Some workshops incite excellent ideas whereas others are, according to the participants, a waste of time. Often, this has to do with the way a session is done. Many sessions lack professional organization and mostly follow the routine of ‘coming together, gather existing ideas, and criticize them’. With the following rules of thumb, you will probably host a more productive session.

1. Roles
Sessions become more productive when you have a facilitator and a problem-owner in the session. The facilitator is in charge of the process (method, timing, location, materials), and the problem-owner has knowledge of the problem and feels a need to deal with it. When needed, he/she can make choices for the team (‘please, explore this idea more in-depth’). In general, however, the facilitator and problem-owner do not participate in the brainstorming activity.

2. Sensitize 
People with little prior knowledge need some time to understand what the problem is about. By giving participants information upfront, or a cleverly chosen assignment in advance, they are more sensitive to the subject. For example, if you organize a session on the Future of Food exhibition, ask them to prepare a short presentation on the most amazing food experience they ever had.

3. Redefine problems into HCY's
It makes a big difference whether you have a what, a why, a how, or a when kind of question that frames the problem at hand:

• What questions lead to definitions and setting agendas (‘what is a future of food exhibition?’).
• Why questions will deepen your problem, without having ideas (‘why a future of food exhibition?’).
• When questions concern conditions (‘When a future of food exhibition?’).
• How questions are actionable, demanding workshop-participants to search for and develop interesting ideas ( ‘how can you show future of food?’). So always start a session by redefining a problem into one or more How Can You… (HCY’s).

4. Onboarding
Participants often have doubts about the goal of the meeting and the process and might wonder whether we are dealing with the right problem. Or think, 'why this strange method?' At the start of every session do some onboarding to mitigate these issues. Make clear what the goal of the session is, and how it will proceed. Then ask explicitly whether everyone can and wants to participate. 


5. Diverge/converge explicitly
Make perfectly clear when you are searching for new input and when you are filtering and making choices. Take just as much time for converging as for diverging!


6. Time management 
Sessions can easily take up too much time. Or, in opposition, take up too little time because the participants believe that they have a good idea and stop after a few minutes. By actively managing and showing time to participants, the output of the session gets better. 

On the website of the Nielsen Norman Group, you can find more practical information about this subject. Make sure to check it out!