This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

Most workshops are designed as an agenda. A workshop that works is designed backwards from the decision it has to produce, and everything else follows from that one choice.

Get the decision wrong and no amount of sticky notes will save the day.

Why sessions produce agreement and no output

The goal was "align on the roadmap", which is not a decision and therefore cannot be reached. The wrong people were invited — everyone who wanted to come, and nobody who could approve anything. Half the time went on informing people of things they could have read beforehand. The first number said out loud anchored every estimate that followed. And it closed with warm agreement, no owners, and a promise to circulate notes.

Then the same topic reappears six weeks later, slightly worse.

How the course is built

Thirty-six lessons in six parts. Facilitation first, six lessons: the goal as a decision, choosing the room, holding focus, generating options, prioritising as a group, closing with named owners, and handling the participant who dominates. Plus running it online and at large scale.

Then the analysis layer, because a requirements workshop that produces enthusiasm rather than user stories has failed. Framing the problem before you invite anyone, stakeholder mapping, acceptance criteria in Given-When-Then, AS-IS and TO-BE modelling, and impact analysis for the change requests that arrive afterwards.

Preparation, judgement and the hardest session of all

Then six lessons on written input, which is the part most facilitators skip. Collecting views before the session so the room spends its time deciding rather than being informed: question design, scale choice, response rates, the report, and turning answers into a plan.

Then critical thinking, which is what stops a group agreeing on something wrong. Strong reasoning against weak, and specifically anchoring — the reason the first estimate spoken in a workshop sets the range for everything after it. Plus decision models for the cases where the group does not have the facts.

Then the hardest format there is: a two-day strategy offsite. Preparation, establishing where the organisation actually stands through gap analysis, day one on the starting point, day two on the target, and turning the output into a plan with owners and metrics. And finally group dynamics — diagnosing a group before designing anything for it, the GRPI model, and what changes when nobody shares a room.

Who is teaching this

Mike, the number one HR instructor on Udemy. More than 1.6 million course enrolments, over 150,000 professionals trained, PHRi and SHRM-CP certified, HRCI representative in more than 10 countries. I built the people function of the unicorn Preply and worked at Wargaming, Alfa-Bank and iDeals. I have facilitated sessions that produced real decisions and sessions that produced a nicely formatted document, and the difference was almost always in the preparation rather than the room.

What is included

• Lifetime access to all course materials

• Active instructor support in the Q&A section

• Udemy Certificate of Completion

• Practical assignments and real business cases

• A section with additional courses, tools and resources

Before your next session

Write the decision the workshop has to produce as a single sentence, in the past tense, as if it had already happened. If you cannot, you are planning a meeting rather than a workshop, and the difference will show. Enrol now and start the first lesson today.