Workshop cards
Instructions
You are accessing this page because you have received our Mischief Makers Workshop Cards and/or are part of our Facilitation Course. This article is a source of knowledge & inspiration exclusively for our course participants/alumni and should not be shared externally or copy and pasted to the outside world. We trust you respect this.
That said, you’re free to reference this as long as you credit Mischief Makers.
Preparation is key, more so than ever when facilitating online or hybrid.
Here we’re introducing you to our mischievous approach of designing and planning productive (online) meetings and workshops. For this, we’re using our nifty mantra: "I DO FLOW" as a guide and process.
I = Intention
DO = Desired Outcome
FLOW = Rough sketch of the agenda
I DO
As you can see, this is a mischievous hack and spin-off from the IDOARRT model. It’s used here to create a debrief framework for session design. By first and foremost putting the intention ( I ) and desired outcome to paper ( DO ), you can ensure your planning is aligned with the expectations of all stakeholders. This will save you a lot of time later, and ensures that you're heading off into the project with everyone's noses pointed in the same direction. Therefore, first step: define your I + DO.
FLOW
‘Arching’ is a learning design technique created by Simon Kavanagh, at Kaos Pilots. This method is a way to visualize the journey a participant will go through. For a comprehensive introduction to Learning Arches in all their glory you can check out this article. Luckily for those of us who love to geek out on all things facilitation, Simon and Kaos Pilots deeply believe in the value of Open Source, so they have a wealth of materials you can dive into if you’re curious to learn more.
Staying true to our value of keeping things simple, we’ve broken this down into a more digestible form that can be applied to any meeting, workshop, program or experience.
This curve is the main arch to represent your overarching (😉) intention; Your ‘I’. The desired outcomes ( DO ) can be placed as the gold at the end of the rainbow on the very right of your arch. This is what you want to land with at the end of your session.
FLOW: Arching in phases
Arching can feel intimidating, with different elements to consider. It helps if you take it step-by-step - in phases.
Phase 1:
With your main arch in place and the desired outcomes to head towards, you can begin looking out your FLOW- we like to divide and label sections of the arch into Launch, Explore, Land activities.
Launch:
Kickstarting your session and setting the scene. This phase is all about making sure people arrive well; feeling comfortable, confident and aligned - ready to move forward with their noses pointing in the same direction.
Explore:
This is where the main action of your session takes place. The phase where you get things done! You collaborate, create, communicate, make decisions - all those activities which move you toward your desired outcomes.
Land:
This is where you bring it all together, wrapping up your session on a strong note. You review your progress and agree next steps, landing your sessions learnings and reflections for a shared sense of closure and achievement.
Phase 2
Start plotting basic 'chunks' of activity, underneath the arch for each section, e.g: check in, warm up, brainstorm, reflection, check out. By using generic placeholders like this, you can already get a feel for the top level agenda, without getting bogged down in finding the ‘perfect’ exercise.
Phase 3
Then, you can dig deeper and choose the exact exercises to fit your session. The workshop cards already give you a great range of different activities that you can personalize and tweak for the intention of your session. For further inspo there are some brilliant toolkits out there (see below). It can be daunting or intimidating to go on resources where there are thousands of exercises but by mapping your basic flow you should already have a framework to help focus your search.
Here’s a list of our favourites:
Once you’ve chosen some exercises you like the look of, it’s time to plot them onto your arch FLOW. We recommend using the workshop cards and/or post-its either on a wall or large paper or virtually on a whiteboard.
Next level mischief
Insert accenting moments in your FLOW. Simon K. calls these ‘disturbances’. Our favorites include Knowledge Disturbances (such as sharing a model, quote or statistic) and Creative Disturbances (such as an energizer, giving a timeboxed challenge - something to refresh peoples thinking or boost energy) - and of course breaks. Mark moments into your design, where you think they might need a boost, a break or some focus - to lift energy or offer headspace. You can find them all here.