Workshop Planning Framework – The Six P’s - J.D. Meier's Blog - Site Home

Workshops are one of the best ways to rapidly brainstorm ideas, capture scenarios, mine for patterns, etc. The challenge can be designing an effective workshop.

In the book Scenarios, Stories, Use Cases: Through the Systems Development Life-Cycle, Ian F. Alexander and Neil Maiden present The Six P’s Workshop Framework. Here is a summary of the approach:

Category	Question	Concerns
Purpose	Why are we doing the workshop?	Goals Need Motivation
Participants	Who is involved?	Roles Stakeholder Experts
Principles	How should we function as a group?	Guidelines for participation Working agreements Ground rules Group norms
Products	What should the workshop produce?	Work products Dependencies Models Decisions Next steps Issues for resolution
Place	Where should we gather and share space?	Location Time
Process	When should things happen and in what order?	Steps Activities Order Concurrency

As you can see, the six P’s (Purpose, Participants, Products, Place, and Process) create the overall frame. Each category within the frame has a driving question. For example, “Purpose” contains the question, “Why are we doing the workshop?” Each category within the frame also has a list of “Concerns.” For example, “Purpose” contains the concerns, “goals", “need”, and “motivation.”

By addressing the question and the concerns, you can design and shape a more effective workshop.