You're considering running a Find & Follow Workshop. But, to be honest, you’re not sure why you need it.
You feel like you have a general idea of the procedures you need to document for your knowledge base and what you want to cover in training.
So, why do you need to run a Find & Follow Workshop? And what do you even get out of the workshop?
As the co-founder of ScreenSteps — a knowledge ops solution — I’ve observed that companies that complete a Find & Follow Workshop are able to launch their knowledge base and training programs faster. The workshop also helps you make fewer mistakes and capture everything you need to document.
In this blog post, I’ll explain what you walk away with after you’ve completed a Find & Follow Workshop, including what is included in the Find & Follow Workshop Report.
What do you get from a Find & Follow Workshop?
At the end of a Find & Follow Workshop, your team has a detailed report. This is called the Find & Follow Report.
During the workshop, you fill out the Find & Follow Workshop Report. The report is a workbook that helps you identify the activities you need this role to be able to handle. Some of these activities include:
- Tasks the employee will need to be able to perform
- Related sub-tasks
- Requests they will need to respond to
- Answers they will need to give
- Problems they will need to solve
- Decisions they will need to make
Ultimately, the Find & Follow Workshop Report helps your determine what content you need to create for:
- Digital guides
- Foundational courses
- Practice activities
With the report, you walk away from the workshop with clear directions on exactly what you need to create. And you can feel confident that you’ve brainstormed most of what you need to create because of the collaboration.
But, what if I already know what I want to write
Here’s the thing … no one person can create a Find & Follow Workshop Report.
A Find & Follow Workshop is made up of a group of people. These people are all experts in different areas of the role. The roles you need represented in your workshop are someone who:
- Is in the trenches
- Answers questions (supervisors)
- Fixes the mistakes (manager/supervisor)
- Is in charge of training the people in the trenches (trainer)
The point is you might think you know everything you need to document and create, but without a Find & Follow Workshop, many procedures, outcomes, tasks, etc. slip through the cracks.
It’s through collaboration that you are able to leave no stone unturned (or no policy and procedure forgotten).
For more reasons why you need to run a Find & Follow Workshop, check out the table in this blog post.
What is in your Find & Follow Workshop Report?
During the workshop, you fill out the Find & Follow Workshop Report. Or, if you hire ScreenSteps to run the workshop for you, your ScreenSteps expert will fill out the report while your team discusses the activities.
There are five columns in a Find & Follow Workshop Report. Each column builds off of the next.
In this section, I’ll explain what you include in each column. Here’s a quick look at what a Find & Follow Workshop Report looks like.
Note: We recommend adding additional columns to assign people to write specific guides.
Column 1: Topic areas
First, you identify the topic areas. It is the broadest look at what needs to be done. The topic areas are the general category that employees would need to know about in order to handle tasks. These are for a specific role, like a call center agent over car insurance claims.
Topic areas include:
- Software applications that your employees will use
- Types of transactions employes will need to complete
- Reason codes that you use in your customer service software
- Customer segments that they will support
Ultimately, topic areas help you determine the organization of everything.
Column 2: Activities
The activities are where you determine specific questions, tasks, requests, problems, etc. around your topic areas.
These activities usually determine the titles of your knowledge base articles and practice activities. They become your practice activities (or role-playing prompts) during training.
Column 3: Related sub-tasks
The sub-tasks are the actions employees can take in relation to the activities. These are the different tasks and procedures employees need to perform.
The sub-tasks and variables become the digital guides you create.
🔎 Related: Find & Follow Workshop: When to Run it on Yourself vs Hire ScreenSteps
Column 4: Variables
With the variables, you are accounting for unusual circumstances. Here you are making sure you have every possible outcome of a decision tree covered — including rare or unusual outcomes.
In this section, you dig a little deeper and pick through the complexities of your activities and sub-tasks.
Column 5: Concepts
With concepts, we are finally getting into what employees need to know in order to follow digital guides and handle the tasks listed in the rest of the Find & Follow Workshop Report.
Concepts are high-level information. It takes a look at the big picture before digging into the how-to details.
The concepts help you frame out which foundational courses you need to create for training.
Ready to run a Find & Follow Workshop?
Watch the Find & Follow Workshop webinar to learn how a Find & Follow Workshop is run.
If you want extra help running your workshop, hire ScreenSteps to run the workshop for you. Our ScreenSteps experts take the pressure off of your team and add additional insights so that you don’t have to worry about getting things right or making mistakes.
Companies that hire ScreenSteps to help with the workshop and other implementation services launch faster and make fewer mistakes.
Not sure if you want to run it on your own or with help? Schedule a time to talk to a ScreenSteps expert. They’ll help you discern what is the best choice for your company.
