Workshops with energy, dialogue, and genuine participation

Once, the two types of workshops to choose from were the methods SIGPIP or FFSW.

SIGPIP stands for "Group Discussion – Poster in Plenary." The method is well-known, tested, and hated in most conference centers in Denmark.

FFSW stands for "Lecture Disguised as a Workshop." It's not exactly hated, but most "participants" will think on the way home: "Was that a workshop?" This is often because it was just a longer lecture with 2x3 minutes of conversation with the person next to you thrown in.

Over the years, I have of course held both types, but thankfully I don't anymore. However, it's hard to say exactly what I do instead, as it depends even more than lectures on what you, as the organizer, want to get out of the workshop.

Should the department or organization reach a common conclusion on a topic? Is it primarily about giving each individual the opportunity to reflect as much as possible? Is it a couple of hours aimed at boosting social capital? Should the workshop inject some energy into two rather heavy conference days? Is the learning goal greater than that of, for example, a lecture? What practical possibilities are there? Should leadership or others play a special role in the workshop?

These are all some of the questions that influence how a workshop should unfold. And once we've discussed them, I have a growing collection of concrete ways the sessions can be structured, so that participants genuinely feel like they are, in fact, active participants.

When it comes to content, I hold workshops on all the topics I speak about. But the format, of course, is something different, and we work out everything together in dialogue.