How to facilitate workshops for student leaders to come up with project proposals based on certain themes

This is how I conducted workshops for student leaders from different university centers from Metro Manila. Many of them attended the World Youth Day in Australia last June 2008. The objective of the workshops were to come up with activities in their respective centers that would transmit the message of the Pope to other people.

Here's the general framework of the workshop:
Overall:
Identify the audience --> Identify resources (what communication abilities do we have) --> Identify most pertinent messages for the audience --> projectize and create project charters

Per workshop:
Individual reflection (written down on post-its) --> Synthesize through group discussion (summarize in Manila paper and discuss to the other groups)

1.Preparation
Materials:

• 1 print-out per person of each of the messages of the pope (space efficient and format in MS Word)
• Manila paper (at least 3 sheets per group)
• Pentel pens (a lot)
• Post-its (I brought 400 sheets of 3x3 in. Less than 100 was left after the workshops.)
• Masking tape
• Projector
• 1 laptop per group

Logistics

• Enough space for discussion for each group
• Enough time for
• Individual reading and reflection on the messages of the pope
• Introductions and workshops (around a total of 3 hours)
• Creating project charters (I asked them to give the first draft after 10hours; however, there were only 2.5 hours of free time within those 10 hours; there were other activities; this was not enough)
• Elevator pitch per team (1.5 hrs in total, but this depends on the number of groups and projects per group)

1.Introduction

• We arrived in the venue at 6PM. Dinner was at 7. I asked another organizer, Mike, to lead an ice-breaker after dinner. It was a good one. Here's what he did:
• He asked each one to think of an adjective which starts with the same letter as his first name
• Each one introduces himself one-by-one with his adjective plus his first name (eg, Mighty Mike)
• Certain people were asked to repeat the adjectives+names of the ones who already introduced (to let everyone hear people's names again and again)
• After everyone has introduced themselves, the group is divided into 2
• A game is then played. Each team selects a representative. The representative of the two teams face each other, but a large opaque piece of cloth is between them, so that they don't know who is the representative of the other team. The cloth is dropped. The first one to say the adjective+name of the representative of the other team, the one sitting right in front of the player, gets a point. The team chooses the next player and the game is played again. The representatives can use tactics like making funny faces to surprise the opponent and be the first one to say his opponent's adjective and name.
• We then did the introduction to the workshop. I explained to them the purpose of the workshops, which is to come up with activities in their respective centers to transmit the message of the Pope in WYD 08. I explained in broad strokes the framework for the workshops, as well as the schedule. Two documents from the pope were given to each participant. They were asked to read through it and highlight or note down the messages that they think the pope wants them to transmit.

2.Individual reading of 2 documents from the pope
They were given 1.5 hours to do this, before we went to sleep.

3.Workshop 1 (Identifying your audience) – allot 45 min

• This was our first activity in day 2. I passed the post-its around and each one got several. I asked them to write down the different groups of audiences around them who should get to listen to the message of the pope (around 5 min)
• I then asked them to write down in separate sheets of post-its the different media which these people consume (around 5 min)

• I asked them to break out into groups and come up with a summary per team (around 15 min)



• I asked each group to have one of them explain their summary. Everyone went around all of the groups, listening to each explanation (less than10 min)



• I then asked them to rate/prioritize their audiences and media. Who are the audiences who could further transmit the message of the pope? Who are the audiences who should be the first ones to target in communicating the message of the pope? What are most effective media among the ones listed down. (less than 10 min)
• I asked each group to have one of them explain their summary. Everyone went around all of the groups, listening to each explanation (less than 10 min)

4.Workshop 2 (Identifying your resources) – allot 45 min

• One important consideration in planning for non-profits is the current pool of resources, since the time and skill of people in your organization is usually your primary limitation. I asked them to write down the communication abilities of the people in the seminar who came from the same center as they. eg, writing, speaking, design, film, etc). This took around 5 min.
• Next, I asked them to write down the abilities of people in their respective centers. In hindsight, I should have asked them to write the names of those people as well. This took around 5 min.
• After, I asked them to write down the people with communication abilities who are not currently regular in the center but could be by helping out in communicating the messages of the pope. This took around 5 min.
• They broke out into groups and came up with a summary per team (see pics below). This took around 15 min.
• Everyone went around all of the groups, listening to the explanation of each team. This took around 10 min.

5.Workshop 3 (Identifying your message and linking them all together) – allot 45 min

• I initially thought we would be able to complete these 3 workshops in 1.5 hours, or 30 minutes each. We extended by 15 minutes and Workshop 3 was not completed yet. We continued the day after. Each one individually wrote in their post-its the top 5 messages they got from the pope.
• I asked them to discuss in their teams again. The were to select the most pertinent messages for each of their priority audiences. They were to then list down the people who could help out in these areas as well the the media they plan to use. At first, they were not very clear on what to do, so I explained it further by taking as an example their output from workshops 1 and 2, and creating the output. I told them that their output could be a table, a mindmap or an outline. The groups came up with tables or mindmaps (see below).
• Again, everyone went around all of the groups, listening to the explanation of each team.

6.Creation of project charters and preparation for elevator pitch

• I gave them an overview on how to create a project charter, showing some examples from the web. I then asked them to organize their output into projects. I then asked them to create project charters for each and submit the first draft in 10 hours. The time was not enough to create project charters. Next time, I'll include in the schedule time specifically for creating project charters. I'll act as some sort of consultant as they do the project charters. They were however able to create presentations for their elevator pitches. They are quite good.

Overview on creating project charters