Workshop Alchemy
The formula for workshops that work.
Subscribe to spydergrrl’s newsletter, Workshop Alchemy, a newsletter dedicated to the art and science of workshop design. If you’re passionate about creating sessions that inspire collaboration, engage participants, and deliver meaningful outcomes, this newsletter is for you.
Workshop Alchemy promises to be your go-to source for practical tips, proven strategies, and fresh ideas to create transformative sessions for remote, hybrid, or in-person teams.
My goal is to support your journey in architecting workshops that truly transform how teams connect and collaborate and help you architect workshops that actually work.
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Issues
- When Fast Work Needs Slow Collaboration
I’ve recently become enamored with analog journaling. I’ve built a whole journal ecosystem: a leather cover that holds a small stack of different books including a monthly planner, a to‑do list scribbler, a commonplace book, my personal journal, and a design journal. I log everything from random thoughts to information… Read more: When Fast Work Needs Slow Collaboration - Packaging Workshop Outputs for Future YouYou are standing in front of a board full of sticky notes, scribbles, and half-formed groupings. The session went well. People were engaged. You got what you needed. Now you need to capture it in a way you can actually use later. Be nice to future you You need to… Read more: Packaging Workshop Outputs for Future You
- Are You Performing Workshop Theatre? (Video)Earlier this year, I gave a talk at UX Camp Chicago about Workshop Theatre. Here’s the tl;dr: 72% of meetings are unproductive, costing $37B annually (Zippia). Sticky notes everywhere, outcomes nowhere. Are your workshops any better — or just Workshop Theatre (superficial collaboration rituals that look productive but deliver zero… Read more: Are You Performing Workshop Theatre? (Video)
- Designing Collaboration When “Back to the Office” Still Means RemoteYou’re being told that going back to the office will fix collaboration. It might not. You may find yourself in the office more often while your team is still scattered across locations and schedules. In that scenario, “being together” becomes a slogan, not a description of how you actually work.… Read more: Designing Collaboration When “Back to the Office” Still Means Remote
- What Did We Create Together? Redesigning How Your Team Spends Its TimeMost organizations do not have a meeting problem. They have a collaboration problem disguised as meetings.We gather people, fill calendars, and call it teamwork, but often nothing meaningful is produced. Eight people in a one-hour meeting represent an entire day of collective productivity, and too often the output does not… Read more: What Did We Create Together? Redesigning How Your Team Spends Its Time
- When Collaboration Is New: Letting Culture Set the Pace of Your WorkshopsI was brought in to redesign a national service for a program that had always been run regionally. Each regional team treated its territory like a separate organization. Their work, audiences, and priorities all felt local. When I started talking about a national approach, the response was consistent: we’re all… Read more: When Collaboration Is New: Letting Culture Set the Pace of Your Workshops
- The Part of Workshop Design AI Still Can’t DoLast week, I hosted a small cohort for The Workshop Workshop. Unsurprisingly, we talked a lot about whether AI and machine learning can help with workshop design. For the most part, it is still too early. Not because AI can’t string together an agenda, but because the kind of knowledge… Read more: The Part of Workshop Design AI Still Can’t Do
- Designing for sense‑makingHow to prevent the rush to solutions that undermines good decisions Last week I wrote about how AI is quietly replacing working sessions. Instead of pulling people together to understand a messy problem, someone “puts it into AI” and emails around the output as if the thinking is done. This… Read more: Designing for sense‑making
- How AI Is Quietly Replacing Working SessionsLately, I keep hearing the same line at work: “I put this into AI and it came up with this model / framework / analysis.” A few years ago, those same problems would have triggered a working session: get the right people together, map what we actually know, and design… Read more: How AI Is Quietly Replacing Working Sessions
- Less Explaining, More Doing
A workshop pattern to cut exposition without losing clarity When does your workshop make you talk too much? Think about your last workshop. How much of the time did you spend explaining what was about to happen, why it mattered, and how each step fit together? If you added it… Read more: Less Explaining, More Doing - Are your workshops too long?Why workshop length is a design decision “We need a half-day workshop.” Sound familiar? I’ve found workshop length is often treated as a given before the session even gets designed. Workshop length is a design choice But workshop length is not just a scheduling choice. It’s part of workshop design,… Read more: Are your workshops too long?
- Put the Naysayer in Charge of CritiqueThe moment you formalize the resistance, it starts improving the work. You’re not dealing with “difficult participants.” You’re dealing with a room that just lost momentum. You’ve seen it happen. Someone starts pushing back on everything. Not building, not adding, just contradicting. The energy shifts fast. You get eye rolls,… Read more: Put the Naysayer in Charge of Critique
- Why That Workshop Won’t LandNo shared problem, no shared progress. Your client wants a workshop to “fix” another team. You’re in the scoping call, 20 minutes in. They describe the tension: Team A gripes constantly about Team B. Team A wants a session where everyone hashes it out; they need Team B to understand… Read more: Why That Workshop Won’t Land
- Generative Play: Using creative moments to shape workHow workshops can turn play into progress A side-quest or a shortcut? You invite teams to build Lego models, create mood boards, or run design jams, and you see participation paired with scepticism. People lean into the activity, but they’re also asking, without saying it out loud: “This is cute,… Read more: Generative Play: Using creative moments to shape work