The facilitator's checklist: the day before, the hour before, the day after

Most workshops are won or lost outside the session itself. The week before decides whether the right people come with the right question. The final hour decides whether the room works. The day after decides whether anything happens. This checklist covers all three, with what to prepare, who is involved and what should exist at the end of each step.

It assumes you have already designed the session. If you haven't, start with how to run a workshop that ends in decisions, which covers framing, the guest list and the shape of the day.

One week before: lock the decision and the people

Who's involved: you, the decision owner, the sponsor if different.

Prepare:

• A one-page brief: the decision, the owner, the decision rule, the fixed constraints, and what "done" looks like at the end.
• The working question, tested with two colleagues who aren't attending. Can they each write five different ideas in five minutes? If not, rewrite it. The how might we guide helps.
• The guest list, checked against a quick stakeholder map: who decides, who knows, who will carry it out. Remove anyone who is coming only to represent a department.
• A private conversation with the decision owner: when you'll ask them to decide, how the group will choose, and what you need from them before the day.
• Evidence gathered: data, quotes, observations. People arguing from evidence converge faster than people arguing from opinion.
• Invitations sent with the purpose in one sentence and any pre-read. Keep pre-reads to two pages; longer ones won't be read.

What comes out: a signed-off brief and confirmed attendance from the decision owner.

The day before: rehearse and pack

Who's involved: you, and a co-facilitator or note-taker if you have one.

Prepare:

• Run through the agenda aloud with timings. Mark which blocks can shrink if you fall behind. The closing block never shrinks.
• Write the instructions for each exercise in one or two sentences on a slide or card. Instructions given only verbally get misunderstood by a third of the room.
• Prepare the templates: printed canvases, digital boards, or both. Pre-fill the question, criteria headings and the decision record table.
• Agree roles with your co-facilitator: who watches the clock, who captures, who handles late arrivals and tech.
• Pack the kit: sticky notes in two colours, thick markers (thin pens can't be read from across the room), dot stickers, tape, timer, spare printouts, extension lead, adapters.
• For remote or hybrid sessions: test the board links with someone outside your organisation, check permissions, and prepare a backup plan if the tool fails. More on this in remote and hybrid workshops people stay awake in.
• Send a short reminder to participants with time, place and the one question they should think about before they arrive.

What comes out: a timed run sheet, ready templates, packed kit.

The hour before: set the room

Who's involved: you, the co-facilitator, venue staff.

Prepare:

• Arrive 60 minutes early, not 15. Rooms are never set the way you asked.
• Arrange the space for the first activity: tables for small groups, wall space cleared, chairs that can move. Remove a boardroom table if you can; it locks people into rank order.
• Put the question, the decision and the agenda on the wall where everyone sees them when they walk in.
• Test the screen, sound, connection and any video link. Join the remote call from a second device to see what remote people see.
• Put materials on every table so no time is lost handing them out.
• Prepare a visible "parking lot" sheet and, next to it, the decision record table, empty, so people can see from the start what the session will produce.
• Five minutes with the decision owner if they arrive early: confirm when they'll decide and remind them to hold their opinion until the group has written its own.
• Take one quiet minute. Read the opening lines once more.

What comes out: a room that works for the first activity, and a facilitator who is calm when people arrive.

During the session: three checks

The design does most of the work during the session, but three checks catch most problems:

1. At the halfway point, compare the clock with the run sheet and decide now what to cut. Don't wait until the last hour.
2. Before convergence, confirm the criteria are still on the wall and the decision owner is still in the room.
3. Fifteen minutes before the end, start the close regardless of where the group is. An unfinished exercise is better than an unfinished decision.

The common traps during the session itself are covered in 7 workshop mistakes that kill good ideas.

The hour after: capture while it's fresh

Who's involved: you and the co-facilitator.

Prepare:

• Photograph the decision record first, then the walls.
• Note anything the photos won't capture: who reserved judgement, what the decision owner said, open questions.
• A ten-minute retrospective with your co-facilitator: what to keep, what to change next time.
• Collect the feedback capture grid if participants filled one in.

What comes out: a clean decision record and your own notes on the session.

The day after: send, check, start

Who's involved: you, the decision owner, the owners of each action.

Prepare:

• Within 24 hours, send the decision record (decisions, owners, first steps, dates) to everyone who attended and to the people listed as "needs to know". One page, not the full report.
• Message each action owner individually to confirm they've accepted the action and the date.
• Agree with the decision owner how they will communicate the decision upward or across. A short stakeholder communication plan helps when several groups are affected.
• Clarify any roles left fuzzy with a quick RACI.

What comes out: every decision acknowledged by its owner.

One week after: close the loop

• Send the full write-up: reasoning, options considered, what was dropped and why, with photos and notes as an appendix.
• Check that each first step has started. If one hasn't, find out why now rather than at the next steering meeting.
• Tell participants what happened to their ideas. This is the step that decides whether they come back next time with their best thinking, as why your workshop ended in photos of sticky notes explains.

Illustrative example: a university's student services team

Illustrative. A student services team at a university in Australia was running a half-day session to choose how to redesign its enquiries desk. The facilitator used this checklist. A week before, testing the question with two colleagues showed it was too broad ("improve student support"), so it became "choose two changes to the enquiries desk we can trial before the new semester." The day before, she realised the room booked had a fixed boardroom table and moved to a teaching room. In the hour before, the video link for two remote campus staff failed the test, so she set up a phone dial-in as a backup. During the session, the halfway check showed the team was twenty minutes behind; she cut the second round of ideas rather than the close. The decision record went out the next morning. A week later, both trials had started.

Do's and don'ts

Do

• Arrive an hour early.
• Put the decision and question on the wall before people arrive.
• Decide at the halfway point what to cut.
• Send the decision record within 24 hours.
• Tell participants what happened to their ideas.

Don't

• Rely on spoken instructions alone.
• Let the closing block be the one that gets cut.
• Wait for the full report before telling people what was decided.
• Skip the private conversation with the decision owner.

Questions people ask

How far in advance should I prepare a workshop? Start at least a week ahead for anything that needs a decision. Most of that week goes on the brief, the question and the guest list, not the agenda.

What should a workshop facilitator bring? Sticky notes in two colours, thick markers, dot stickers, tape, a visible timer, spare printouts of every template, an extension lead and adapters. For hybrid sessions, a second device to see what remote participants see.

What should I send after a workshop? Within a day, a one-page decision record. Within a week, the full write-up with reasoning and dropped options. Then a short note on what happened to people's ideas.

Where to go next

Useful method guides for preparation and follow-up: stakeholder map, RACI, stakeholder communication plan and retrospective. The rest are in the method guides.