Workshop Exercises: Evaluate

Start / Stop / Continue

Evaluate past behavior and set actionable points to improve and move forward

Alternative plays: 4 Ls, Plus / Delta, Rose / Thorn / Bud

Follow-up plays: Five-Fingered Consensus, Plus / Delta

Timing: Planning

Run time
30 minutes

Group size
4-10

Why: Resolve stagnancy and inefficiency in a team's routine

When: After project milestones, at the end of a sprint, or during quarterly reviews to reassess and recalibrate team efforts

Instructions for running this play

Setup. Create three columns labeled START, STOP, CONTINUE on a large surface.
- Start represents what we should start doing
- Stop represents what we should stop doing
- Continue represents what we should continue doing
Introduce the exercise. Explain the context of the exercise: team collaboration, a specific project, stakeholder collaboration, etc.
Generate and share ideas. Give each participant 3-5 minutes to brainstorm answers for the START column on sticky notes. One answer per sticky note. Let participants post their notes one by one in the START colulmn. Cluster similar ideas together.
Repeat for ‘Stop’ and ‘Continue’: Follow the same process for the ‘Stop’ and ‘Continue’ columns.
Discuss and reflect. Allocate time to discuss all inputs and reflect on the implications.
Next steps.Use Blind Voting to identify the top three actions to implement. For these actions, assign responsible individuals and set deadlines using the Who/What/When technique.

Variation

Setup. Create three columns labeled START, STOP, CONTINUE on a large surface.
- Start represents what we should start doing
- Stop represents what we should stop doing
- Continue represents what we should continue doing
- More of represents what we should do more of
- Less of represents what we should do less of
Introduce the exercise. Explain the context of the exercise: team collaboration, a specific project, stakeholder collaboration, etc.
Generate and share ideas. Give each participant 3-5 minutes to brainstorm answers for the START column on sticky notes. One answer per sticky note. Let participants post their notes one by one in the START colulmn. Cluster similar ideas together.
Repeat for ‘Stop’, ‘Continue’,’More of’, and ‘Less of’: Follow the same process for the remaining columns.
Discuss and reflect. Allocate time to discuss all inputs and reflect on the implications.
Next steps.Use Blind Voting to identify the top three actions to implement. For these actions, assign responsible individuals and set deadlines using the Who/What/When technique.

Run better workshops with Learning Loop card decks.

Every card deck includes workshop patterns, so your team can put the methods to work in your next session.

Running behavioral design workshops? The Persuasive Patterns Workshop Playbook (PDF) shows you how to design and run them.

Sources