A 60-minute workshop plan with time to make something.

Use a concrete agenda, protect the practice time, and turn your plan into a handout participants can follow.

A workshop needs a result that participants can help create. “Discuss the project” leaves the finish line unclear. “Leave with a one-page project brief and an owner for the next action” gives each activity a job.

This example is for a small group of six people turning a rough project idea into a usable brief. It is a starting point you can adapt, not a universal formula. The five activities match the 60-minute starting agenda in MinuteKit’s Workshop kit.

Choose the output before the activities

Write one sentence: “By the end, participants will have _____.” Choose something visible: a first draft, a tested example, a decision with reasons, or a practised skill. If you need three different outputs, choose one for this hour or split the work into separate sessions.

For the project-brief example, prepare one deliberately incomplete brief and one improved version. Participants need paper or an editable document. Decide where they will put their final work. MinuteKit makes the agenda and handout; it does not collect participants’ documents or run a shared workspace.

The editable 60-minute agenda

Open Workshop kit, choose 60 minutes · practical workshop, and rename the five activities below. Keep the durations for a first rehearsal, then adjust them for your group. The times here are elapsed hours:minutes from the start, not clock times.

1. 00:00–00:05 · Agree what a useful brief contains — 5 minutes. State the output, explain how the hour will run, and ask participants which decision their brief needs to support. Keep introductions short enough to preserve the working time.
2. 00:05–00:20 · Improve one rough example — 15 minutes. Spend about eight minutes showing the incomplete brief and improving it. Use five minutes for questions. Keep the final two minutes for instructions and the move into individual work.
3. 00:20–00:40 · Draft and check your own brief — 20 minutes. Give the prompt, allow a quiet writing period, then ask people to exchange drafts in pairs. The task is to produce a useful first version, not polished prose.
4. 00:40–00:55 · Share the decision and one open question — 15 minutes. Give each of six people up to two minutes. Keep the remaining three minutes for transitions and identifying a shared issue. With a larger group, invite one example per pair instead of extending every individual turn.
5. 00:55–01:00 · Name the next action — 5 minutes. Each person writes what they will do next, who owns it and when it should happen. Confirm where the brief will be kept. End with the next action rather than starting a new discussion.

During pair review, ask: “Can I tell what this project will deliver?” and “Which sentence needs a concrete example?” These questions give the reviewer a defined job. They do not ask people to judge one another’s writing style.

Make the tradeoffs before time runs short

Protect the part where people do the work. If the demonstration runs five minutes late, shorten the whole-group sharing or select fewer examples. Removing all practice time would change this into a presentation. Keep the closing action, even if it becomes a brief written check.

Choose how much sharing the group can support. A six-person group and a twenty-person group cannot use the same individual reporting round. For a larger group, work in pairs or small groups and invite selected examples. Say how selection works so people know they still need to finish their own draft.

Plan pauses and access needs into the hour. If participants need a break, longer reading time or a different way to contribute, reduce the other activities rather than adding time silently. For example, change the five durations to 5, 12, 25, 13 and 5 minutes, and put a five-minute pause inside the 25-minute work block. The total is still 60 minutes. Describe that pause in the activity name and your spoken instructions.

Have a way to park a question. When a useful question would take the session elsewhere, record it with a person responsible for following up. Do not promise to cover it later unless time or a follow-up really exists.

Rehearse the plan, then run the activities

Use a 25-minute preparation block to finish the example, check the materials and write your opening. Speak the instructions aloud. The five-minute welcome must include explaining the output and getting people ready; a five-minute introduction followed by instructions will overrun.

In Workshop kit, open an activity’s timer when you need it. Each activity link prepares its own countdown in a new tab. Press Start timer when that activity begins. The agenda does not automatically advance, and an already opened timer does not update when you edit the agenda later.

Use full screen if the group should see the countdown. Test the actual screen and sound before participants arrive, and keep the device awake. Browser power-saving settings can delay alerts. For an event where timing is critical, arrange a separate timekeeper or backup.

Turn the agenda into a useful PDF

Choose Make agenda PDF in Workshop kit. Your current agenda opens in PDF studio in the same tab. Add a useful title, the session date or purpose, and the participant prompt above. Remove facilitator-only notes before sharing the file.

Choose A4 or US Letter for the intended reader. Download the PDF, open it and check page breaks and text size. A long agenda may need more than one page. Direct download supports basic Latin text; for other scripts or emoji, choose Print / Save PDF and inspect the browser’s print preview.

The agenda transfer happens in your browser. It does not publish the plan or send it to participants. Keep the downloaded file or copy the text before closing or reloading: this workflow does not save drafts to an account.

Questions to settle before you invite people

Can I use this agenda for a lesson or training session?

Yes, as a starting structure. Replace the brief with the skill or output participants need. Check what they already know, what materials are required and whether the practice task fits the available time. Keep enough time to see what they produced.

What if the group is quiet?

Offer a minute to write before asking for a response, then invite pair discussion or a written contribution. Use a specific question about the draft. Do not fill every silence by adding more explanation.

What should I do if we cannot finish?

Name what is unfinished, agree the smallest useful next step and give it an owner. Record the limitation in the handout or follow-up notes. A clear partial result is more useful than claiming the group reached a decision it did not reach.

Can participants control the same timer remotely?

No. These timers run in individual browser tabs. MinuteKit does not provide a synchronized remote workshop room. Share a screen if everyone needs to see the same countdown, and keep control with the facilitator.

Your first rehearsal may show that one activity needs more time. Edit the minutes, check the new total and decide what gets shorter. The purpose of the plan is to make that decision visible before the session starts.