I had the pleasure of presenting at NDC Oslo last week and the additional privilege of co-presenting a collaboration workshop along with Denise Jacobs and Carl Smith.

In this workshop, we cover Fist to Five voting, 5x7 Prioritization, and Collaboration Contracts. We had around 30 attendees for the workshop, allowing us to create 4 groups of approximately 8 people each.

After some ice-breakers, groups came up with product ideas by mashing two random words together and using first to five voting to rapidly identify a product idea they could all agree on. This was easier for some groups than others. It was interesting to see the dynamics as some groups discussed each combination prior to voting, some groups created multiple options before voting, and other groups ripped through options and found their product in a manner of minutes (as intended). It is often difficult for us to give up old habits even in pursuit of a better way.

Next up was brainstorming and prioritizing a list of items that needed to be done in order to launch our new awesome concept at a key conference in only three months. We started with each individual member writing at least two items they thought were critically important to prepare for the conference. We then removed duplicate items for each group and used 5x7 prioritization to come up with the top most important items for each group. At the end of the process, teams agreed that the resultant priorities were good and many were surprised at how easy and equitable the process was.

Finally, each group took their top 4 items and ran collaboration contracts against them. We did this in two passes; running the basic contract and resolving conflicts. We had one group that ended up with no conflicts. The other groups worked through their conflicts in relatively short order and the quality of conversation was high throughout. One group realized that even after they resolved the obvious conflicts, they had one individual who was in a decision making role on all four items. While this is not technically a conflict on a contract, it does indicate an issue. After some additional discussion, they were able to adjust the overall contract to everyone's satisfaction and eliminate the potential bottleneck.

This was our first time delivering this workshop and I thought it went quite well.

I'm planning to add Parallel Thinking to the workshop along with a couple more games to create a solid half-day collaboration tools workshop that can work for teams or groups.

If you're interested in this workshop for your team, let me know. Maybe, if we're lucky, Denise and Carl can come along too.