"Building Business Processes by Means of Online Workshops" by Slava Shestopalov, Design Manager, Germany (Berlin) at ELEKS. Not only do teams need online collaboration for the COVID-19 crisis, but it’s an essential part of building global products and services. We’ll talk about the fears that push businesses to avoid online workshops and how teams can benefit from conducting them. The speech will feature a story of consulting one of the largest legal firms in the world and building design processes from scratch.

1. Building business
processes by means of
online workshops
Slava Shestopalov,
Design Manager (Berlin)

2. Design Manager at ELEKS Berlin
Contributing writer at Medium
and Smashing Magazine
Design course curator at Projector
School and lecturer at Apollo
Design Center
Visiting trainer at ESB Business
School (Reutlingen) and Ukrainian
Catholic University (Lviv).
Slava
Shestopalov
Product Meetup, Berlin, 1 year ago

3. TL;DR
In 2020, workshops are
still useful for business Caution: somemedieval-artjokes ahead...
Everyone can learn how
to do workshops
Remote strategic workshops
need a lot of preparation
1
2
3

4. Do remote
workshops!Workshops
online!
Maybe,
a workshop?
Everyone on the internet these days
Probably, you

5. What is a workshop?
Meeting Workshop
Main activity Talking and listening Co-creating and brainstorming
Setup and
process
— Agenda is sent in advance
— People listen to a presenter
— Facilitator prepares a running order
— Team members do exercises
Usual
outcome
People are informed about something
and get task assignments
People make decisions and produce
some valuable artifact together

6. Here is our digitalteam discussingnew feature ideas
Meeting room

7. Stakeholders “unbox”
what’s on their mind
in a workshop
Opinion A Opinion B

8. Levels of workshops
Tactical Strategic
What can
be a subject
— Feature ideas
— Scenarios and flows
— UI functionality
— Development scope of a product
— Global processes and frameworks
— Investment decision-making
— Innovation portfolio
— Alignment of different teams
Typical
participants
— Product team
— Users and/or clients
— Subject matter experts
— Executives
— Top and middle management
— Strategic clients
Usual
duration
From 1 hour to eternity depending on
the scope and motivation
Maximum 2—3 hours online

9. Product level
(tactical)

10. Business process level
(strategic)

11. Product
The whole business
Business process

12. The three difficult things about
strategic workshops
Require custom
workshop formats
Can be organized
primarily online
Can’t be extended
ad hoc if you have
not finished yet

13. Guys, let’s better
meet online, OK?
Your team
Director of Innovation
lives somewhere here
CTO’s house
CFO is there

14. The three difficult things about
strategic workshops
Require custom
workshop formats
Can be organized
primarily online
Can’t be extended
ad hoc if you have
not finished yet

15. CTO
CEO
Designer
I just wanted us
to compose user
personas...
We are wasting
our time here!

16. The three difficult things about
strategic workshops
Require custom
workshop formats
Can be organized
primarily online
Can’t be extended
ad hoc if you have
not finished yet

17. Guys, seems there is
something here...
5 minutes more, okay?
Facilitator
Or maybe
15 minutes

18. The three deadly sins
of a strategic workshop
Re-making stuff
you already have
Leaving people
alone for too long
Irrelevant level
of abstraction

19. When you leave people alone
in the workshop for an hour
Look how they
massacred
my whiteboard

20. The three deadly sins
of a strategic workshop
Re-making stuff
you already have
Leaving people
alone for too long
Irrelevant level
of abstraction

21. Designer
Business Development
and Marketing Director
Let’s see what youknow about UI bugs
Portfolio Manager

22. The three deadly sins
of a strategic workshop
Re-making stuff
you already have
Leaving people
alone for too long
Irrelevant level
of abstraction

23. What the
hell is that?
Facilitator
CEO
The Board
Feature prioritization
for a minor mobile app
Some 70,000-employee company

24. Good news is that
you can overcome
all these hurdles

25. Preparation
is king

26. However, just
a workshop plan
isn’t enough...

27. Preparation is king
Participants selection and incentivizing
Invitations and scheduling
Dry run of the program
Digital workspace access and setup
Team awareness of how the tool works
You have a list of participants:
• 4–8 primary stakeholders,
• 1–2 “stunt doubles.”
Participants understand their
benefit (usually, non-material).
No powerful stakeholder, able
to dispute the workshop results
is left behind.

28. Preparation is king
Participants selection and incentivizing
Invitations and scheduling
Dry run of the program
Digital workspace access and setup
Team awareness of how the tool works
Invitations clearly highlight the
following:
• workshop goal,
• timing,
• introductory information.
All participants accepted the
invite or agreed to take part via
phone call or email.

29. Preparation is king
Participants selection and incentivizing
Invitations and scheduling
Dry run of the program
Digital workspace access and setup
Team awareness of how the tool works
You gathered a team of 2–4
trusted experts to tried the
workshop exercises with them.
The workshop program was
adjusted according to what had
gone wrong in the dry run.
You noted the actual duration
vs. the planned one.

30. Preparation is king
Participants selection and incentivizing
Invitations and scheduling
Dry run of the program
Digital workspace access and setup
Team awareness of how the tool works
All participants know how to log
into the workshop space.
The boards already include the
initial information.
The spaces for individual work
are clearly named and include
concise instructions.

34. Preparation is king
Participants selection and incentivizing
Invitations and scheduling
Dry run of the program
Digital workspace access and setup
Team awareness of how the tool works
Participants tried playing with
the online collaboration tool in
advance or at least viewed
information about it.
There is a Plan B in case of
technical issues on the
participant’s or facilitator’s side.

37. What can you strategize about?
Maybe...
...how to be prepared for the
COVID and economic crisis
...how to make investment
decisions easier
...how to align multiple teams
with overlapping functions

38. Pain points and needs
of the three key audiences

39. Groups of needs
and pain points
mapped on
relevant solutions

42. Workshops facilitate
the creation and
development of
business processes

43. Recent article on remote workshopping
eleks.com/blog/design-workshop-online
Design offerings and case studies
eleks.design
Illustrated tips for smooth workshops online
(included in the article)
Design blog by Slava Shestopalov
medium.com/@shestopalov