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Intensive workshop planning & facilitation
User research
Facilitation
Context
This session was part of the Z Design Council (ZDC), an event where IBM Z’s biggest customers come together to share new innovations, provide feedback, and co-create future solutions.
User research in Z is focused on these “sponsor users.” Design teams work closely with these clients under NDAs to understand their unique needs, system configurations, and use cases.
Session details:
- 9 hours over 4 days
- Time blocks of 1-2.5 hours
- Some supporting product team members
- 8 participants from 6 companies
Topic: Application analysis for mainframe applications
Image: The watsonx Code Assistant for Z collaborative session
Collaborative planning & alignment
To shape the session, I first met with design leads across sub‑teams to identify our most urgent research questions. I then partnered with project leads and stakeholders to narrow the scope and define clear intended outcomes. From there, I translated these goals into a detailed facilitation plan with design‑thinking activities, refining it through multiple iterations.
I grounded the plan in past ZDC feedback, which pointed to a common challenge: sessions often generated “big ideas” but left teams without concrete next steps. To address this, I balanced evaluative activities for near‑final designs with generative exercises that informed our long‑term roadmap and vision. This ensured we had insights to act on immediately, as well as input for future planning.
I varied the modes of engagement, mixing sitting, standing, writing, and discussion. I wanted to keep participants energized through a multi‑hour session. To support smooth facilitation, I built in buffer time, planned for which topics to cut if we ran long, and prepared additional prompts in case we finished early.
"STRONG PLANS, LOOSELY HELD"
- My facilitation motto
Facilitation
Heading into the event, I reminded the team that we had “strong plans, loosely held.” This helped us balance staying on schedule with leaving space for meaningful tangents and unexpected insights.
Across the four days, we saw strong user participation. As planned, we gathered both evaluative and generative feedback for the product team. We also added interim playbacks after major topics so participants could confirm that we captured their perspectives truthfully.
This approach kept the sessions structured yet flexible, ensured users felt heard, and helped us gather insights that were both actionable and strategic.
Images: Evaluative feedback, generative insights, and design thinking in action
Outcomes
The workshop generated more than 60 new data points for our research base, giving the team a richer understanding of user needs and pain points. Using these insights, the design and front-end development teams implemented 10 improvements to the MVP experience that our participants had evaluated. We also defined a long‑term vision and roadmap for application analysis, grounded in direct customer input.
Both our participants and the IBM team reported high satisfaction with the workshop and its outcomes, noting that the structure and facilitation led to actionable insights as well as strategic direction.
Testimonials from project leaders
“I stay impressed with the structure and organization you have established for the ZDC participants, a large group with varied experience, roles and background. There is so much we have taken away for the activity...this would not have been possible without you. Keep the energy you have and bring to the table up and continue the way you drive design activities. I think for the group and time we had, we could not have hoped for a better insight and outcome. I had some many AHA moments and gained new insights...really exciting work.”
- Stefan Liesche, Distinguished Engineer
"[The planning and coordination across stakeholders] was excellent. The facilitation was superb. Caroline did an excellent job managing time, ensuring engagement of participants, and presenting content.”
- Rich Larin, Product Owner
“The planning and execution of the ZDC session was excellent and you involved all the right stakeholders to make the collaboration session successful.”
- Kat Briscoe, Design Principal