Workshop activities to Analyse, Understand and Innovate

Social Virus

emotional intelligence positive psychology teamwork thiagi action issue analysis self-awareness critical thinking

We all know how quickly the cold or flu can spread through the office, but we don't often think about how contagious our emotions can be. This exercise provides a brief simulation of how quickly both negative and positive emotions can be transmitted. One participant is selected to be the Negative Infector General and asked to infect others with a negative emotion. During the next round, you pretend to select another participant to be the Positive Infector General. At the end of the second round, participants are surprised to find out that they became more positive even though no one initiated the emotion.

Rapid Responses

thiagi structured sharing issue analysis questions and answers

Here's an experiential introduction to this activity:

What is your preferred technique for learning something new?

Write your answer on a piece of paper. If you don't have a piece of paper, just say your answer out aloud.

I am now going to ask you a different question. Once again, write down your answer (or say it out aloud).

What method do you usually use to train other people?

Compare your answers to the two questions. Are they consistent with each other? If not, why is there a discrepancy between the way you like to learn and the way you train others? Should you not help others learn the same way you like to learn?

Does this inconsistency exist because you believe that training is different from learning? Don't you believe that training has to result in learning?

Does this inconsistency exist because you believe that your learning preference is unique only to you? Don't you think that other people may have unique learning preferences? How does your training accommodate these individual differences?

Hybrid note storm

hybrid-friendly issue analysis visual mapping

A method to capture notes and reflections in hybrid events

Participants from Hell

train-the-trainer disruptive participants thiagi structured sharing issue analysis

This is a structured sharing activity that enables us to explore techniques for handling participants who disrupt interactive training sessions.

Different teams receive envelopes labeled with different types of disruptive participants. Participants brainstorm guidelines for handling disruptive behaviours, record the guidelines on a card, and place the card inside the envelope.

Teams rotate the envelopes and generate guideline cards for handling other types of disruptive participants. During the evaluation round, team members review the guideline cards generated by other teams and identify the top five suggestions.

Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ)

action decision making problem solving issue analysis innovation design remote-friendly

It doesn’t matter where you work and what your job role is, if you work with other people together as a team, you will always encounter the same challenges:

Unclear goals and miscommunication that cause busy work and overtime
Unstructured meetings that leave attendants tired, confused and without clear outcomes.
Frustration builds up because internal challenges to productivity are not addressed
Sudden changes in priorities lead to a loss of focus and momentum
Muddled compromise takes the place of clear decision- making, leaving everybody to come up with their own interpretation.
In short, a lack of structure leads to a waste of time and effort, projects that drag on for too long and frustrated, burnt out teams.

AJ&Smart has worked with some of the most innovative, productive companies in the world. What sets their teams apart from others is not better tools, bigger talent or more beautiful offices. The secret sauce to becoming a more productive, more creative and happier team is simple:
Replace all open discussion or brainstorming with a structured process that leads to more ideas, clearer decisions and better outcomes.

When a good process provides guardrails and a clear path to follow, it becomes easier to come up with ideas, make decisions and solve problems.

This is why AJ&Smart created Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ). It’s a simple and short, but powerful group exercise that can be run either in-person, in the same room, or remotely with distributed teams.