I Just Conducted a Multi-Country Consulting Workshop with 10 People. Here’s What I Learned.
Spoiler Alert: You need to prepare better to deal with 10 enemies coming at you. At the same time.
I completed a 2-day consulting workshop for 10 people from 3 countries last week.
We spoke at length about productivity and using digital visual management software to get work done better, supported by timely information flow. People engaged. Overall feedback was good.
Yes, I enjoyed myself. But it was mentally exhausting.
Here’s why.
- 3 participants attended the workshop onsite
- 7 participants dialed in via Microsoft Teams. Of the 7, 3 were from Thailand
- They understand working English
- Of the 7, 4 were from Laos
- They understand conversational English
Trust me. I did everything I could to get the organizer to send me details of the participants for the workshop.
She did. But that attendee list changed every 24 hours.
80% of the names in the original spreadsheet did not appear on Workshop Day 1.
A Brief Recap of the 2-Day Consulting Workshop
This is a curriculum-driven consulting workshop.
The intent was to train the newbies to use new visual management software for daily tasks. The workshop was designed to be introductory. I did not assume any prior product knowledge.
This part went well. The 10 folks were patient. They followed what I demonstrated onsite and online and proceeded with the necessary exercises without complaints.
It was the only positive, in my opinion. Other components of the consulting workshop went out of control.
- Firstly, I was not in control of the comments streaming in from Microsoft Teams as my immediate attention was given to the onsite team
- Secondly, I spent a lot of time repeating myself to the Laotian and Thai teams
- Lastly, every one of them came in with different expectations and questions
I did manage to attend to all their queries. But the effort required sapped my soul. I went home exhausted and unable to continue with my work.
What Actually Happened and How I Intend to Deal with It (Next Time)
I overestimated my ability to handle 10 workshop attendees.
It is annoying when clients praise you for doing a good job. But it doesn’t work. Not when I know it is not.
I decided to perform an After Action Review. I wanted to figure out how to handle multi-country consulting workshops better next time.
And so, on Saturday (the 2-day consulting workshop was scheduled on Thursday and Friday), I went to a quiet café to go through notes scribbled during the event. I also attempted to replay the workshop in my mind, so I could take a 3rd party perspective on what to improve.
These are my takeaways.
1. Hybrid Presentation Modes Must Be Aligned to One Screen
Hybrid = Onsite + Online
The onsite attendees had my immediate attention. I respond to their facial expressions almost immediately.
When they focused and frowned, I paused to ask them what must be re-explained.
When they asked questions, I responded directly without repeating. The folks on Microsoft Teams did not understand where I was coming from.
I walked around the room to check their progress when it was time to work on practicum exercises. Here, I stumbled.
My biggest mistake? I forgot to check how the Laotian and Thai teams are coping online.
Quite naturally, I felt stupid (upon reflection) that I neglected questions from the Laotian and Thai team online when I left my laptop to walk around.
I thought hard about alternative methods to run hybrid consulting workshops better. I arrived at one conclusion.
First tip: I must project my laptop screen outwards so all onsite and online teams can be aligned to 1 consolidated view.That should work. Requests must be made to the client counterpart to book a meeting room with a projection facility. Yes, there weren’t any in the room I conducted the consulting workshop.
Surprising? Yup. But true.
But the fault is with me. I did not request ahead of time.
2. I Need Support to Help Collate & Remind Me to Reply to Questions from the Audience
This is another facepalm moment.
I ought to kill myself for faltering on something this basic. Geez!
This is analogous to a classic situation in the boxing ring. Everyone knows they must duck or block an offensive 5,000-pound left hook punch.
Yet, we might not do it. We get too carried away responding to the dynamics within the boxing ring that we forget our fundamentals… only to be Knocked Out by our opponent. I am that experienced novice.
I told all attendees in front of me that I would take questions only during breaks. This ensures that product demonstration or presentation curriculum flow is not broken.
But I completely forgot that online participants can ask questions (via comments) at any point in time. When the client liaison reminded me that there were questions in the comment tab of Microsoft Teams… it was too late.
There are too many questions buried within the comments. I had to keep scrolling upwards to get to the initial questions. And the initial questions must be responded to for the online participants to follow my product demonstration or presentation.
They were lost at the 10-minute mark of the 30-minute product demonstration segment. What did they do during the remaining 20-minutes?
- They muted their microphones and chatted among themselves
- They started asking each other, via comments, what they were supposed to do
- They started working on the exercises beforehand and asked questions on the advance segment when the onsite team was working on the basic ones
The best part of it all? I got stressed by the different questions posted to me by the onsite and online team during Question & Answer plus post-exercise review inquiries.
In hindsight, I should get the client liaison to help manage the comments online. Or the teams online. It was challenging to have my eyes on both.
And having a moderator to control the online group is necessary to keep them in check. All teams can be aligned to the pace of the workshop.
No one gets too far away. No one else gets left behind.
Parting Keynotes
Knowing what to do does not mean we remember what needs to be done.
This is my biggest takeaway as an experienced novice. I know it is important to control the online and onsite teams during a consulting workshop.
I got too carried away focusing on the content delivery during the 2-day workshop.
And maybe I should plan out all eventualities and be prepared for them in advance. After all, anything can happen.
The recent multi-country consulting workshop is one harsh reminder. We can always be better prepared, no matter how experienced we are.
As a content contributor, I write my observations from daily life and my business exposure. Because our life experience is the bedrock of our unique perspectives.
Get full access to Medium using this link and read gazillion exciting articles.
