How do you balance the content and the process of your workshops and avoid information overload?

Before diving into workshop planning, first define your "why" and "what". Pinpoint the challenge you're tackling, outline clear goals for your participants, and plan for evaluating their progress. This clarity directs your content, ensuring relevance and value, without straying into the unnecessary.

When developing a workshop, you need to start with the learning objectives or outcomes and design your activities and content around them. For example, if you have 4 objectives, you could design 4 activities that will accomplish those objectives. That will help to eliminate content overload and additional content unrelated to your objectives. Most workshops will also have parameters like time allotted so that also helps you to be selective with what you include.

If your client hasn't stipulated a timeframe, then a lot will depend on the topic you want to cover, teach, and the objective. Is it to deepen existing knowledge base, or will they be starting from scratch? This is crucial. I always have something on reserve to cover if needed and never get to it!

Generally, your client will have a time slot for the workshop, and you will need to design your content to fit it. Also, knowing whether the workshop will be online or in person can make a huge difference. If the workshop is intended to be either hybrid or alternately online or in-person, you will need to take that into account when designing your workshop. Some activities work better in person vs. online and vice versa.

For engaging workshops, apply a combined approach: Stick to 10 slides, limit presentations to 20 minutes using 30-point fonts, and organise key points in sets of three. This strategy not only simplifies information but also enhances memorability and interaction, leading to more effective learning.

These guidelines are helpful for anyone giving a presentation where they are using slides. There is also the 5/5/5 rule: no more than five words per line of text, five lines of text per slide, or five text-heavy slides in a row. This goes for presentations during interviews too. When using slides, remember you are the star of the presentation, not your slides. If your slides are too busy and too numerous, folks will spend more time looking at your slides rather than focusing on you and your message.

To captivate your audience, weave storytelling into your presentation, making your content both relatable and memorable. Rehearse diligently to refine your delivery, ensuring you manage your time well and transitions smoothly. Foster audience interaction with questions or polls for a more dynamic presentation, and maintain visual consistency across your slides to enhance their professional appeal.

I like to start workshops with people connecting with a person sitting next to them. Once that connection is established, it makes it easier to share ideas and confirm understanding. At various points during a workshop, I take a few minutes for a "Turn and Talk." This is an opportunity for workshop participants to turn to the person sitting next to them to discuss a point or apply a principle to their own circumstances. Then when we collect our attention back together, I can see where points of clarification are needed.

Regularly ask your workshop participants if they're following along and enjoying the activities through quizzes, polls, or simply asking for their thoughts. This helps you know if they're learning and having a good time, letting you adjust your approach as needed.

Reviewing at the end of your workshop is a great way to remind your audience of lessons taught, the main points for them to take away. I then send them a playbook with references, tools learnt, etc.