Designing from the Heart of What Matters

Purpose-first workshop planning

Jun 12, 2025

A woman sits thoughtfully surrounded by notebooks

Before the warm-ups and exercises, before the learning objectives and evaluation forms, there is a question that sits quietly at the core of every session: Why does this gathering matter?
This is where all transformative workshops begin.

YOU ARE NOT designing a workshop, you are the architect of an encounter. How's that for an inspiring opening! True, it might be hard to believe on a rainy Wednesday as you start your Elders Drama Drop-In workshop fresh in the knowledge that a drum circle has booked the room next door. So let's be honest about what it means in practice: not mystical transformation or life-changing epiphanies, though these can happen, but respecting the fact that when people choose to spend their time with you, they're hoping for something more than you just ticking the boxes of a generic plan.

The difference between activity-first and purpose-first planning

It's fairly standard practice to plan workshops by collecting activities. We build mental catalogues of exercises that "work" - icebreakers that get people talking, games that build energy, skill drills and frameworks for rehearsing or devising. When faced with a new gig, we browse these catalogues and arrange activities into a sequence, perhaps taking for granted that they'll add up to something meaningful.1

Purpose-first planning reverses this equation. It begins with transformation and works backward to activities, recognizing that every workshop serves dual functions: your primary aim (what must happen in this session) and your secondary aim (what would usefully happen to serve the longer journey). It means every exercise becomes intentional, serving either the immediate necessity or the prospective development—ideally both.

Let's contrast these two approaches to planning a session:

Activity-first: "I'll start with my favourite warm-up, maybe some teamwork games, that trust exercise that always works well, small group devising, and finish with showbacks."

Purpose-first: "We need to produce material for our devised show (primary aim). The group are enthusiastic about the reminiscence work but tend to forget to apply performance skills when devising. What would help them rediscover the connection between what they want to say and how they say it? What experiences would give them insight to the perspective of an audience who might not know what's going on? And while we're meeting this immediate need, how might we also build their confidence in physical storytelling for future sessions (secondary aim)?"

The second approach might still include teambuilding exercises and a warm-up, but they'd be selected and adapted specifically to serve both the group's immediate need and their ongoing development.

Begin with the transformation, not the information

Ask not "What boxes do I need to tick?" but "What needs to happen - both immediately and over time - in this gathering?" This shift in questioning changes the very notion of delivery. You're not just handing over content - like a postal worker making sure the package gets to the right address. Instead, you become more like a midwife creating the conditions most favourable to the emergence of the baby.2

The purpose may focus on immediate group dynamics, skill acquisition, or creative output (primary aim), while simultaneously building strengths, addressing longer-term weaknesses, or laying groundwork for future exploration (secondary aim). This dual-track thinking creates workshops with both immediate impact and lasting value.

Working backward from what 'has to happen'

Once you've identified your core purpose - both immediate and prospective - the path becomes clearer. You're working backward from two parallel streams: what must be achieved today and what would usefully advance the group's longer journey.

Start with your primary aim - the non-negotiable outcome. If your group needs to create material for their devised show, that's essential. Work backward: what conditions must exist for successful devising? They need to feel creatively free, connected to their stories, and confident in their ability to communicate with an audience.

Now layer in your secondary aim - what would be useful to happen. Perhaps building the group's confidence in physical storytelling, or establishing a shared vocabulary for giving feedback. These aren't essential to today's success, but they serve the larger arc of the group's development.

Work backward through both streams simultaneously. The primary path reveals the essential architecture: trust before vulnerability, technique before practice, stimulus before exploration. The secondary path reveals opportunities: moments where you can deepen ensemble connection, introduce new ways of thinking about character, or practice skills they'll need next week.

This dual-track planning means your devising exercise serves the immediate need to create material, but the way you structure it also builds physical confidence, establishes feedback protocols, or strengthens group bonds. Every element does double duty when possible, serving both the urgent and the important.

Every element serves the purpose - or it doesn't belong

When planning from purpose, you become fiercely protective of your participants' time and attention. That clever game that makes them think you're hilarious? If it doesn't serve the deeper transformation, it's clutter. That impressive framework you're excited to share? If it doesn't advance the purpose, it's distraction.

This isn't necessarily a case for fewer activities - it's about activities that resonate with intentionality. The workshop becomes a coherent whole rather than a collection of interesting parts.

Design for emergence, not just learning

Traditional workshop planning asks: "What do I want them to have achieved by the end?" Purpose-first planning adds: "What could emerge through our collective effort?" It creates space for the group's own wisdom to surface, for insights that belong uniquely to this gathering at this moment in time.

You plan deeply so you can hold lightly. You prepare thoroughly so you can improvise gracefully. If you truly grasp the purpose you can recognise when the workshop wants to get there in a way you hadn't planned - and trust it enough to follow.

Activities come and go, purpose remains

Activity-first planning jealously guards the activities. Adherence to the activity list becomes a proxy for success. When the plan goes no deeper than which exercise comes next the sequence becomes indistinguishable from the plan - something to be held on to for dear life. If a lack of chairs, uneven number of participants, or a drum circle next door threatens the sequence, filler material may be substituted but only reluctantly so.

By contrast, the purpose-first practitioner recognises that the sequence of activities, whether scribbled in the notepad or held in your head, is only one possible way of delivering the plan - it is not the plan itself. It is our last and best guess, even if based on experience and whatever information is available before the workshop begins.

But once the workshop begins, you get new information. The group's energy is different than expected. Someone shares a story that shifts the whole dynamic. The ownership you thought would take an hour to build emerges in fifteen minutes, or proves more elusive than anticipated. Indeed, the optimum moment for deciding what activity would best serve the purpose is often as you breathe in to announce it - but this flexibility is only possible with a deep understanding of that purpose.

The purpose-first practitioner welcomes the intuition that the next planned exercise won't work. This isn't failure; it's useful information. Uncertainty implies possibility - the possibility of better serving the workshop purpose based on what is really happening now, rather than what you thought would be happening hours or even days earlier. When you feel that familiar tightness that says "this won't land," you can trust it, because you know why you're here.

The activities can change, but the purpose remains. Your carefully crafted sequence becomes a useful prediction rather than a rigid prescription. You might skip the elaborate trust exercise because genuine vulnerability has already emerged through an unexpected sharing. You might extend a moment of creative breakthrough rather than moving dutifully to the next item on your list. The activities serve the purpose, not the other way around.

Your role becomes less teacher and more facilitator in the truest sense - helping create conditions where insights can emerge, where authentic learning can unfold, where people can discover what they already know but haven't yet accessed.

Practical steps for purpose-first planning

• Define the purpose: Before choosing any activities, clarify both your primary aim (what must happen in this session) and your secondary aim (what would usefully happen to serve the longer journey). Write them down clearly.

• Work backward from both streams: Ask "What would need to happen for this immediate change to be possible?" and "What conditions would support our longer-term development?" Map the prerequisites for each.

• Find the overlaps: Look for moments where a single experience can serve both aims. How might your devising exercise also build ensemble trust? How could your warm-up also introduce concepts you'll need later?

• Test every element against purpose: As you select activities, ask: "How does this serve our primary aim? How might it also advance our secondary aim?" If you can't answer clearly, the activity might not belong.

• Plan the arc with dual awareness: Consider the natural rhythm of human change—opening, exploration, challenge, integration, commitment—while staying alert to opportunities to layer in secondary learning.

• Hold it lightly: Stay open to emergence. Your dual purpose provides direction, not a rigid script. Sometimes the secondary aim will become unexpectedly urgent, or new possibilities will emerge that serve both purposes better than your original plan.

Taking facilitation seriously

You didn't stumble into facilitation by accident. Something in you recognised that gathering people for meaningful theatre making is important work. Something in you knew that creating spaces for learning and growth is central to your vocation.

Purpose-first planning is part of taking facilitation seriously. With experience, you may find yourself planning entirely in your head - but given the risk of unconscious assumptions creeping in, occasional longhand planning keeps you honest. Co-leading with someone else? You may have less latitude with the sequence, but shared purpose becomes even more crucial when two facilitators need to move as one.

Begin with intention

The next time you sit down to plan a workshop, resist the urge to dive straight into activities. Instead, spend time with the question that matters most: "What has to happen, and what could happen?"

Let that purpose fill your understanding, guide your choices, inform every decision. When you plan from clear intention, everything else aligns. The activities choose themselves. The timing becomes organic. The workshop breathes with life because it was conceived with purpose and designed with care.

The Philosophical Theatre Facilitator

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