hidden outcomes, so be prepared to store a lot of that knowledge in your brain until you can pen it down. In order to best achieve that, you need to manage your energy levels.
And the best way to stay focused and energized is to minimize distractions in order to maximize the absorption of information.
Tips to run a workshop smoothly
Here are some tips that will ensure your workshop runs smoothly. The main goal here is to avoid any interruption to the flow of the workshop, ensuring focus for the team and saving your energy as a facilitator / participant / manager to also work towards your hidden outcomes. In no specific order, I recommend to:
Get your logistics right: book a room with a whiteboard, prepare pens and papers if you’re onsite. Make sure everyone has access to the tool if you’re running it remotely. The worst that can happen is to lose 20 minutes figuring out how to access the file on the day.
Always have a plan B: in particular, don’t expect everyone to be onsite even if they say so. There is always something that will throw your plan away. Have a backup plan and be ready to use it!
Have some pre-work and send it around a few days before: you have better use of the precious time you all have together than reading silently.
Prepare a clear agenda with timings, and share it in advance. This will drive excitement and can also allow you to adjust the topics if necessary.
List your expected visible outcomes and share them in advance. Start the workshop by going through them again. Mentioning these outcomes will allow you to adjust the discussion back towards your goals during the day, in case it goes off topic.
Identify who owns which part of the workshop, and clarify what’s expected from everyone involved. Again, you don’t want any surprises timing wise, so be clear and give time for people to prepare.
Be strict on time keeping but also don’t break the flow: this can be very hard to balance correctly. If the discussion is valuable but is taking longer than expected, it’s fine to interrupt and be transparent: should we continue this discussion or move on to the next topic?
Make sure to capture any agreed action: it can be a good idea to nominate someone to do so (you have enough to do already!)
I like to have a clear parking lot section for those items that we would love to discuss but are clearly outside the scope of the workshop. Make it visible on the wall or the virtual board you’re using so you can refer back to it at a later point.
I usually open the workshop by laying out a few rules. The main one is what I call the fluid rule: basically, don’t interrupt the flow if you need to have a five minutes break / go out / get a drink. It doesn’t help when having a conversation and someone comes off mute just to say “I’ll be right back, just answering the door!”.
Allow for frequent breaks, but be clear you expect people to be focused when they’re in the room.
You can usually get 2 to 3 hours of deep focus time per half day, so plan around that. I would recommend cutting on your agenda to fit between 10am and 4pm rather than pushing everything to fit between 9am and 6pm.
Use lunch as a social time! A good workshop is a great opportunity for knowing people a bit better, particularly at a personal level. Pretty much everyone will need lunch so this is an opportunity to stay together and share. Interestingly, you’ll see that some discussions will naturally evolve towards the content of the workshop too!
If possible, avoid any after work activity. While it might be fine to grab a casual, unplanned drink, a lot of people usually end up a day of workshop being completely drained. And it’s actually a good sign as it means people have been working deeply for most of the day!
This is by no means an exhaustive list but it should help you understand the ingredients of a successful workshop. Do you have any tips for running workshops? Any preferred topic or format that you want to share? Please leave a comment or reach out, I’d love to discuss on that topic!