OK, good, then we are running in this new section.
So now let's talk about how you prepare for a workshop for conceptual modeling workshop or more maybe
generically for a lot of workshops.
The one of the first thing to to keep in mind here is that you are the facilitator and you're not the
expert.
So even if you might actually be an expert in the area, you know, your role in the workshop is to
be a facilitator and try to draw out the knowledge from the other people around.
So it cannot be just you standing there by a whiteboard or if you're using a tool and just telling everybody
else what this is about and actually do the workshop yourself.
It's very important that you try to actually distance yourself, distance yourself from your own knowledge
here to try to listen to and hear what they say.
So but even if you're the facilitator, you need to understand what they're saying.
So since you are the one that is actually going to produce the result here, which is a model and map
or diagram, you need to understand what they're saying.
So you need to really listen and focus, of course.
And before as a preparation, it hands could be very good to try to read as much as possible of the
area so that you kind of are prepared on what type of issues you're going to talk about.
Even if you don't know exactly how this is going to land, you can still be quite prepared on the types
of of of of areas and concepts that you're going to bounce into, probably.
So read as much as possible.
Anything you can find on the sites like process description, marketing material, business models,
any type of material that you can get hold of before the workshop could be very good.
Tried to read it then.
You also of course, need to interview the assigner.
So there's an assignment for a workshop usually and says that this is the one that is going to receive
the result formally.
Of course, even the result could of course be used by all of the persons in the workshop.
There's usually kind of one person that you have as an assignment for this, as a facilitator, and
you need to use the mask them all.
Lizcano, the important questions here, why are we doing this?
What's the purpose of this even.
Yeah, of course you can start you can help them to find out why they need this and why we're doing
this.
But we need to kind of describe a very clear purpose with the workshop.
As such, we need to define a scope.
So you just don't go into a room and start just modeling and you have no idea where to start the work
and so on.
Because, as I said, so this is we're talking about a general feature of what it is to be a human being
here.
And we don't have a limited set of concepts.
Yeah, maybe we have, but that is a very huge amount of concepts.
So we need to be kind of set the scope and the limits for the workshop.
So now we're going to talk about cash management maybe, or now we're going to talk about whatever kind
of some area within the domain you're talking about.
So that needs to be set before we're going into a room.
You need to understand whether you're trying to just map out the AC situation or a 2B situation.
So are you trying to actually just map the concepts that we're using today, even if they are kind of
malfunctioning?
Or are we trying to actually create a new way of conceptual domain to use in the future and maybe a
product development exercise and so on?
Because that will be two completely different way of thinking.
Right.
So if you're just trying to map out how we talk today, kind of the current situation, then you need
to listen, listen, listen.
Exactly what people are saying.
If you're doing 2B analysis, then everybody needs to be much more creative and think of actually,
how could this be done?
How could we actually are we actually having the correct concept today or would it be?
Are there other ways of looking upon this or talking about this that would make more sense?
We need to understand who should attend here.
And that's also related to if it's a strategic workshop for a future to be situation or if it's just
an acid situation.
If it's kind of the situation, then we need to have people that are actually working with this today,
who have this current language today.
If it's A to B situation, then it's more of a strategical exercise than they're completely probably
different people or a mix of other people.
We need to understand who should be sorry when it should be done.
So should we do it?
Like next week is like next month.
How long time will it take?
And we need to have some work to do it.
Should we do it online.
Yeah.
Should it just be over the phone.
Probably not.
Should it be in a room.
What kind of facilities do we have in the room.
It's usually very good to maybe have one place where you can show a whiteboard where you can have a
whiteboard in another place.
We can show some slides, maybe a third place where you can have a smaller whiteboard.
Or some notes to be taken and so on, so it needs to be a good room for four workshopping, and that's
usually something you don't think too much about.
And they come into the room is a very limited actually they cannot perform the exercise well.
So that's also very important.
Where should we be?
And of course, which methods should we apply?
How should we actually do this?
How should the workshop be built up?
And that's what this whole section is about.
So here you probably, as a facilitator, can come with your knowledge and experience and say that this
is how I usually do it.
I usually first do this and then I do doubt and then I do that and we talk about those types of things
and we use those types of examples and so on.
So you need to agree with the assigner here, how the workshop should be run.
So a typical workshop agenda could be like this, like four different things here.
So a first very important thing you see here is that we need to have some type of an icebreaker.
And I think that's very, very important.
And often what we're seeing, because you need to get people to start communicating and talking with
each other.
That's the main thing of the whole workshop, because it's language that we're trying to to map out
here.
And to do that, you need to get them talking to, so to speak.
There are a number of good icebreakers out there, and usually you shouldn't state that.
Now we're going to do an icebreaker because it feels a little bit awkward.
But you could do it as part of the introduction.
Introducing yourself, you usually start kind of introducing myself because it's best to use that the
the the way you like the introduction to be.
So if you ask somebody else to start, then everybody will follow that first person.
So if you kind of is setting the the kind of the pattern for how you would like people to introduce
themselves, then you tend to be the same that people are following that.
So I usually cannot say who I am, what I've been doing, my experience in this and why I think this
is important and that I really, really love doing this.
And I was tell something personal about myself.
Maybe that's depending on culture, maybe in a company, but how old I am, I have a wife and two wonderful
kids and and also then as an icebreaker, I usually say something like this that I would like everybody
in the room to actually say something about themselves that no other person in the room knows about.
And a good thing with that is that even if the person has actually been working with each other for
15 years, they really then have to start thinking actually, well, haven't I said to all those people
during all those years that we worked with those people and there's usually a little bit of giggles
and people are starting smiling and thinking about things, and then they're usually telling quite interesting
stuff, actually, so that they may be in when they were young, they were skateboarding along or whatever.
And then you can use that during the workshop then to kind of tie back to and maybe make some jokes
about it and everything.
So that's usually a very good kind of very easy icebreaker to take.
Of course, you as a facilitator need to be confident in this so it cannot be something that feels stiff.
You need to be doing it quite quick, but it needs to be feel it needs to feel natural as well for the
participants in the workshop.
But figure something out here.
But usually that's a very good way to get the people and all this talk to be here because it's not a
one man show.
This is something you're going to do together.
Right.
Then you need to have some introduction slides and saying, here's the background and purpose of this.
I talk to you, the assigner, you maybe and the signing might be in the workshop as well.
And you talk a little bit by about why this is important and what have led up to this workshop and the
goal with the workshop.
What are we trying to achieve and what do we hope to see during just a workshop day and also what the
result after the workshop should be used for?
You're going to hear also present the scope that you have agreed on and say that we are going to talk
about this area today.
We know that there's a lot of other areas, but we only have X hours, maybe two hours or three hours
or whatever you have.
And here's a reasonable amount of things that we can talk about during this workshop.
Then you maybe also would like to give a very high level introduction of concept modeling.
It's not that you're going to run through the all the areas that we talked about in the philosophical
part here.
But you need to pick a couple of things that are important to understand what concept modeling is about.
So maybe talk about the richest triangle and say that we actually have concept about the real world
objects and using our language to express the concepts and then therefore gain knowledge about the world
and so on and maybe have some some, some, some of that so that people are seeing what we are trying
to do here and also common problems that people are getting stuck with when it comes to language, confusions
and misunderstandings.
And usually the best thing, of course, is to take concrete examples from their existing.
Situation today, where this go wrong.
And then you need to describe the process for the workshop, this is how we're going to do it, like
I'm the facilitator, we're going to take a couple of scenarios, maybe if we're working with storytelling,
which will come to in the next lecture.
So you describe how this is going to go on and also probably also an agenda.
Say, here's the kind of this slot.
So if we have three hours, where are we now?
We're going to have a lunch break or whatever it is.
Then you do the workshop.
So so you do the workshop and then you leave at least like 10 to 15 minutes in the end.
So you're not you're not just running the whole workshop till the last minute and then you just rush
off.
You need to wrap everything up.
So you need to stop.
So you have 10 to 15 minutes left and then you say, stop, we don't have any more time, unfortunately,
today.
And then you evaluate whether you actually have reached a goal.
So you started kind of trying to summarize what you've now achieved during the workshop.
And then you try to compare that to the goal you set in the beginning, saying that as a scene we actually
cover the whole area before then, even maybe more.
Or it could be.
Well, this was a little bit more complex than we thought.
So we probably need another workshop to cover the whole area.
And that's suggested maybe next step.
So they are suggesting what are the next steps here?
If you cover the whole area, then you say that I'm going to document this and I'm going to send it
out for review to all of you here.
And I'll expect your comments to come in on that date and that and then that.
So it's very also very common mistake if you're not used to running a facilitating workshop that you
kind of lose this and step, which is not very good.
It's a thunderstorm out here.
And if you notice that, that's interesting.
And so that's a very important step.
So I usually kind of go through the these different steps when I have any type of meeting.
So first analysis, what what is the problem?
And maybe first the icebreaker itself and then what is the problem about why are we having a problem
then the goals that we're trying to achieve, like then the organization, how is this going to be run
and who's doing what?
And what's the different roles here?
And what do we expect of each person here?
And then we actually are executing this stuff and then we evaluating it.
Right.
So that's a very good pattern to have in mind because he's usually a very common mistake is you run
directly into the execution mode and everybody feels a little bit of what is going on.
What happened was I have no idea who was sitting in this room.
This one.
OK, very good.
So this is your role as a facilitator to be very clear about this.
So everybody feel comfortable, comfortable in the workshop and also start thinking and talking because
that's what you need.
So I've said this now a couple of times, but you have very different roles during the actual workshop.
So you is the facilitator here and then you have the domain experts.
So the domain experts, they will be the process, having knowledge about the domain you're going to
talk about.
And they know all the terms, even if they don't understand each other or have exactly the same conceptualizing
prior to the workshop.
That's what you're trying to maybe resolve during the workshop.
But you as a facilitator, you're the one they're going to have all that under a conceptual knowledge
here so that the fundamental level, what is UML about and associations and sentiments and concepts
and world and class and objects and all that stuff that's not expected for them to have.
So you're going to kind of try to mix those two domains together.
That's the last one.
Yeah,
so do not give up and give up until you ask, the facilitator understands.
So this is a very good thing to think about when you're running a workshop, because like a few speech
here is often like effused thoughts.
So if somebody is starting to be a little bit unsure when they're talking about it, it could actually
be because they themselves aren't actually understanding this 100 percent.
So and you need to understand it at least to the level that they need to understand it.
So you need to start asking questions and continue to ask questions and kind of be almost playing the
role of a donkey or being a bit dumb because you is the one they're going to deliver this coherent model.
You're the one that is responsible for this coherent model and hence you need to understand it.
So you cannot just rush over it.
If you think that I didn't understand that they need to stop, but however, make sure so that aren't
actually describing how a clarinet sound, as I said, because that's when we touch upon when we talk
about like Wittgenstein, there are things that you that you do know that are very kind of practical
and things you just do that you might not even have a language for.
So you can actually get stuck into situations.
And that could be also a little bit problematic.
But you see a facilitator need to spot these, that these are things that logically could be spoken
about.
And we need to kind of to clarify them a little bit.
And here are things that you just need not.
They are like practices.
You need to know how to do them.
You don't maybe have a language for exactly how you moves may be or how you dance and so on.
So if you get stuck, maybe leave it and maybe get back to it later.
It could be that there are some lacking things that you don't have touch upon yet that are needed to
be able to understand where you stand right now.
So it could be a good thing.
Just leave it now and maybe come back to later.
OK, that was just some kind of very high level technical trades, but now it's time to go.
So now it's time to start your workshop.
And that's what we're going to talk about in the next lecture.
So now we're going to talk about storytelling.
And that's my that's the way I tend to run workshops now.
So I've been running conceptual modeling workshops for six years professionally, and I've used many
different techniques.
But I'm going to kind of show you and tried to teach you the way I usually run them.
Very good to you.
They're.