Review Workshop

1. Purpose

During the first two weeks of the exploration, the team completes its first research activities and documents them as it goes. What those activities are depends on the playground: interviews with customers, users or experts, observations, DIY activities with competing products, desk research on market data and trends, a first look at internal data. Depending on how experienced the Team Members are, they will have learned a great deal about the methods along the way.

These first two weeks are usually motivating. Teams running interviews are surprised at how open their interviewees are, and how willing to share what they do. Teams doing desk research often stumble across a figure or a competitor's move that nobody in the company had on their radar. Either way, it whets the appetite for the research still to come.

In the review workshop, the team presents its preliminary results to each other. You identify and discuss the first findings together, across all selected research areas: what belongs together, where results contradict each other, and what is actually relevant for the playground. Then take a first shot at structuring what you have. If customer research is your focus, please find more details about how to analyse customer interviews in our article about Exploring Customers. If the exploration is aimed at market and competition, go through the articles Exploring Competitors and Exploring Markets for analysis examples.

Then reflect together on the approach so far and adjust it — the choice of interview partners or sources for the second half of the research, for example, or the interview guideline.

2. Duration

1 full day, plus preparation and documentation

3. Participants

• Project Team

• Team Manager

• Team Coach

4. Preparation

As a Team Member

The workshop only works if everyone brings their findings in a form the others can follow. Here's how to prepare:

As a Team Coach

Inexperienced teams need feedback after their first research activities and their first documentation. Even if you explained beforehand what good documentation looks like, go through what they produced and point out what to improve — in the documentation itself as well as in the way they gather their material. Ask each Team Member to prepare a (digital) poster or slide to present a summary of the activities or a structured documentation of every interview conducted in the first interaction within the workshop.

If they are having a hard time reaching people or getting hold of information, think about additional routes to discuss it with the team in the workshop. Keep an eye on the Project Charter "Exploration". Does the current approach still fit the agreed research frame, and is the team still working inside the agreed scope? A deep-dive that has quietly spread into three research areas gets corrected here, halfway through, not at the end. Is there anything else to clarify or fine-tune? If so, the review workshop is the right date to do so.

5. Tools & Materials

• 1x "moderation wall" with purpose and agenda

• 1x End-to-End Innovation Process

• 1x (Digital) poster / slide / structured documentation of interviews per Team Member

• Optional: If customer research is your focus: printed and cut-out pictures of the interviewees, roughly 5 cm in size, plus company logos for B2B, 1x Target Groups template — the one you worked with in the Kick-off Workshop

• Optional: If market and competition are your focus: 1x Competitive Landscape Analysis template

• 1x "You are now leaving your comfort zone" carpet

• 1x Project Charter "Exploration" from the project workspace

• 2x pin boards and moderation kit

• 1x flip chart with paper

• Common digital workspace, e.g. Miro Templates "Exploration"

• Optional: Business Design Guiding Principles as magnetic shapes or stickers

• Optional: 1x Anti-Bullsh*t Spray

• Optional: customer's glasses

6. Documentation

• The Project Charter "Exploration" is up to date in the project workspace.

• The list of interviewees, experts and sources is uploaded to the project workspace.

• Where you run interviews: the interview guideline and the documentation template are ready to use in the project workspace. When you adjust the guideline, save the updated version of both.

• All research documentation sits in the project workspace, in the respective folders.

7. Q & A

• What if the team has barely got any research done by the time of the review workshop? The workshop needs enough material to find patterns in. As a rule of thumb, that means at least six interviews for interview-based research, or at least one documented result per research question for desk research. If you are below that, postpone the workshop by a week. Discuss with the team what has kept them from doing the research, and take measures against it.

• What if the team doesn't identify enough potential customers and non-customers to interview? Define the selection criteria together, and go for the widest possible range within the research frame. Consult the sales department and ask them to put you in touch. After each interview, ask for further interesting people to talk to — that creates a snowball effect. Bear in mind you won't get an appointment with everyone in the six weeks available, so keep more candidates on your list than you intend to interview.

• What if the results from the different research areas don't fit together? Good — that is exactly what this workshop is for. A contradiction between what customers say and what the market data shows is a lead, not a problem. Write it down as an open question and let the second half of the research settle it.

• What if Team Members say they are too busy to work on their tasks? Availability should have been settled before the workshop, while you were preparing the Project Charter "Exploration". Schedule one-to-ones and go through their calendars for the next two weeks. There are always activities that can be postponed or dropped.

8. Room & Infrastructure

• 1x empty wall, more than 420 x 200 cm

• 1x empty wall, more than 220 x 90 cm

• Chairs or cube seats

• 1x short-throw projector for the project workspace

• 1x table for catering

• Hot and cold drinks, snacks or finger food

9. Example Agenda

* P = Presentation | D = Discussion | B = Break | T = Teamwork