Finding Workshop Potential Everywhere

Workshop design isn’t just for sticky notes and post-its. Sometimes the best approach is to throw people into something unexpected and see what happens.

Dump the Default

For a townhall, I was asked to do a “temperature check” for 120 people to gather candid feedback about an initiative and get a read on the team's mood.

I set up a series of stations around the room, each with one big question taped to the wall and a box underneath. When people arrived, they got cue cards and a pen. We split everyone into groups and started them at different stations. When I rang the bell, each group had two minutes to talk about the question at their station, share their opinions, and write their own personal response on a cue card anonymously then drop it in the box. Another bell, another station. Rotate. Repeat.

Shake Things Up

It was fun, loud, and, honestly, a bit chaotic. People were laughing at the bells and chatting nonstop. After about 40 minutes, everyone had worked through the stations, written down their thoughts, and the room was buzzing with energy.

The townhall ended, people wandered out still talking. My student glanced at me, confused. “I don’t get it. What did they just do?” I responded, “They filled out a survey.”

Gamifying the experience meant we collected over 1,200 pieces of feedback in 45 minutes. When we sorted through everything, we got a brutally honest picture of what was working and what was heading for trouble.

If we’d handed out a paper survey or posted a QR code at the end, how much feedback would we really have gotten? Odds are, most people would’ve left without submitting anything, and whatever responses did trickle in probably wouldn’t have been all that useful or detailed.

Cut Through the Noise

In the end, it’s about making it easy for people to participate openly. All it took was a little structure, a bell, and a bunch of cue cards to turn feedback into something lively and useful. Real conversation, real input. Next time you need people to open up, consider how you might shake up the format. When you invite energy and fun, you get contributions that actually matter.