Most projects have one or more workshops at the start of the project. Normally the workshop is a part of the project, but sometimes the workshop is a separate pre-project.
A workshop needs quite a bit of preparation to get the maximum value from it:
- First of all, you need to define the goal of the workshop. Normally the goal of a workshop in a Relatude web project would be to define and specify the details of the project to ensure that the end result is what the customer needs. You will often also need to define what the goal of the project is.
- Make sure the people with the required knowledge and decision making power is present. If you don’t get the correct people in the workshop, you often end up with the wrong answers or a long list of items to clarify and check afterwards. Since many decisions are based on those clarifications, to many such issues create problems.
- Create an agenda for the workshop.
When the workshop starts, one of the most important success factors is whether you get all the attendees to be involved and actively contribute to the project.
After most workshops there are a number of issues that need to be followed up. Make sure that responsibility for each task is clearly delegated, and that you have a clear deadline for the follow-ups.
Another important task is to write down the conclusions of the workshop. This has to be distributed to all attendees afterwards to allow misunderstandings to be cleared up, and to let people use it as the projects starts.