72 Hours — Book 1 Field Manual

01

Today

Define & Scope

Today is about making four decisions. Get this right, and the rest falls into place.

target

The objective formula

One concrete statement that tells participants exactly what they'll walk out with. The ending must be a tangible output, not a feeling — could you hold it in your hands?

"By the end of this workshop, we will have [a prioritized list of the top 5 problems our customers face during onboarding]."

domain

Choose the format

In-person for high-stakes decisions and fast iteration. Remote for distributed teams and shorter sessions. Hybrid? Best for almost nothing, honestly — if you must, assign a dedicated remote advocate.

schedule

Decide duration

Half-day for one narrow objective. Full-day is the sweet spot for most design workshops. Start shorter than you think you need — you can't get back the goodwill you lose trapping people for a day.

groups

Build the participant list

Who you invite matters more than what activities you choose. A decision-maker, the people closest to the problem, a customer voice, one challenger. Exclude observers — send them the summary.

send

Send the pre-workshop brief

Fill in the brackets and send as-is: objective, why it matters, each person's role, and 15 minutes of pre-work. Template included with the book.

02

Tomorrow

Design Your Agenda

Most first-timers overthink (seven activities when three would do) or underthink (a vague plan and hope). The 5-part agenda removes the guesswork: Opening → Warm-Up → Core Activities → Synthesis → Close. Works for a 90-minute session and a two-day sprint alike.

monitoring

Ride the energy arc

Late morning is your golden window — put the deepest thinking there. Right after lunch, run something physical: gallery walks, dot voting, anything that gets people out of chairs.

timer

Time-box honestly

New facilitators consistently underestimate. Silent brainstorming: 5–8 min before quality drops. Affinity mapping: always takes longer than you think. Decision discussion: set a hard stop or it expands indefinitely.

local_fire_department

Never skip the warm-up

It feels like wasted time on a packed agenda. Skip it and you'll spend the first forty minutes of "real work" getting what a warm-up gives you in ten.

One-Word Check-In (5 min): "Share one word — just one — that describes how you're feeling right now. No wrong answers. I'll go first."

dashboard_customize

Pre-built agenda templates

Discovery (stakeholder map → journey mapping → How Might We) and Prioritization (impact/effort matrix → dot voting → MoSCoW). Ideation and Critique agendas ship with the companion files.

03

The day before

Setup & Prepare

A well-prepared space tells participants, "this is going to be different from a regular meeting." A poorly prepared one tells them you didn't think it through.

table_restaurant

The Pod Layout

Four to six tables in small clusters, four to six people each. A central whiteboard serves as focal point, but the real action is distributed across the pods. The facilitator floats.

inventory_2

Materials checklist

Sticky notes (4 colors, 2 pads each), chisel-tip markers for everyone, dot stickers, a visible timer, printed agendas, and a camera for photographing outputs. 25+ items in the full checklist.

cast

Remote tooling

Three things: a video call, a shared canvas, a timer. Pre-build the Miro/FigJam board, add a sandbox area for warm-up practice, lock the frames you don't want moved — and keep a Google Doc as backup.

medical_information

Your facilitation kit

One document: the timed agenda with transition notes, word-for-word activity instructions, a backup plan per activity, probe questions for stalls, and participant names so you can call on people.

Probe for a stalled room: "What would our biggest competitor do here?" / "What are we afraid to say out loud?"

04

Workshop day

Facilitate

You're standing in front of a group of people, waiting. Fifteen years in, the adrenaline never fully goes away — but a script for the first fifteen minutes makes it work for you instead of against you.

play_circle

The first 15 minutes, scripted

Minutes 0–3 welcome and human moment · 3–7 context and objective · 7–10 agenda overview · 10–15 ground rules: phones away, one conversation at a time, "yes, and", timebox respect.

"Before we get into the work, let's just take a second to arrive. If you're still thinking about that email, write yourself a one-line note, put your phone away, and let's be fully here for the next [X hours]."

front_hand

Time management

A visible timer for every activity. A parking lot for important-but-off-topic points. And mark one activity as "cuttable" before you start — if you run behind, that's the one you drop.

psychology

Manage the personas

The Silent One (structure, not spotlight). The Dominator (30 seconds each, around the room). The Naysayer (capture the risk — skeptics become allies). The Side-Talker (walk toward it).

Core technique

Time

What it does

Dot Voting

10–15 min

Surfaces the group's priorities from a large set of options. 3–5 dots each, no talking during voting.

Affinity Mapping

20–30 min

Organizes a wall of individual ideas into themes via 10 minutes of silent sorting, then naming clusters.

Crazy 8s

~10 min

Eight panels, eight minutes, one idea per minute. Speed over quality — first thought, best thought.

How Might We

15–20 min

Reframes pain points as design opportunities: "Users abandon checkout" → "How might we make shipping costs feel fair?"

photo_camera

Synthesis: turning sticky notes into outcomes

A wall full of sticky notes isn't an outcome. In the last 30 minutes: walk the group through the wall, write each decision on a fresh note, ask "who owns this, what's the next step, by when?" — and photograph everything before anyone touches the wall.

One chapter per day. Exactly what to do, and the words to say out loud.

Define & Scope

The objective formula

Choose the format

Decide duration

Build the participant list

Send the pre-workshop brief

Design Your Agenda

Ride the energy arc

Time-box honestly

Never skip the warm-up

Pre-built agenda templates

Setup & Prepare

The Pod Layout

Materials checklist

Remote tooling

Your facilitation kit

Facilitate

The first 15 minutes, scripted

Time management

Manage the personas

Synthesis: turning sticky notes into outcomes

The sample full-day agenda — drag through the day.

Arrival & coffee

Opening

Warm-up: Hopes & Fears

Core 1: Discovery

Break

Core 2: Deepest thinking

Share-out & discussion

Lunch

Energizer

Core 3: Ideation

Gallery walk + dot voting

Break

Core 4: Prioritization

Synthesis

Next steps round

One-word close

Every workshop alternates between two modes. The most common mistake is converging too early.

Diverge

Converge

Signal the shifts out loud

Get the yes. Then make it stick. Both emails are written for you.

Subject: Design Workshop — [Topic] — [Date]

Subject: [Workshop Name] — Summary and Next Steps

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