Course Overview:
Build confidence to whiteboard your communication with others, and gain trust faster
Every discovery and design sprint starts with a kick-off session with the stakeholders. During the kick-off session you build:
● trust with your client, as well as,
● a shared understanding of the problem to be solved.
Basic whiteboarding promotes trust and shared understanding quickly and effectively. It’s an essential component of great relationships with your team and stakeholders. No magic here, come practice with us to build creative confidence that you can draw your communication with others even if you can’t draw a horse. This workshop will benefit anyone involved in digital product design and development: managers, designers, and developers.
REGISTER HERE
Training: Whiteboarding: A Visual Communications Workshop
Dates: Friday, May 3 2:30-4:30 PM with Q&A Happy Hour after
Location: Orases – 5728 Industry Lane
Cost: $25 – pay participation + happy hour fee HERE. If you do not pay this fee 48 hours prior to training, your spot will be released.
Instructor: Natalie Mandriko, a co-founder of Lean UX agency – an NNG certified UX practitioner. She spent the last two years evangelizing UX design process at EastBanc Technologies.
*** As this training is funded by State of MD EARN Grant funding, the information requested on the Registration Form is REQUIRED by the State of Maryland for their tracking and statistics purposes. ***
Why take the Whiteboarding Workshop?
The workshop created for agencies and software teams. Build confidence to whiteboard your communication with others, and gain trust faster
Every digital project you have starts with a kick-off session with the stakeholders.
This first meeting is critical to get it right, so you can build:
- trust with your client, as well as,
- a shared understanding of the problem to be solved.
Did you know, that according to
Harvard Business School Professor Amy Cuddy, your client judges you and your team based on two questions:
- Can I trust these people? (Can I rely on them to be on my side?)
- Can I respect these people? (Can I rely on them to deliver what I want/need?)
For great relationships with your customer, you build trust first and then gain respect later once you show that you deliver on your promises.
If trust is not established, your project fails due to:
- Miscommunication with the client and within the team:
As a result, your misunderstood customer won’t come back to you.
- Scope creep:
Ineffective communication leads to an inability to manage scope. Working with this client hurts your bottom line and your company lets the customer go.
- Unmanaged expectations:
It’s hard to adjust expectations with a client who doesn’t trust you and the arguments you provide to create a realistic delivery plan. As a result, missed deadlines eat up respect and trust. If communication adjustments aren’t made, the customer leaves.
Why not start off on the right note? Use every minute of your first meeting to build trust as fast as you can, so you can use this “trust bank” later when you need to set realistic expectations and manage scope effectively.
How can you build trust? You are actively listening to what your client is saying during first interactions. One proven way of active listening is to whiteboard what the client is saying.
So, the customer sees what you have heard and can adjust the mental picture you are re-creating in your mind.
Whiteboarding promotes trust and shared understanding quickly and effectively.
Whiteboarding involves creating a visual representation of all ideas presented by the customer so that the customer can have more control over what’s being documented and can actively participate in the co-creation of the visual artifact.
Using this medium, you de-associate thoughts from the speaker, and you have a greater ability to debate an idea/thought since it doesn’t feel like you are attacking the idea creator, but analyzing/modifying/expanding/improving the initial idea. Preferably, all participants are co-creating with the original creator of the idea.
Whiteboarding is an essential component of great relationships with your team and stakeholders.
There is no magic here! Come practice with us to build creative confidence so that you can draw your communication with others even if you can’t draw a horse.
At the end of this 2-hour workshop, you will:
- Gain visual communication confidence
So you can lead your customer through the discovery process effectively, by clearly articulating and validating business and users requirements via whiteboarding sessions.
- Bulletproof your kick-off meeting with the best practices
During the workshop, you will analyze what worked and didn’t work at the discovery kick-off in the past, so you can optimize your next kick-off experience for your customer.
- Expand your visual communication toolbox
You will have a toolbox of additional visualization techniques, that you can use even when you have no whiteboard at hand, so you can visualize your conversation at any circumstances.
At the end of the workshop, you will receive a package that includes:
- Kick-off meeting agenda template
Use this template to jump-start your meeting planning, so you are confident you don’t forget essential steps for a great kick-off.
- Resource list to expand your visual communication techniques
This is the visual communication library that you can use for inspiration when you feel you are ready to take your visual communication skills to the next level.
- Presentation deck used during the workshop
The deck has examples of whiteboarding sessions from the past projects so you can analyze it and compare with your work.
- Whiteboarding toolkit list
The list of essential tools and where to buy them to get you absolutely ready for a white-boarding session in any place.
- How to make whiteboarding a habit in your office
A guide with a list of strategies to start and expand white-boarding habits in your office.
This workshop will benefit anyone involved in digital product design and development: managers, business analysts, designers, and developers.