The Ultimate Business Workshop … from creative toolkits, design sprints, and innovation projects … to strategic decision-making, leadership development and team building

February 28, 2024

I love running workshops for all kinds of business challenges – from design sprints to innovation summits, boardroom visioning to strategic decision making, leadership development and team building – or sometimes a mixture of all these together. I’ve run them across the world, from Singapore to Seattle, Jeddah to Jo’burg, from 10-person board meetings to 1000-person events.

While the content and format needs to be tuned to the audience and objectives, there are some factors which are essential in every kind of workshop:

  • human ingenuity … people, at every level, need to be engaged, inspired, and encouraged to participate, creating a space and energy to share fragile ideas with confidence, and to build on them positively.
  • practical resources … brainstorms are probably the least effective technique to generate new thinking, and there are 100s more tools to drive useful, meaningful outcomes.
  • effective structure … workshops are journeys, they need context and purpose, a starting point, to open up and then stretch, to build momentum, and to close down, to have a conclusion and deliverables.
  • intelligent facilitation … while everyone brings their ideas and opinions, they need stimulus and challenge, connection and interpretation, which requires intelligent facilitation, not just a flipchart scribe.

What I’ve found is that workshops need all these factors. And if you combine a learning and delivering experience – be driven by real issues, add new research and education, add new tools which people can use themselves, add expertise and challenge, and ensure that the delivery will have a real impact for the organisation – then workshops can be turning points in the progress and impact of organisations, teams and people.

Below are some of the most useful resources which I use, both developed myself over the last 30 years running workshops with teams all over the world, and from a wide range of expert partners:

Future Lab is a structured facilitation process for workshops, or sometimes a series of workshops to develop new ideas, strategies, innovation and more, combining clear structure with embedded tools.

Gamechanger Labs are a portfolio of 16 business canvases, or templates, to explore the future of your business – from vision and strategy to insights and innovation, to leadership and culture, based on Peter Fisk’s best-selling “Gamechangers”.

Sitra Futuremakers Toolbox from the Finnish government innovation fund, helps you recognise trends and emerging phenomena, imagine alternative futures and link your future-oriented thinking to change-making.

Strategyzer Toolkit with some of the best ideas, learnings and methods from Alex Osterwalder and his team, most famous for the business model canvas, to help you further your understanding and practice of innovation.

IDEO Design Kit. Human-centered design is a step-by-step guide from David Kelley and the IDEO team  to unleashing your creativity, putting the people you serve at the center of your design process to come up with new answers to difficult problems.

Design Method Toolkit is a comprehensive resource for designers of all levels, providing a well-organised and easy-to-use overview of the human-centred design process, from research to creation.

The Hyper Island Toolbox is a collection of methods and activities that focus on experiential learning, collaboration, and real-world problem-solving.

XPlane Change Toolkit, the visual sense-making company established by Dave Grey is known for producing fabulous  infographics that interpret complexity in smart and simple ways, and now offers a wide range of worksheets

BOI Innovation Toolkit brings together more perspectives on business innovation, including some great case studies, and also a range of tools to make the case for radical change.

Circular Business Design Guide helps business leaders identify circular opportunities and design business models that create, deliver and capture value in ways that also benefit society and the environment.

The Atlassian Team Playbook is a  collection of workshop resources that help teams work better together. It includes a variety of tools and activities to improve communication, collaboration, and problem-solving.

Nesta DIY Toolkit is more specifically for public-sector organisations, governments and agencies, starting with a flowchart to show how the many tools fit together. It’s designed for public-sector, but actually works for any kind of organisation.

Business Futures Project brings over 300 resources together to help you build a better future, from the best books and articles to case studies and reports, tools and templates, videos and much more.

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