map butcher

Francis Bacon's Studio - A prolific workshop

I grew up in the North East of England living next door to a guy called Ken who had a workshop. Everyday Ken would go out into his workshop with his cigarette and cup of tea and make stuff. He worked in their all day and every now and again me and my Dad would pop in to see what work he was up to. Sometimes he’d be turning wood on the lathe, other times he’d be under the hood of a car – but he was always working. I always liked a little box which hung on his wall, the box had a glass front and to one side a small hammer. On the front of the box  were the words “Break in an Emergency”  - inside the box was a single cigarette and a match.

Ken is not around anymore but if I were to see him today and explain what people have done to his beloved workshop he’d be disgusted! You may feel the same way, you may have heard a phrase similar to this ‘let’s workshop it’. And that my friends is where the problems begin.

The term ‘workshop’ like many other terms, which litter our daily working lives has been bastardised. Workshops are where work is done.  So here is my list of advice for anybody think about ‘workshopping it’

1. DONT. Your office, work place etc IS your workshop, it’s where you work. You don’t need to specially convene a shop to work in. You already have it. 

2. Think about what you want to achieve before you decide to ‘workshop it’ – it may be that you want to convene a meeting to gain an understanding of an issue facing your project, perhaps a Birds of  Feather may be appropriate. You may want to have a dedicated session to actually resolve a known problem then perhaps we can borrow the idea of a sprint to achieve this?

3. If you must  ’workshop it’…..then elect a leader. Lack of discipline is a major reason for ‘workshops’ degenerating into a quagmire of opinion. An authoritative, informed and focused leader can vastly improve and add value to a workshop (or any meeting for that matter). 

4. If you must ‘workshop it’…..then invite only the bare minimum of useful bodies. IMO if you find yourself in a ‘workshop’ with more than 5 people you’re in trouble. Its very hard to get meaningful and valuable contributions from a large group.  A useful way of evaluating whether you have got the right people is to ask each person directly what value they are bringing to the table – what work are they planning to do in this workshop? If they can’t answer this question something, somewhere has gone wrong.

5. If you must ‘workshop it’……then do not accept on face value the phrase ‘I think this has been a successful workshop’. 9 times out of 10 this is not true. You can only assess a successful work shop by evaluating the work that has been done, and to do this you must have an expectation of the work to be achieved at the outset.

Ken, my next door neighbour never broke the glass case for the cigarette. He never needed to, as his workshop produced work (and he always had several full packs of cigarettes!). All too often in todays ‘workshops’ the glass is broken and the cigarette smoked long before the work is complete.  Resist temptation.