Debrief on the Lisbon workshop

Two days, fourteen people, one room with a broken blind. I ran the planning workshop for the mobile team in Lisbon in June and wrote these notes on the train home, still annoyed about the blind. I am putting them here so I do not forget the useful parts.

What worked

The first morning went well because I stole the opening from my own warm-up list. We did “name the worst version” for the new onboarding flow, and the group produced 23 bad ideas in six minutes. Mateus, who normally says very little, wrote nine of them. Later he told me it was the first time in a workshop that he had been allowed to be negative on purpose.

I also kept to my meeting template, pasted at the top of the shared board for each session. It cost nothing and it saved us at least once, when two people disagreed about what had been decided on day one. We scrolled up and read it.

What did not

Day two after lunch was a mistake. I scheduled the hardest session, prioritising 40 items, at 2pm. By 2:30 half the room was checking their phones. I should have put it first thing and left the sticky-note tidying for the afternoon.

The room

I picked the room from a photo. The photo did not show the pillar in the middle, which meant three people had no line of sight to the wall with the board. Next time I ask for a floor plan and a person who has been in the room.

Follow-up

I sent the notes within 24 hours, using the structure from the design review rules: what was decided, what is open, who owns each open item. Of 17 open items, 12 had moved a week later. The other five were mine. I am a little ashamed of that and a little relieved to have it in writing.