Seeking workshop tips to align teams on new project

👋 Hey all. I am looking for some workshop approaches, and I knew that this community would be a great place to tap into.

I am a user experience researcher, and I am asked to join projects and quickly get the team aligned around a user's problem we are trying to solve. People involved in this project could hold a variety of roles (marketing, call/help center managers, data analysts). And some of these roles are not just product folks (product owner/manager, UX designer, business analyst, developer).

I have been asked to come up with a go-to "tool kit" that I can use when I need to bring the team together to quickly explore the problem or solution space. So I am hoping the team has some great activities that I can start to think about when I need to hit my go-to "tool kit."

Now I know what you are thinking. What problem is she trying to solve? That is a good question.

I think that there could be a number of problems a workshop activity could try to address:

• Understanding (and empathizing) with the user

• SMEs (subject matter experts) sharing their knowledge and getting the team up to speed on the project

• Exploring the problem space and thinking about which problem we want to tackle first

• Exploring the brainstorming /solution space

• Getting the team on the same page / team building around the project.

I recently did a workshop with a co-worker and we tried out some activities from the "Design Sprint" book. We did the "How Might We" activity, and it really wasn't the best approach because we are not trying to get the team to design toward a solution. Instead we are trying to explore blue sky / big dream possibilities to take our product (technically) to the next level. Believe me, our product is behind in some aspects, and we really want to get the conservative and risk adverse team members to think more broadly and creatively. That is just one example of what workshop might work better.

So please help me build out my workshop activities with sharing some workshop approaches and when best to use them.

Thanks in advance for your tips and tricks.

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