SOSO Engagement Workshop

2022-23

#CreativeStrategy 
#UX
#UXResearch
#EngagementDesign
#DesignThinking


^Team
Eric Gunther

^Role
Design Strategy, UX Research, Workshop Development, Visual Design

^Format
Online/Hybrid Condition:
Figma/FigJam (or equivalent collaboration platform)
In-person Condition:
Printed materials, whiteboards, stickies, sharpies & pens

^Time
2-5 hours

^For
SOSOLIMITED

A workshop framework + toolkit engages clients and end users into project design in creative ways.

The SOSO Engagement Workshop is a framework and a tool kit that helps us to understand clients and end users in early phases, engage them into our design process, hear their concerns and excitements, and inform us with better design decisions. It advances efficiency and effectiveness of our ways of design, and creates new project opportunities through sales pipeline and develop relationships.

Based on the nature of how we work in current world, the goal of the workshop tool kit design is to be flexible enough to adapt to any condition and time we need - whether online, hybrid, or in-person.

Varying from 2 to 5 hours, the workshops share the same four sections: Introduce, Align, Co-create, and Wrap-up. Within each section, I developed activities that serve for different purposes, from understanding project’s audience and client’s challenges, to sharing imagination of a project from past experiences and co-create ideas together.

Before the real show of a workshop, project team members spend one day or two select the activities, reframe them to best fit the context, divide up the roles (Facilitator, Note-takers, Time Keeper, etc), prepare the materials based on the research of the external participants and the project’s background, and do their “homework.”

There are a lot of things to keep in mind when designing the workshop.
Here are several principles from experiences (out of a hundred🫶).

01.

Go with no assumptions

Even we have a broad picture of client’s industry or things we may want to get from the people we meet with, it’s essential to not assume people’s answers.

02.

Ask open-ended questions

Never let the answer to be a simple yes-or-no. Keep things personal and conversational.

03.

Make things participatory, not an interview!

People can easily get bored, sadly. We have dedicated time for in-depth interviews.

04.

Be aware that the audience might be shy or hesitate to draw or write. 

Don’t put too much burden

on them, or we can start ourselves and guide the process.

05.

Track the time!

We absolutely love very engaging audience - yet we need a bad cop on the team :P

The engagement workshop has been run successfully in virtual or hybrid conditions, after which we analyzed the data, archived the results, sat down and talked about what worked well and what can be improved. The toolkit is continuously under iteration and will keep growing and changing.

Next Steps

Keep detailing the Activities, Hints, and Warnings into board game cards that can be mixed-and-matched, and preparing for a full in-person version.