In the blog article “A step-by-step guide to planning a workshop” you can find reflections and inspiration on how to create a new workshop from scratch, from ideation to follow-up. If you are creating a new workshop, chances are you are doing it for a client. During the entire process, you will be checking in with them to learn about their needs, agree on the design, collect feedback, and reflect together after the event.

This template makes that process easier by laying out clearly each step to be covered. It is divided into five parts, each lasting an hour. 

• Sharing a vision
• Defining the agenda
• Refining the agenda
• Briefing the team
• Collecting learnings

The first part, Sharing a vision, sets out a model for the first meeting with your client (and/or their team) to collect information about the future workshop. Are there non-negotiable elements (e.g. has the date been set already)? What are the tangible and intangible desired outcomes? You can even download a ready-to-use canvas for this important first meeting!

The second part, Defining the agenda is likely to be… a meeting you have with yourself, if you work alone, or just with your co-facilitator. This is the stage at which you will define your draft agenda, to share with the client before, or at, the next meeting.

The third part, Refining the agenda, is about explaining your proposed design and collecting feedback. This is also an opportunity to share your knowledge about facilitation and explain your choices, helping you and your client grow together.

As the workshop date draws nearer, get ready by briefing the team, host and speakers in the third meeting. Finally, after the event is over, get together once again for a retrospective focused on learning.

The touchpoints detailed in this resource do not cover the entire process of workshop planning. The parts covered by the template are the ones most likely to happen in synchronous meetings.

There are other tasks, such as signing agreements with your client, advertising the workshop, or registering participants, that happen asynchronously, via emails and other digital tools.  All of these steps are described in the accompanying blog post on Workshop Planning.