A workshop is not a webinar
A webinar transfers ideas from a speaker to an audience. A workshop changes what the people in the room can do by the end of it. That difference shapes everything: the size of the group, the ratio of talking to doing, the materials and the way you measure success.
A useful rule is that participants should spend more time working than listening. If your draft agenda has forty minutes of slides and ten minutes of exercises, you have written a webinar with homework. Cut the teaching to what people need for the next exercise, and move the rest to a handout.
Decide the output before anything else. A workshop might end with a written plan, a finished draft, a decision, a prototype, a prioritised list or a practised skill. Name it in the invitation so people arrive ready to work.
An online workshop agenda for ninety minutes
This agenda follows a simple loop: frame, teach, do, share, repeat, commit. It suits most skills and planning workshops. Shorter sessions can drop one loop; longer ones should add a real break.
- Doors open, ten minutes before: the waiting room shows the start time and asks people to have the worksheet open and a pen ready.
- Minutes zero to ten: welcome, the output we will leave with, how the session works, and a quick warm-up question in the chat.
- Minutes ten to twenty: teach the first idea, with one worked example.
- Minutes twenty to forty: exercise one, done individually or in small groups, with a visible timer and a clear prompt.
- Minutes forty to fifty: share back. Three or four volunteers show their work; the facilitator draws out the pattern.
- Minutes fifty to fifty-five: a stretch break, cameras off allowed.
- Minutes fifty-five to seventy: teach the second idea, building on what people just made.
- Minutes seventy to eighty-two: exercise two, applying both ideas to the participant's own situation.
- Minutes eighty-two to ninety: commitments. Everyone writes one action they will take this week, the facilitator names the next step and thanks the group.
Virtual workshop ideas for the exercises
The exercises are the workshop. Choose ones that produce something visible and that work on a screen. A few that travel well:
- Fill-in-the-blanks templates: a one-page plan, a positioning statement, an email draft, a budget.
- Rank and cut: give everyone a list of options and ask them to keep three and explain why.
- Before and after: participants rewrite their own example using the method just taught, then share both versions.
- Pair critique: two people swap drafts in a breakout and give one strength and one change each.
- Live build: the facilitator works on a volunteer's real example while everyone else applies the same steps to their own.
- Silent writing: five quiet minutes to draft, which often produces better ideas than open discussion.
- Commitment card: a single sentence starting with this week I will, shared in the chat.
Facilitation habits for an interactive virtual workshop
Interactive does not mean noisy. It means every participant does something every few minutes and knows exactly what is expected.
Give instructions three ways: say them, show them on screen and put them in the chat. People join late, look away and mishear, and written prompts save the whole group from repeated questions. Keep a visible timer for every exercise and give a warning before time is up.
Keep the group small enough that everyone can be heard. If your audience is large, use breakout rooms where your meeting plan supports them, with a named lead in each group, or split the session into cohorts. Make cameras welcome but optional; ask for participation through the chat, polls and shared documents as well as voice.
Celebrate the work. When someone shares something brave or good, say so specifically. A short round of applause when a group finishes its exercise costs nothing and tells everyone the effort is noticed.
Finally, protect the end. Workshops that run over lose the commitments, which are the most valuable part. If you are behind, cut the second share back, never the close.
Prep list and running it in a branded room
Send the worksheet and any pre-reading a couple of days before, with a reminder of what people should bring. Test every exercise with a colleague, including how long it really takes, and rehearse breakouts if you use them.
In BrandedRooms, participants open one link to a page with your branding, join in the browser and wait in a branded lobby until you press Start the room, when everyone moves into the session together. Each participant leaves a first name and email at the door, so you know who attended and can send materials afterwards. On a Branded Room, the featured offers rail keeps your worksheet, a feedback form or your next programme open in a slide-over beside the meeting, so nobody loses the session while they look. The live effects let you mark the moment a group finishes: a burst of confetti or applause on every in-room screen at once.
Keep in mind that the effects and the rail are on the room page, so anyone who joined through the desktop meeting app will not see them, and the platform's recording will not include the effects. Afterwards, send the thank-you with the completed examples and the one next step you named at the close.
- Worksheet and pre-reading sent in advance.
- Every exercise timed in rehearsal.
- Instructions written for the chat.
- Breakouts tested, with group leads named.
- Next step and follow up email drafted before the session.