Full Workshop

01The room

Who takes part, and what to bring

The full stakeholder set: this is the version we run when the engagement covers brand, product, and operations together. Founders and leads stay for the whole session; specialists can rotate in for their part.

Cap the room at ten. The combined version trades depth per topic for the connections between topics: an ops sticky that explains a product sticky is the reason to run it this way.

Setup

• One 2–4 hour block with breaks, or two half-days. Whiteboards for four corners: Brand, Product, Ops, Marketing.
• Stickies in four colors, one per corner, so the patterns stay visible when everything gets mixed later.
• Before the session: collect the documentation. After it: 4–8 hours of documentation dives, checking what the wall claimed against the numbers, tickets, and deal notes.

02Phase 1 · 45–60 min

Four-corner brainstorm

Run the brainstorm from each single-lens script in compressed rounds: brand adjectives, product jobs and pains, ops friction, marketing claims and audiences. Ten to twelve minutes per corner, everyone writing, everything said out loud.

Physically move the group between corners; the change of wall helps restart the flow of ideas. Use the same provocations as in the single scripts.

03Phase 2 · 45–60 min

Sorting, per corner

Each corner gets its own sort, faster than in the single sprints: brand into yes/no, product into now/next/never, ops into keep/fix/kill, marketing into true/not us. Spend the discussion time where the room disagrees most. That corner is usually the reason the engagement exists.

The stuck-sticky tactics from the single scripts all apply. The facilitator's job is keeping any one corner from eating the day.

— Break —

04Phase 3 · 45–60 min

Cross-mapping

This is the step the single sprints can't do. Bring the surviving stickies from all four corners onto one wall and cluster across colors. The patterns to look for cross topics: a brand value with no product behavior behind it, a marketing claim no process can keep true, a product priority that contradicts the brand.

Name the cross-cutting themes, usually three to five, and mark every sticky that contradicts another corner. The contradictions are the agenda for the documentation dives.

05Phase 4 · 45–60 min

Distilling into the working brief

One document, four short chapters plus a summary: brand values with comparisons; product principles with the now/next/never list; the ops backlog with owners; the message hierarchy with proofs. The summary is the theme list: what ties the four together and what contradicts what.

Then the documentation dives: 4–8 hours checking the wall against reality before anything is presented. What holds up goes into the directions work; what doesn't becomes an open question in the proposal.

06What comes out

The document

The working brief: four chapters (brand, product, ops, marketing), the cross-cutting themes, and the contradiction list, resolved or flagged after the documentation dives.

The directions are built from this document: generally three or four distinct strategies, presented on the client's workshop page for feedback and sign-off.