One of brainstorming’s cardinal rules is not to criticize anyone’s ideas. And that’s probably wrong.

Research suggests that groups who challenge each other “in benevolent ways” generate more, better ideas. “Managers often tell groups not to criticize each other, but the data actually suggests that debate helps the creative process,” says Leigh Thompson, collaboration expert and professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University (Rosen, 2013).

Healthy, authentic dissent during workshops helps generate more ideas. A 2001 study by Nemeth, Brown, and Rogers found that groups with authentic dissent, not a devil’s advocate, generated more ideas than groups without dissent. Groups who incorporate dissent into their practice “stimulated more quality solutions”. Dissent surfaces participants’ different perspectives and “stimulates divergent as well as original thought” (Nehmeth, et al. 2001).

Dissent also increases energy in the room. It generates “feelings of excitement and stimulation” (Nehmeth, et al. 2001). As you work to manage the energy in your workshop room, some healthy dissent can help keep things interesting.

But how do you design productive dissent into your brainstorming?

More posts on workshops and facilitation

Brainstorming can occur in private as participants work individually prior to the start of the workshops (in the days leading up to) or by working individually during the workshop itself. Then add a review and critique period after brainstomrong to spur new ideas and refine existing ones.

Leigh Thompson recommends using an activity like Pro and Con cards to provide productive feedback and create productive dissent after generation activities. This kind of critique can be done in private and then shared with the group (private critique), or can be done in private and shared anonymously with the group (anonymous critique).

“You’re hard on the problem and respectful of the people,” says Thompson. In practice, eliciting this kind of “responsible feedback” can be difficult. So Thompson offers a tip: have team members write down rather than vocalize their opinions and recommendations (Walsh, 2016).

By formalizing dissent as an activity that everyone does, you enable people to challenge norms and think critically about each idea. “Constructive dissent drives the organization forward by challenging norms and promoting critical thinking” (Cecci-Dimeglio, 2013). Structured activities create a psychologically safe place for people to speak up.

Next time you find yourself brainstorming ideas or solutions, follow with a silent pro/con critique to help flesh out ideas and to spur new ones.

Cecci-Dimeglio, Paola. 2023. "Leadership Insights: Navigating The Science Of Failing Well, From Psychological Safety To 'The Right Kind Of Wrong'". Forbes, August 28, 2023. https://www.forbes.com/sites/paolacecchi-dimeglio/2023/08/28/leadership-insights-navigating-the-science-of-failing-well-from-psychological-safety-to-the-right-kind-of-wrong/.

Nemeth, Charlan, Keith Brown, and John Rogers. 2001. “Devil’s Advocate versus Authentic Dissent - Stimulating Quantity and Quality.” European Journal of Social Psychology. (article)

Thompson, Leigh interview with Rosner, Hillary. 2013. “Collaborate Better.” Kellogg Insight. March 13, 2013. https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/collaborate_better.

Thompson, Leigh interview with Walsh, Dylan. 2016. “5 Strategies for Leading a High-Impact Team.” Kellogg Insight (blog), July 1, 2016. https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/five-strategies-for-leading-a-high-impact-team.

In the early days, we might give handful of prizes to participants for good workshop behaviors at the end of workshop. Things like most innovative idea or best participation. Typically, we gave away a few branded swag items and a couple gift cards. One time, a colleague of mine awarded lotto tickets to lucky participants.

We wanted to be generous because these were prizes, yet we had to be frugal because we had a budget to maintain.

But I wanted to reward many more behaviors and reward them throughout the workshop, rather than at the end. Of course, the budget wouldn't let me give away more of the typical prizes and swag, so I had to get creative.

What could we give away that was inexpensive and would still reward good behavior from workshop participants?

We landed on stickers.

They're small, so they can be handed out whenever you see a positive workshop behaviors like good participation, creative ideas, or good questions. When you reward the behavior as it occurs, you reinforce the behavior for that participant and also call out their behavior as a good model for other participants.

And everyone loves getting stickers.

This set includes stickers to reward six behaviors:

1. Idea Machine for generating a lot of ideas

2. Kinda sketchy for someone being very visual

3. Mad why-intist for great questions

4. Start Nouveau for creativity

5. Team Player for good collaboration

6. WIN-novator for innovative ideas

And anyone can get a Design Thinker sticker for any other good behavior.

I’ve used the stickers a handful of times now, and people really do enjoy getting stickers. Plus it gives me a way to say “good job, keep it up” any time someone does something positive without actually saying those words over and over again.

Steal this idea and make your own stickers to hand out in workshops.

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Sixteen tips for writing well when writing about design learned from the trenchant trenches at Boxes and Arrows.

As an editor, I’ve noticed several recurring bad habits you heathens would do well to disabuse yourselves of immediately.

Almost without exception, these bad habits instantiate themselves as a series of stock phrases and constructions that reflect a lack of focus, a lack of fully developed argument, or the kind of intellectual laziness that sets in as you slog through your first draft.

These things happen, That’s ok. Editing helps you save yourselves from these offenses before your thoughts hit the world and everyone knows your dirty secrets. but you can edit yourself, and you should. Use the following checklist as a guide to tightening up both your words as well as and what you mean.

16 things to check when you edit

Be vicious when you edit. Vicious. Follow these recommendations with zealous fervor. They help your writing say what it should in a way we’ll understand.

1. I think, I’d say, in my opinion, what I’ve found, in my experience…
Yeah. We know. You wrote this. These are your thoughts. If they’re not, provide a reference. If they’re yours, the byline is enough to remind us.

2. Delete all adverbs and adjectives unless they’re absolutely, totally, inherently necessary.
Each unnecessary word weakens your impact and clarity.

3. Remove prepositional phrases.
Prepositional phrases hang off your main point. If it doesn’t deserve its own sentence, it’s not important enough to read.

4. Active not passive.
Kill “to be” verbs. All of them. Always.

5. Kill -ing words.
Restructure the sentence so the -ing word transforms into an active verb.

6. Lead with the bottom line up front: BLUF.
Then include an example, re-state the bottom line, include an illustration, and when you end restate the bottom line. For every point you make, follow this pattern. That’s bottom line, example, bottom line, another example, and then the bottom line (again).

7. Telegraph and signpost what you will say and why we care.
We’re not reading mystery novels. We want to know who died, how, who killed them, and why we care—up front. That way, we know why we want to read before we begin.

8. Use clear, informative headers.
Cute or artsy might be pleasant on the first read, but when we reference it later, the cute header makes it a pain to find things. What you’re writing is worth going back to, right?

9. Introduce new terminology in the intro.
If you’ve created a new term or applied a new phrase to describe something, define it at the beginning, and use the new terminology throughout your writing. Readers need the entirety of your piece to learn and assimilate the new phrasing.

10. Typically, sometimes, often times, usually…
Yeah. We know. You don’t have to tell us.

11. Say “you” and “your”.
Don’t use nouns when talking about your audience (like “User Experience Practitioners”). And don’t use “one”. Speak to us.

12. Ditch clunky words.
Instead of “utilize”, say “use”. Instead of “upon”, say “on”.

13. Remove cliches and common phrases.
Every time you take a common phrase shortcut, you tell us it’s not worth our time.

14. Use contractions.
Write with proper grammar, and people will read. Write like you talk, and people will listen.

15. No pronouns.
Repeat the noun over and over again. If you get tired of that, use synonyms.

16. Delete your best lines.
We don’t care about poetry, wit, or slyness. We care about what you want to say.

After you edit…

The finished piece should be so tight, terse, concise, and clear that it’s boring.

Boring.

Then, sand off the rough edges.

Write like you talk.

Where concise feels awkward, add conversational. Where tight lacks nuance, tease details. Where terse feels cold, stoke warmth.

The first 16 recommendations remove fluff and force you to think and communicate. Once you’ve finished editing’s intellectual work, make sure you write like you talk. Writing begins a conversation. Talk to us. We’ll listen.

1. They share a vision

2. They include everyone

3. They trust each other

Collaborative teams share a vision

When you collaborate, you work together on the same thing. That means you need to share a vision about what that thing is.

Now, shared vision isn’t a binary thing. It’s not whether you do or do not share a vision. It’s a matter of degrees. How much of your vision is shared among team members.

When you don’t share the same vision, team members work on the wrong things and do things the wrong way. Everyone’s rowing in different directions and your little boat goes nowhere. Teams that share more vision work on the right things and make coherent decisions. Everyone’s rowing the same way and your little boat moves in that direction.

So, how do you get to a shared vision? You share things.

When you share a sketch or a wireframe, you’re sharing your understading of the interface with your teammates. They can see it, ask questions, disagree, change it, and most of all, discuss. Talking together brings everyrone closer to a shared vision.

When you share personas, you share your understanding of your users. When you share jourmeys and flows, you share your understanding of how the user moves through your system.

Share stuff and talk about stuff to build shared vision.

Collaborative teams include everyone

Collaboration means working together, and that means everyone contributes to the work. Especially if you work across silos, you can’t build shared vision unless you include everyone.

Including someone is a sign of respect. To include everyone, you have to listen to everyone. You have to ask everyone’s feedback. You have to ask if anyone has any questions. Or issues. Or disagrees.

This also means you have to care about what your teammates care about. If you think the interaction design is super important, good for you. Worry about that. But you also have to care about what’s important to your project manager and your developer. Their thoughts about timeline or feasibility are just as important as your thought about the interaction design.

When you include everyone, you collect the team’s perspectives and fold them into the team’s shared vision. When you include everyone, you work as a team. You collaborate.

Collaborative teams trust everyone

To work together, you have to treat everyone on the team with respect. Note, I didn’t say you needed to respect everyone. Hopefully you do. You should. But if you have some chip on your shoulder or a grudge with someone on your team, keep it to yourself. That’s your problem. Don’t make it a team problem.

Respecting someone means you trust their decisions. You’ve included everyone. Requested feedback and criticism, elicited viewpoints and opinions, now you need to trust what everyone said. That doesn’t mean people won’t disagree. Of course they will. Collaboration unfolds as the team works through those conflicts to reach a decision everyone agrees on.

Collaboration builds better products

You don’t own the product’s experience. That ownership is shared by everyone who contributes to getting the product out the door. If you want to build really great products, you have to help your team work better together. Better collaboration isn’t a secret or a set of rituals. It’s easy behaviors you can put into practice starting today. Share things, include everyone, and trust everyone.

Updated May 28, 2024. Originally published May 27.

Hybrid workshops with both remote and in-person attendees are really hard to do well. So what do you do when your stakeholder asks you to run a hybrid workshop?

Try to not do a hybrid workshop

If you can push back, ask if you can run separate sessions: one session with in-person attendees and a second session with remote participants. A session focused on each type of participant gives each better workshop experiences than having half the room trying to dial in and follow everything over Zoom.

After the sessions have ended, you can synthesize the outcomes from each workshop together into a cohesive whole and share it back out to everyone from each workshop.

Have remote and in-person facilitators

If you must do the workshop with online and in-room attendees, I recommend you find a co-facilitator who can hang on the video conference with your remote attendees and help them through activities. This frees you up to stay focused on attendees in the room.

It's not as good an experience as having separate sessions, but a dedicated facilitator on Zoom ensures remote attendees get the attention and support they need to have a good workshop experience.

Split into groups

If you have 3 or more remote attendees, split the workshop into groups. One group online and other groups in the room. Groups can do each activity and then report out to each other.

If you have 1 or 2 remote attendees, have them participate remotely by typing their brainstormed ideas into chat. Also make sure to direct questions to them pretty frequently to make sure they're staying included. For sketches, they can sketch on paper, snap pics with their phones, and email you the pics to show in the room.

Synchronize the experience with online white boards

Another option is to run the entire workshop out of Mural or similar tools. That way, all attendees, whether remote or in-person, literally work on the same page. When everyone works digitally, the activity is the same for everyone (in Mural/Miro) and managing discussion is mostly the same (voices in the room and on Zoom).

To do this, create a Mural board with activities and share the link with all attendees. Remote participants join via their laptops, and in the room, attendees do the same. Instead of writing on sticky notes and putting them on a wall, all attendees type their ideas into Mural and manipulate them there.

Successful workshops require good outcomes and good experiences

It's really easy to run a workshop and walk out with your desired, concrete outcomes. It's much harder to ensure participants also have a good experience. But if you don't, you risk attendees declaring the workshop a failure regardless of the outputs.

Good workshops require good outputs and good participant experiences. Hybrid workshops make the participant experience much more difficult. Whenever possible, try not to do them. But if you must, find ways to make sure the remote experience is as engaging and invigorating as the in-room experience can be.

Been using and getting used to my Time Timer to help me manage the overall pace of workshops. Usually, when I'm running a workshops and look at the clock, I have to do some mental math to figure out how much time I have left.

With a Time Timer and other similar clocks, you can see, visually, how much time is left.

This makes it easier to manage the overall pace of the workshop, and most importantly, ensure you end on time with a concrete outcome. It's harder to run out of time when you can clearly see how much time you have left.

Managing transitions between activities

In my last workshop, I added sticky note flags at key times to show when I needed to transition from one activity to another.

This worked really well. Usually, I hit my workshop end time, but things move around more in the middle of the workshop.

With this method, I was able to hit my mark for each of my transition times, as well as nailing the end time.

Seeing the markers really made it easy to manage time within activities.

You can purchase one of these clocks from the Time Timer website or find similar clocks at Amazon.

Published December 18, 2023

Psychologist Celeste Kidd at U.C. Berkeley asked a bunch of people about penguins. She wondered how much overlap there was between different people's concept of what a penguin is. The result blew her mind.

“The probability two people selected at random will share the same concept about penguins is around 12 percent” (Makin 2023).

Even worse, the same study showed while you might disagree with a friend about what a penguin is, you think that they agree with you.

“Participants believed around two thirds would agree with them when the actual proportion was usually much smaller. In some cases, people believed they were in the majority when virtually nobody agreed” (Makin 2023).

Conceptual misalignment happens especially with abstract concepts. Research on organizational strategy by Vikas Mittal, Alessandro Piazza, and Ashwin Malshe shows that organizations believe they are well-aligned: “participants were largely optimistic… reporting that they felt strategic agreement within their companies was 82%.” In fact, alignment fared much worse, averaging just 23% (Mittal 2023).

Conceptual disagreements like these hamper your team’s progress because team members pursue "divergent or even clashing goals" (Mittal 2023).

With all this conceptual disagreement, how do you align your team?

Three design thinking facilitation strategies help your team get and stay aligned:

1. Make it real

2. Ask questions

3. Come to an agreement

1. Make your ideas real

If something isn't written down, it isn't real. Workshops spawn flurries of sticky notes because every idea you write down can be seen, asked about, moved around, and discussed. When you take an idea and make it real, you give your colleagues something they can see and react to, point at, and respond to.

Writing your ideas down and making them real is the first step to bringing your team closer to conceptual alignment.

2. Ask questions

The entire point of writing your ideas down is so they can be discussed. Good teams ask each other questions to clarify ideas, understand implications, and uncover nuances.

These discussions ensure everyone on the team understands each idea in the same way. Through discussion, your team comes to conceptual alignment.

3. Come to agreement

Every facilitated discussion should arrive at a decision about how to move forward. Insisting the team makes these decisions requires that the team has created a shared understanding of the issue they’re discussing and a shared vision around the ideas they’ve chosen to move forward with.

* * *

9 out of 10 of your colleagues probably do agree that you’re wrong about penguins. Making your ideas about penguins real, discussing them, and then deciding what ideas to move forward with as a group helps your team get and stay aligned.

These strategies work as well for penguins as they do for business processes, and innovation. Design thinking facilitation helps your team get on the same page, so they can make productive decisions and move forward.

Makin, Simon. 2023. “People Differ Widely in Their Understanding of Even a Simple Concept Such as the Word ‘Penguin.’” Scientific American. April 25, 2023.

Mittal, Vikas, Alessandro Piazza, and Ashwin Malshe. 2023. “Is Your Company as Strategically Aligned as You Think It Is?” Harvard Business Review, May 1, 2023.

When the pandemic hit and office workers moved to work from home, doomsayers prophesied the end of innovation, and managers worried nothing would get done. 

Well, the opposite happened.

Productivity went up, and innovation remained steady. In fact, remote workers communicate more than when they’re in the office. As long as they’re communicating, collaborating, and innovating with someone they already know.  

Although total communication went up, it actually fell with people we know less well, our “weak ties” (Miller, 2021). This is what Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase referred to: “Remote work virtually eliminates spontaneous learning and creativity because you don’t run into people at the coffee machine.”  

The important thing about the water cooler effect isn’t meeting people, it’s rubbing shoulders with their ideas, the projects they’re working on, the news and conversations they share. Social scientists have found that weak ties '“are important for innovation because they bring a different perspective or expertise” (Miller, 2021). 

Matt Clancy studies the economics of innovation. He explains why. “The harder part is when you don’t know they’re there, you don’t know they’re valuable to meet, you don’t know their work exists and is important.” 

The Connections Feed brings a virtual water cooler to Teams and SharePoint by surfacing diverse conversations from across your organization. And, right where workers around the globe start their day. 

The Feed surfaces content from Yammer and Viva Engage like Storylines, Praise, and Q&A as well as news and conversations from across all sites. (Ma 2022, Patton 2022). Not to mention, the Connections homepage can also include Topics cards (on the Dashboard) and the My Feed web part that shows files and sites likely associated with your weak ties. The Connections Feed doesn’t let you rub shoulders with weak ties, but it lets you rub shoulders with their ideas, projects, news, and conversations. 

And they’re just a click away if workers want to chat. 

I’m really excited to see how new content surfaces on Connections sites and see if it really does boost the collisions with weak ties, that rubbing of shoulders, that are so important to innovation. As Matt Clancy says, “innovators meet other innovators who live nearby” (Clancy, 2021), and the feed web part does a great job of showing who lives nearby. 

The important thing about the water cooler effect isn’t meeting people, it’s rubbing shoulders with their ideas, the projects they’re working on, the news and conversations they share.

Clancy, M. (2021, February 16). Proximity: More Important for Meeting than Collaborating. What’s New Under the Sun. 

Ma, L. (2022, October 12). What’s new in Viva Connections.

Miller, C. C. (2021, September 3). When Chance Encounters at the Water Cooler Are Most Useful. The New York Times.

Patton, S. (2022, October 12). Microsoft Ignite 2022: Innovations and roadmap for Microsoft Viva.

Email this link to a friend. Have a question? Comment? Email me directly at ag@agux.co.

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