Can we have a quick call?
Heck no! It's anything but quick and it rarely leads to anything. If it were quick, it could have been an email.
After about nine years of working as a UX designer and front-end developer, I had reached my breaking point with the endless meetings. Day after day, I found myself trapped in the same cycle of discussions that went nowhere. We'd talk and talk about features, bugs, releases, how to test, how to deploy. We'd research and investigate and discuss and rarely anything would change.
I started seeing meetings as constant interruptions to me doing actual work. All this fragmentation was leaving little time for deep thinking and actual problem-solving.
If all this sounds familiar, then, like me, you're craving an alternative.
When I decided to focus on web accessibility, I decided enough was enough. No more quick calls or recurring meetings without an agenda. I wanted to replace all these with something more structured and productive. I wanted a format that allowed for focused collaboration, without endless debates and discussions where the loudest voices would drown everyone else out.
So I switched from meetings to facilitated workshops. A facilitated workshop is a structured group session led by an expert (the facilitator) to achieve specific goals.
In contrast to a regular meeting, in a workshop:
- there is a clear purpose or goal to achieve
- everyone actively participates, not just listens
- activities are planned to encourage learning and problem-solving
- the session is hands-on and interactive
The workshop usually lasts longer than a typical meeting. It can take anywhere from several hours to even days (ever heard of the Design Sprint?). During the workshop, the facilitator uses various techniques to keep people engaged and productive.
I use workshops to solve problems or make decisions faster and more effectively than in regular meetings. We usually reach consensus faster, there are fewer digressions in the discussions and there was never a time I left the workshop without clear action steps for everyone involved.
Especially in web accessibility, I find that workshops can make everyone feel included. Workshops bring together people from different roles, so cross-functional collaboration on accessibility challenges is built right in. Not to mention how a good workshop can effectively highlight the importance of accessibility to all team members.
Because workshops last longer than a regular meeting, they allow for deeper dives into accessibility topics that might be glossed over in regular meetings.
At the same time however, they are time-intensive, which can be challenging to schedule for busy teams. They often need more preparation, materials and a dedicated facilitator. Due to their resource-intensive nature, workshops are usually held less frequently than regular meetings.
Not every meeting can be a workshop. Not every team can benefit from a workshop. It's not for everyone! But it might be for you! I'll start exploring some of the advantages and disadvantages of workshops every Wednesday. So stay tuned.
By the way, my process is to use the I2J workshop at the start of the project and, depending on the needs of the product team, design and lead custom workshops as needed.