How long should a workshop be

Workshops are seriously undervalued, but there are perceived barriers that keep people from stepping into the world of what workshops can bring. Time is the ultimate finite resource. In our Workshop Creator sessions, one of the parallels we look to is that of the movie producer — the person behind much of that movie magic.

Workshop creators share many of the movie producer traits: building stories; collating resources and teasing out important details; enabling teams. And they most definitely also need to be time pessimists. To help you balance this tension and manage your own workshop creation expectations, this guide will help you plan and estimate each stage of creation, as well as iterations to improve your workshop and even create new products. Some think of a short evening session focused on shaping a skill; others of company-organized training mornings or two-day team off-sites.

Indeed, some workshops last an hour, others may span several days. Some may even run for a period of several months although these are more likely to be programs with several modules — a topic for a later post.

This is important for a number of reasons — one of which is the build time varies depending on the flavor of workshop. A Strategic or Operational flavor is generally going to take a little less time. An Educational workshop typically means more time needs to be invested. This flavor is more content-rich, and requires more format switching to maintain energy and groove. No bueno. This should get your creative juices flowing, as well as maintaining an eye on the business side of things. We use 4 mindsets in our programs.

Thinking : Recognizing the difference between traditional learning experiences and the future of learning; understanding different learning styles; embracing mistakes; becoming part of the experience. Designing : Design thinking essentials, as well as crafting effective outcomes, flexible and robust structure, plus utilizing different workshops formats, and surfacing the narrative of a workshop.

Developing : The design phase provides the skeleton of the workshop. Development is about sculpting and crafting; workshop activities, narrative, presentations, and supporting materials. Prototyping will happen here too.

Delivering : The actual delivery of the session. This is about preparing in the days and weeks before; applying fundamental principles of facilitation; using story in effective ways, and troubleshooting. The mindsets become the foundations of a process to follow when creating any workshop. An outsize amount of effort in the creation of almost any workshop is going to come at the design stage. The double diamond helps break down the workshop creation process, but how do you figure out the actual amount of time to invest?

First, take the number of hours of delivery. This is the length of your workshop, excluding any breaks of more than 15 minutes. For example, a full-day workshop from 9am-4pm with 1 hour for lunch and a couple of 15 min breaks is 6 hours of delivery 7 hour day, minus the 1-hour lunch, ignoring the shorter breaks. For example, many conferences schedule workshops to last 1 or 1. Some client workshops will be similar — they have a set slot for outside workshop sessions.

There are a few reasons: most audiences both online and in-person are comfortable with an hour and a half session; there are a bunch of workshop creation best practices that map really well to this number; and 1. Here are the multiples for each flavor:. Whether your workshop is on lumberjacking, safecracking, or vacation packing, you need to get your multiple.

You should now have your workshop flavor, your delivery time, and a multiplier. There are a few other things we want to bear in mind before running the numbers.

Luckily, we can do a decent job of quantifying these to help us plan effectively. The first two options may require ECTS credits to be transferred, but the last option may not. Transferring credits may be challenging as there is a considerable variation in course structures — with courses ranging in scope from ECTS credits at Diak and VID! Whether courses are concentrated over shorter periods or whether they are spread out over whole semesters may vary across and within institutions.

Semester dates can also vary. Start the planning early! And should they be compulsory for all students in the courses, or should they be voluntary? If the joint teaching activities are compulsory, the number of students will be easier to predict, which is an asset for planning. Making them voluntary can provide more flexibility in the implementation.

Office politics , poor workshop environment physical , lack of clear workshop definition or meeting purpose , and characteristics of the project all affect the risk of on-time completion.

The purpose of this step is to identify the products produced by the project. Product or project deliverables define the expected output of the workshops—the session deliverables. Consequently, the project deliverables indicate the needed type of workshop and who participates.

The identification of checkpoints is often the easiest way to partition workshops and their session deliverables.

This partitioning helps you schedule workshops based on the output expected rather than forcing a workshop based on a methodology or life cycle. Therefore, this second step of partitioning often defines the number and types of workshops required.

This step adds the second of four variables—participant resource availability—to the planning process. It validates the groupings completed in steps one and two as well as providing a functional partitioning for the identification of workshops. This step breaks down the project deliverables into various components built in each workshop—further defining the output of each workshop. It builds on the required project deliverable, the organization, and personnel involved and identifies what to produce in segmented pieces and what those pieces look like.

This step identifies the necessary approach and workshops required to produce the workshop deliverables and uses or modifies the results from step four. Therefore, you develop a sense of the draft agendas. This step ensures that you do not forget to kick off or close with a structured technique. Subsequently, this step establishes the calendar dates. For large projects, a general opening session avoids many small opening sessions.

This step verifies a correctly scheduled third variable—information needs and feeds. If the flow of the workshops is incorrect, there will be a great deal of retrofitting. Therefore, perform this step with great care. Let them teach each other at the same time that you are teaching them. For example, you can: Deliver information in short spurts and then allow participants to ask questions.

Divide participants into groups to complete a task and ask them to report back to the entire group. Show a video clip and then ask pairs of participants to discuss their reactions. Provide advice about how to handle a difficult situation and then ask small groups of participants to role-play the scenario. Have an expert demonstrate a technique and then ask your students to take a collaborative quiz about the technique.

Don't talk too much. You do not want to micromanage every stage of the workshop. Your participants might get bored or annoyed.

Stick to your scheduled breaks. Scheduling breaks helps people assimilate the information and reflect. Let participants know how often they will get breaks and the lengths of the breaks. This allows workshop attendees to plan accordingly for restroom usage, phone calls and other personal needs. Do not skip breaks, even if you are running short on time.

Switch up activities every minutes. Attention spans begin to wane after 20 minutes of the same activity. View this fact as an opportunity for creativity instead of as a problem. Change up your activities, ask your participants to rearrange their chairs, or schedule a break at least once every minutes to keep everyone engaged and motivated. Lighten the mood. Even if you are treating a serious topic, humor can be a great way to emphasize information and keep everyone attentive.

This will also encourage your participants to remain relaxed, alert, and comfortable. Maintain a respectful, democratic atmosphere. Make sure that all of your workshop participants are treated equally and respectfully. This means that any leadership roles such as group discussion leader should be distributed evenly across the workshop. Encourage quiet, shy participants to speak. You want everyone to feel heard and respected. Similarly, you do not want a single participant's voice or your own voice for that matter to dominate the discussion.

Be prepared for the unexpected. Most workshops will run smoothly. After all, the participants presumably want to be there and want to learn. However, there might be scenarios where somebody is unwilling to participate or might be insulting to a colleague. Be professional no matter what, and encourage respectful behavior by modeling respectful behavior.

If you have a participant who is acting up or trying to bully a colleague, consider speaking privately with that person.

Emphasize the importance of what you are teaching, and tell them that you expect adult, professional behavior from them. Conclude the workshop with a summary of what they have learned. Explain everything that your participants have learned over the course of the session. This will help emphasize how far they have come and what new skills they have acquired.

Refer explicitly to the objectives you laid out at the beginning of the workshop, and explain how you think the participants have met those objectives. Congratulate your workshop for their hard work and for their new knowledge. Part 4. Get feedback immediately after the session.

Design an evaluation form that your participants can fill out in the last few minutes of the workshop. Be sure that you leave them with enough time to comment and consider your questions carefully. Immediate feedback not only will help you improve your workshop but will also help reinforce the learning your participants have undertaken.

Did the workshop meet its stated objective? What activities helped your learning the most? The least? Was the workshop an appropriate length? What workshop materials handouts, readings, quizzes, etc. Which ones were the least useful?

How have you learned or grown from this workshop? How do you think your colleagues have learned or grown? How would you change this workshop in the future? Any suggestions for improvements? Are there any topics that you would like to take a workshop on? Follow up with the participants a few days or weeks later.

Ask workshop attendees if you may contact them in the future for their input. Some people need time to reflect back on their workshop experiences. Following up with workshop participants several days or weeks later might reveal new insights. You can ask additional questions such as: How well have you retained the information you learned in the workshop?

Do you still find yourself thinking about the workshop? How has the workshop helped you at work? Were there ways it could have helped you more?

What materials have you found useful since the workshop? What materials have you thrown away or forgotten about? Schedule a follow-up workshop if necessary. If enough participants are interested in more advanced versions of your workshop, consider scheduling a Part 2. In the follow-up workshop, you can address more of their questions, dig more deeply into the topic, or engage in more advanced versions of the techniques taught in Part 1.

Be sure that your follow-up workshop is not too repetitive and that it is suitable for more advanced attendees. Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered. Plan carefully, but leave yourself with enough flexibility to change your plans on the fly. Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0. Gauge your participants' reactions carefully at every step of the workshop. If you are not sure whether they are responding well to your activities, feel free to ask them and get their feedback.

Be clear about your objectives and about how your activities serve those objectives. Technological tools are great, but be sure that you are comfortable using them! If you are nervous about computerized presentations, find an expert to help you or consider another format.