 Facilitating your first workshop can be rather scary, especially if you think that your first time has to be a quote-unquote short one-hour workshop with multiple exercises. But you can actually start your facilitation journey with something that's much easier and much shorter. In this video, we're going to share with you a 15-minute micro workshop that you can run during any meeting and we're going to walk you through it step by step. Hi, my name is Amr and I'm a full-time facilitator at AJN Smart. The first time I facilitated a workshop, I was actually pretty scared and nervous. Like most things you're trying for the first time, you have no idea what to expect. I didn't know if I was going to be able to present confidently to participants or explain the exercises correctly or manage the time and I was really worried that people would reach the end of the workshop with no useful outcome and they would just think that it was a waste of time. And now having trained people and companies to become facilitators, I know that this sentiment, this initial fear of how to get started is shared by a lot of you and might even stop you from trying facilitation for the first time, which is exactly why we created this video. In this video, we're going to walk you through a 15-minute short workshop that you can use to dip your toes into the world of facilitation. So you can run this micro workshop either in person or remotely. It doesn't matter. And we made a script for you for what to say exactly word for word when you're facilitating your first workshop so you know exactly what you have to say and you don't even need to think about it. And if you're running this micro workshop remotely, we put together a Miro template for you and Miro is the app that we always use at agent smart to deliver workshops remotely and it's really easy to get started with and we even created separate onboarding videos for both you as a facilitator and your participants. So you literally have everything you need to run your first micro workshop, including what to say, the tools to use and how to get started using those tools. The link to all those resources is in the description box below. And if you have any questions about running this workshop, make sure to leave them in the comments. And also we'd like to know what's stopping you from running your first workshop. So let us know in the comments as well. So the 15-minute micro workshop that we're going to go over today is called note and vote. So the note and vote workshop is made up of just two exercises, noting and voting. But these two exercises are at the heart of every great workshop and they are two exercises that you should really master before moving on to bigger and more complex workshops. At agent and smart, we use the note and vote micro workshop all the time, both internally and with our clients, and we use it for all sorts of situations like prioritizing problems, doing quick ideation, or just simply a sharing session. And the note and vote micro workshop is really great for so many reasons. For one, it's super efficient. And in 15 minutes, it can get done what usually would take two hours with traditional brainstorming. And it's also great because everything is captured and noted down on paper or on a digital whiteboard. And it ensures that everyone has a voice and gives their input. And it has no bias because everything is anonymous as well. So if you're running this workshop in person, the setup is very, very simple. All you need is a stack of sticky notes for everyone, a bunch of sharpies for everyone to write on. And usually going with sharpies is better than going with a regular pen because those are harder to read from a distance. And also you wouldn't want people to write too many things into a sticky note. So a sharpie forces people to be concise. So the third and final thing you'll need is some voting dots. So something like this or like this as a nice bonus, you can also get one of these timers, which makes the timing for the exercise very clear for everyone in the room. But you could also use your phone if you don't have one of these. And so because everyone knows how to use sticky notes and sharpies and voting dots, we won't go too much into that. And we're going to focus for the rest of the video on how to do this workshop remotely. But all the steps that we're going to go through apply just as well to an in-person workshop with the only difference being that you're moving physical sticky notes as opposed to moving them on a computer. So let's jump into Mira. This is the Mira template that we're going to be working with. And as you can see, it's super simple. All it has is a question at the top, some names and some sticky notes for people to write in, as well as some voting dots. Now using Mira is very simple, but if you haven't used it before, we've created a couple of overview videos that go over the basics. And you can check those out by following the link in the description box below. So as you can see, this template is very simple, which should make it easy for your team to also use it, even if they've never used something like Mira before. And as you can see, there's literally nothing else on here except this board with the sticky notes and the voting dots. And we've also integrated the script for what you need to say right on this board and put it down in the corner. And so to access that, all you need to do is hover over this box and we've labeled them FN, short for facilitator notes, because we didn't want your participants to be clicking on them. So we made it this cryptic short thing off to the side. This is just for you to click into. And once you click into it, you'll be able to see the exact script for what you need to say. And it's broken into three steps. So FN0 is just a list of things that you need to know before you run the workshop. And you can even delete this before you share the link with your team. And then facilitator notes one is the exact script of what you need to say during the workshop. And FN2 is the rest of that script. So I've created an example board that I'll show you here, which has the steps of the exercises. And let me walk you through the script that we've prepared here. So starting with the first one, which is just the preparation, this goes over how to use this script. And it says that everything in between these asterisks that starts with facilitator notes, that's something that is a note intended for you. And you shouldn't actually say this to your participants. And that's exactly what this note says. And then we have a checklist for you for preparing the board. So for this template that we have right here, you can see that it has a question at the top, which is how can we attract more customers. And you can replace that with a question that's relevant for your meeting. And you should definitely replace the names at the top with the names of the people in your team. And all of that is captured in the checklist. So before you share the board, make sure you replace the question, update the names, and you should practice reading out the script at least one time so that you're comfortable with it before you run this exercise. Also, feel free to adapt it. If you feel like the language doesn't come out naturally for you. And this is something that's very important for a facilitator. You should really be comfortable with your script for facilitation so that everything comes out naturally and you're not tripping over words that are unnatural or sound weird to you. So that's it for facilitator notes zero. That's just the prep step. So before we go into the script, let me show you what the exercise is all about. So as you can see here, it's this very simple board, but I've duplicated in multiple times just to simulate the progression of this exercise. So it starts with a bunch of empty sticky notes for everyone in the team. And you have an area here to the side that is hidden in the beginning because we will only get to this step later. And so the first thing you should do is update the question at the top and the names to reflect the names of your team. And if you need to add any more columns or take out a few, you do all of that before the actual workshop so that the board is just ready for you to get started. And this workshop is really made up of two steps. First, everyone writes answers to the questions individually, and this is called working together alone. So you're all together in either a conference call or in a physical space and everyone has some time to think to themselves. So you put five minutes on a timer and maybe play even some background music and everyone is writing sticky notes. There's no discussion happening. Everyone gets some thinking time to themselves. And when the timer is up, that's when we move on to the next step, which is the voting. Now instead of discussing things, because after you're done with the first step, you're going to have a large collection of sticky notes and ideas to go through. And it will be very slow to start tackling these randomly and individually. So what you do instead is you use some red voting dots, and those represent your voice and everyone in the room. So everyone would get a number of red dots. So in this case, in this template, we've gone for three dots per person. And after the timer for ideation is up, you take everyone to the voting area and you tell them, all right, everyone has three dots to vote. And to vote, we simply take a red dot and place it on a sticky note. And each person can vote for the ideas that they wish to prioritize. And after we're done voting, then we're going to look at all the ideas. So let me show you how this looks in practice. So once you started the ideation, we'll have people writing on the board. And so, for example, to answer the question of how can we attract more customers, someone like Annabella would have ideas like maybe we create a YouTube channel, or maybe we run ads on Facebook, or maybe we organize a meetup for people in our industry, or create a blog, or show our office life on Instagram. So everyone would write down their ideas while the timer is running. And then after the timer runs out, you take everyone's names and you delete them. And you delete all of the empty notes as well. So you can look just at the ideas with nothing else getting in the way. After you're done, you can just select all of these sticky notes and quickly rearrange them into a grid. So everyone can start looking at them in preparation for the next step, which is the voting. So now that we have a sorted collection of sticky notes, we move on to the voting and you tell everyone that they have three dots to vote on. And after everyone is done voting, you take all the sticky notes that God voted on and you put them in a separate area and you rearrange them according to the number of votes that they got. So you end up with a pyramid like this, because chances are only a few ideas will get simultaneous votes from everyone and you'll have a bunch of ideas that got one vote each. And so that's really it for this exercise. You will have gone from no ideas about how to tackle a particular issue to having gathered ideas from the entire team and then quickly voted on which ideas should be prioritized. And when you end up with this list, you can start discussing only the top ideas for the rest of your meeting. And so within 15 minutes, you will have introduced people to the exercise, then introduced Miro and had everyone ideate on the board, then vote on it. And you will have a prioritized list of ideas to go through all in 15 minutes instead of taking hours to get to the same place if you didn't run a workshop. So now that you know how the exercise works and what it's about, let me show you a quick overview of the script that we have written for you. So what you would do with your team is exactly what we just did in this video, which is first introduce the idea. So you would say something like for today's meeting, I thought it would be great for us to try a popular ideation technique called note and vote and Google and other big companies use this a ton to make ideation much faster, while also giving everyone space to think. So now you're getting people excited about the exercise. And this is really important whether you're doing this in person or remotely, and especially if you're doing it remotely, because you're asking people to use this new digital whiteboard app, which might cause a little bit of friction. So it's good to excite people up front about the idea. And you also say this whole exercise should take us around 10 to 15 minutes, rather than the two hours it would take us to get to the same place without it. After that, you introduce Miro to your team. And this is all before you've shared the link with them. So you say, since we're doing it all remotely, we're gonna have to use an app to run this workshop. And it's very simple. It's very easy. I have a quick overview video to share with you. And we have a super short video that goes over the basics that you can share with your team. So you don't even have to do the explaining yourself, but you can also do it that way if you prefer. And after you've done that, that's when you share the link to the Miro board with everyone. So then we have a note that says after everyone has watched the video and has the Miro link, that's when you introduce the board and the exercise on Miro. And we have a facilitator note to bring everyone to you. Now, what this means is bringing everyone so that they're looking at the same thing that you are on the Miro board. And we go over this in our facilitator basics, which is a video that's made specifically for you as a facilitator. This is separate from the video that goes over the basics for everyone in the team because you as a facilitator need to know a few additional features to be able to facilitate a workshop remotely and have it be a great experience for everyone. And so what you would say here is something like, so now that we've seen how all this works, we're ready to jump into the exercise. I've set up a very simple board. It's just what you see here. And each of us have two columns of sticky notes to write ideas in. And you also say, I'll set a timer for seven minutes. That way you get some space to think. And you can also introduce why working in this way is better. So this is called working together alone. And that's what you tell the team. We say they call this working together alone, where we're all collaborating together in the same meeting, but we all have time to ourselves so that we can think and produce ideas without biasing each other. And then you give people some guidelines so you tell everyone, make sure to put only one idea per sticky note. That'll make the sticky notes easier to read and also keep it short but understandable. So don't write an essay, but also don't write just a vague word that no one will understand. Now that you've explained the exercise, you're just about ready to get started. But before you do, just to make sure that everyone is okay using Neuro, it's better to do a check that no one has any issues. And so you say, before I start the timer and we all start typing, I just want to make sure that everyone is able to type in a sticky note without any issues. So let's try that first. Simply double click on a sticky note in your column and start typing. And give that a try before I start the timer so that I know that you're not having trouble. And that's where we have a facilitator note for you to wait for everyone to try typing. And once you feel confident that no one has issues typing sticky notes, that's when you can start the exercise, which is the next section here. And so you say, all right, now we're ready to start the exercise. I'm going to start the timer for seven minutes and play some background music to help everyone concentrate better. And for this, you can use the music selection that's built right into the Muro timer. So you just pick music from here and you can even preview it to select the one that you want to play during the timer. And we prefer something like calm flow or cosmic vibes. And we mentioned that in the script. That's because they tend to be softer and they don't distract from the actual thinking and writing. So we have all of these written down for you in the facilitator notes as three checklist items. And then after the timer is up, that's when everyone will be done ideating. And they will have a board of ideas like we saw earlier. And what you do in this step is just remove the names from the top so that everything is anonymous. You delete the empty sticky notes you can even ask your team to help. And you sort the sticky notes so that they are in a grid instead of these massive gaps between them. And that's the end of the second script. And what you see here at the bottom is to move on to FN2, which is facilitator notes too. So let's click until the last one. And this introduces the voting, which as we covered earlier is this area right here, right next to the board where everyone is working. So let's look at that script now. This is where you introduce the concept of voting, because most people are used to just discussing ideas in a brainstorming session. And what you say here, like now we have a lot of ideas, we cannot discuss them all in the time that we have. So we need to prioritize them first, which is why we're going to do this voting exercise. And whenever you're explaining a new part of an exercise, we have a checklist item for you to bring everyone to you to show them where the red voting dots are on the board. And then you continue explaining and you tell everyone the way this works is that instead of discussing ideas, we all take a few minutes to read through all of the sticky notes. And then we each get three red voting dots to silently vote. So there won't be any discussion when people are voting on this. And everyone decides where their own votes go, according to what they think should be prioritized. And then you say to vote on an idea, you simply move one of the red voting dots next to your name onto the sticky notes that you wish to vote on. And at this point, we also recommend to bring everyone to you again, and just give a quick demo of how that works just to remind people how this works in Miro. And then you give some guidelines. So you tell people it's okay to vote on your own idea. And you can even put multiple dots on the same idea if you feel very strongly about it. But then that leaves you with even fewer dots to vote on other ideas. So now that you've explained how voting works, you can actually start the exercise. And so you just remind everyone again, for this exercise, I'm going to set the timer for five minutes for us to read through all of the sticky notes and then place our votes. And again, to make sure that no one's having trouble, this is where you say, before I start the timer, I want you to try moving your voting dots a little bit just to make sure that you don't have any trouble. Let's try it now. And you wait for everyone to try it and see if anyone needs help. And then when everyone is ready for voting, you start the timer for five minutes with the music again. And we have that checklist for you here. And once everyone is done voting, you'll have a bunch of sticky notes with different number of dots on them. And then you take all of these sticky notes and rearrange them according to the number of votes that they got. And this is all written here. And you share this with the team as you're doing it. And then you say, okay, now that everyone is done voting, I'm just going to reorder these sticky notes based on the number of votes they got so we can start discussing the top voted ones. And then there's a note for you to do that rearrangement, because you're probably going to be faster at it than other people who are using Euro for the first time. So then to end the exercise, you say, okay, now we have a prioritized list of ideas to go through that everyone contributed to and voted on that we can start discussing. And we can clearly see the top ideas that most people wanted to prioritize, which would have been way harder to do if we were just to discuss them without any structure. And let's start discussing the top voted sticky note. And that's where you continue your meeting as usual. So again, in 15 minutes, you've helped everyone ideate and prioritize ideas and just continue your meeting. And by doing that, you will have facilitated your first micro workshop. And after you've done a few of these, you'll feel a lot more confident about running larger workshops, which have multiple steps with note and vote as one of the steps in that workshop. And as you can see in the script, it says this is the end of this micro workshop to let you know that this is the end. You just resume your meeting talking about the top voted ideas. So I hope you found this video helpful. And I hope that it helps you overcome the initial fear of facilitating your first workshop and giving you all the resources you need to get started. So please let us know in the comments if this was helpful for you, or if you have any questions about how to conduct this workshop and to get all of the resources we mentioned in this video, including the word by word script for what to say and the Miro template and the onboarding videos, both for your participants, as well as the facilitator basics. Make sure to click the link in the description box below. So if you enjoyed this video, please give it a like. And if you're interested in videos around facilitation and workshops, then make sure to subscribe and hit the bell icon. Thank you and see you next time. Hi, my name is Omar and I'm micro workshop micro workshop marker. Yeah, cool. Good. I can say one sentence without tripping. Sometimes. And for all the resources, including the script to for what