Workshop Planning
Preparation & Post-Workshop card, MethodKit for Workshop Planning
Card 17 of 60 · MethodKit for Workshop Planning
  • ThemeLogistics & venue
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Logistics & venue

Preparation & Post-Workshop

Logistics before & after the workshop

A workshop does not begin when people walk in, and it does not end when they walk out.

Preparation logistics cover everything that has to happen before the day: confirming the room, ordering materials, sending pre-reading, briefing co-facilitators, setting up the space the night before or the morning of. Each of these is a task with a deadline, and they tend to compress into the 48 hours before the workshop.

Post-workshop logistics are just as real: collecting outputs, packaging photos of the boards, sending a follow-up to participants, writing up the report, returning borrowed equipment, and paying invoices. If nobody owns these tasks before the workshop, they either fall to whoever is most conscientious or they do not happen.

The handover between the live workshop and everything after it is a transition that needs planning. Decide before the day what gets sent to participants, who writes it, and by when.

Easy to missWrite a day-by-day preparation timeline working backwards from the workshop date, and add a post-workshop task list with owner and deadline, because both tend to exist only in someone's head until they do not get done.

How experienced facilitators handle it

The same building block, handled by people who have run a lot of workshops. Patterns and illustrations to react to, not rules to follow.

Work backwards from the day

Experienced facilitators count back from the date and assign a deadline to every preparation task: print deadline, materials order, room booking confirmation, pre-reading send-out.

Name the post-workshop owner

Before the workshop starts they agree who is responsible for the follow-up: the summary email, the output document, the photo archive. Unnamed tasks disappear.

Pack a run sheet

They carry a single-page run sheet of everything that needs to happen, from the morning setup to the last thing sent after the workshop, so nothing relies on memory on the day.

Build in a reset buffer

They schedule time after the workshop to do the immediate wrap-up tasks before energy drops, because tasks left for the following week often slip for a month.

Questions to plan around

Use these on your own or in a group. There are no right answers, only better conversations.

  1. What needs to happen before the workshop, and what is the latest each task can be done?

  2. Who is responsible for each preparation task, and is that person aware of it?

  3. What are participants expecting to receive after the workshop, and who will send it?

  4. What needs to happen to the physical space and the materials after the session ends?

  5. Is there a report, summary or set of deliverables due, and who owns it and by when?

Watch for

  • Pre-workshop tasks often look small individually but cluster into a crunch in the last two days; spread them out by planning backwards from the date.
  • Post-workshop follow-up is the thing most likely to slip when the facilitator is tired and has moved on to the next thing; agree ownership before the day.
  • Returning borrowed equipment, cancelling temporary bookings and paying suppliers are easy to forget once the workshop feels finished.