Designing Workshops*
*This is just one example of a workshop I have designed. I have extensive experience designing and facilitating workshops using design-thinking methodologies for a variety of use cases including client visioning, strategic planning, operating model development and organizational design, product strategy, and business development. I am experienced with working at all levels of an organization (including extensive experience at the Executive level) and planning workshops with durations ranging from a few hours to a few days (virtual and in-person).
Challenge: How might the Welcome.US CEO Council leverage its collective resources and co-create actionable solutions to meet goals and set itself up for subsequent successes?
Outcome: Three co-created solutions that were presented to the Welcome.US CEO Council to fund for execution and implementation.
My Role: As Business Design Lead, I was responsible for leading research planning and stakeholder interviews, research synthesis and challenge identification, and designing and facilitating a one-day workshop with high-level executives from Fortune 500 companies.
Team Structure: Design Director, Business Design Lead (me), Digital Producer, Visual Designer
Summary: Launched in response to the extraordinary challenge of resettling first Afghan allies after the fall of Kabul in 2021, and then Ukrainian newcomers displaced by war, Welcome.US mobilizes Americans to help resettle newcomers seeking safety in the U.S. To aid its mission, Welcome.US established its “CEO Council” that brings together America's most influential companies to help resettle newcomers and ensure they thrive.
To help Welcome.US, our team was asked to facilitate a workshop with CEO Council members to co-create actionable solutions to drive employment for newcomers and create accountability amongst the CEO Council by establishing metrics for driving and refining identified solutions.
To prepare for this workshop, our team was responsible for facilitating interviews with members of Fortune 500 CHRO organizations represented in the CEO Council to identify critical best practices and barriers to finding, hiring, onboarding and managing career growth for newcomers.
Critical insights from the interviews were brought to a one-day ideation workshop designed to co-create and prioritize solutions to identified barriers, harnessing the collective power of CEO Council members. The top-three solutions were brought to the CEO Council forum in 2022.
Building a Workshop to Co-Create Actionable Solutions with Fortune 500 Companies
Activity 1: Five Whys
At the top of the session, we reviewed the common challenges we heard in the pre-workshop interviews to create a foundation for solutioning. Each table was asigned one of the challenges to think through during the day. However, instead of having tables jump straight into solutioning, we used Toyota’s process (5 Whys) for identifying the root cause of a problem so we knew where to best focus efforts
Activity 2: Aligning on a Solution
After deciding on a “root cause” and framing it into a “how might we” statement, participants were asked to brainstorm potential solutions for the root cause - thinking as big as possible! We then had them narrow their focus on one solution by plotting solutions generated by the table on a feasibility vs. impact matrix.
Activity 3: Documenting a Path Forward
After defining the solution to move forward with for the remainder of the day, tables were asked to build the path forward, thinking through 1) what are the steps to bring this to life? 2) what are the enablers to bring this to life (people, process, technology)? 3) what are the potential blockers that would prevent this from coming to life? 4) what resources are needed? 5) who are the key stakeholders? All of this was documented on a poster, and tables then briefed the room on what they had come up with and why, and gave other participants the chance to provide critique and ask questions.
Activity 3: Putting Money On It
After ideas had been shared and critiqued, the room was asked to find the other participants from their respective organizations. Each organization was given fake dollars that they could spend as they wished on the ideas presented in the room to indicate buy-in and support. Support level for each idea was indicated by where organization put their dollars, aligning them with 4 categories: Champion (I want to lead this), Do-er (I want to get my hands dirty), Subject Matter Expert (I want to provide advice), and Educated (I want to stay in the loop). This helped us prioritize the solutions presented, resulting in one being eliminated from consideration altogether. The remaining ideas would be cleaned up and presented in the CEO Council forum, occurring in the following weeks.
Workshop Output
Following the workshop, the remaining ideas were cleaned up and put into deck format to be presented by Welcome.US to the CEO Council forum to get real buy-in and support from the organizations’ global CEOs.
