Decision Making & Goal Setting Workshop Activities

Here's a closer that encourages participants to recall what happened in the session and to come up with second thoughts about how they could have benefited more. It also creates useful materials for an interesting icebreaker.

This workshop aims to help participants define, decide and achieve their goals. By supporting participants to envision where they want to be in a number of years on a holistic level, and defining the steps that will take them there, participants get a clearer picture of the action they need to take.

What made success possible? In less than one hour, a group of any size can generate the list of conditions that are essential for its success. You can liberate spontaneous momentum and insights for positive change from within the organization as “hidden” success stories are revealed. Positive movement is sparked by the search for what works now and by uncovering the root causes that make success possible.

Used as a post-session follow up or multiple session activity, participants share their action plan or project success. Results can be posted and discussed on a shared network or brought to a later live session (such as a review session or informal group catch up). 

Dotmocracy is a simple method for group prioritization or decision-making. It is not an activity on its own, but a method to use in processes where prioritization or decision-making is the aim. The method supports a group to quickly see which options are most popular or relevant. The options or ideas are written on post-its and stuck up on a wall for the whole group to see. Each person votes for the options they think are the strongest, and that information is used to inform a decision.

A great tool to kick-off ANY workshop! The hot air balloon is a metaphorical method that aims to identify strengths, weaknesses, external forces, stakeholders and goals all in a simple and well-structured process.

The charm is that you’re not relying on another dull matrix but actually going through an imaginary journey that engages us to think outside of our typical thought patterns. Just gather all participants and collect their input step-by-step in the process.

IDOARRT is a simple tool to support you to lead an effective meeting or group process by setting out clear purpose, structure and goals at the very beginning. It aims to enable all participants to understand every aspect of the meeting or process, which creates the security of a common ground to start from. The acronym stands for Intention, Desired Outcome, Agenda, Rules, Roles and Responsibilities and Time.

In this decision-making exercise, possible actions are mapped based on two factors: effort required to implement and potential impact. Categorizing ideas along these lines is a useful technique in decision making, as it obliges contributors to balance and evaluate suggested actions before committing to them.

Often done at the end of a workshop or program, the purpose of this exercise is to support participants in applying their insights and learnings, by writing a letter and sending it to their future selves. They can define key actions that they would like their future self to take, and express their reasons why change needs to happen.

MoSCoW is a method that allows the team to prioritize the different features that they will work on. Features are then categorized into “Must have”, “Should have”, “Could have”, or “Would like but won‘t get”.

To be used at the beginning of a timeslot (for example during Sprint planning) and when planning is needed.

This is a classic business tool used to keep meetings and workshops focused on track. During discussions, questions will often emerge that are important but not fully relevant to the focus at the moment. These questions or issues are “parked” on a flipchart, to be addressed and answered later. This practice helps ensure that important questions do not get lost and that the group can stay focused on the most relevant things.

This is a method for individuals and teams to define the structure, direction and first steps of a project. The individual or team works through a set of questions and documents the answers in a sharable digital format. This can either be a “living” document that develops with the project it can be left as just a clear and concise record of the starting-point.