Understanding user needs and pain points is essential for building successful products and services, but that doesn’t mean we need to get stuck going down a multi-month research hole in order to be “ready” to collaborate, innovate, or prototype. Learn how to overcome research analysis paralysis with some actionable methods for gathering and applying insights – all without a big research budget.

The return-to-office conversation has been top of mind for many as more and more companies call employees back to work in person. Rather than simply telling people to return to the office without any structure or intention, let’s instead think about the best way to accomplish the work to be done. Here’s a workshop format for team leaders and managers who want to handle this next chapter with intention.

Want to cultivate a more dynamic, engaged, and successful organization? Who doesn’t! One of the most impactful ways to achieve this goal is to take a more intentional approach to innovation. Learn the benefits of doing so, and three different workshops formats that will jumpstart the process for you team.

Most workshops follow a common arc from beginning to end, with five very distinct chapters along the way. Understanding these chapters and the goals for each can be helpful in narrowing down or honing in on the right activities to use to help achieve the desired outcomes for your workshop. Take a look at the chapters and a few example methods to make the planning part of your job a lot more straightforward.

Did you know that most people agree de-titled introductions are preferred when kicking off workshops and meetings? Here’s why it’s so powerful, and the benefits it brings to the workshop space.

When facilitating teams embarking upon strategic work, one of the most important alignment exercises you can cover is defining what success looks like. My go-to is the playing field method, where success is defined by the participants in terms of good, better and best. Those milestones can refer to interim goals that happen en route to a home run, or different versions of success that range from most realistic to most ambitious. Here’s how to do it.

You know that really long follow-up email that goes out after most meetings? This exercise aims to eliminate it by asking teams to align on what should happen next before they leave the room. Try my Time Horizons activity at the end of any strategic workshop, Design Sprint, or big meeting as a way to organize what will happen next, and who will be responsible for doing it by when.

Customer interviews are an opportunity to put a prototype in front of real people to learn what is and isn’t working so you can adjust accordingly. In order for it to work, you need to get the right information from your interviewees. This downloadable guide will help you understand how to craft questions that will get the right information flowing.

Should we default to in-person meetings as pandemic restrictions ease, or should virtual meeting spaces remain as ubiquitous for their ability to increase collaboration and accessibility? To answer that question, let’s look at the pluses and minuses of remote, in-person and hybrid workshops, according to Steph Cruchon and me.

When teams are stuck in the weeds it’s usually not because any one person failed to do their job, or because the group isn’t capable. It’s simply because the team doesn’t have the right tools to unlock the answers. This is why it’s so critical to bring in reinforcements when you’re having trouble accelerating a project or idea.

How a Strategic Planning & Roadmapping Session helped an essential program adapt and evolve in a very short amount of time to support the growth of the business.

Struggling to make progress, launch a new idea or hit business objectives? There’s usually a solution, and it often takes a workshop or planning session to lead you and your team to it. To get started, take this quiz to find out which workshop option is right for your business.