figjam-workshop

name	figjam-workshop
description	Designs a collaborative workshop and builds it as a ready-to-run FigJam board, plus a facilitator run-sheet and a participant invite email. Use this skill whenever Fiona (or anyone at Planes) wants to plan, design, structure, or build a workshop, session, or facilitated meeting — and especially whenever FigJam is mentioned. Trigger on phrases like "create a workshop", "design a workshop", "build a FigJam board", "set up a workshop in FigJam", "I'm running a session with [client]", "plan a discovery workshop", "kickoff workshop", "ideation session", "retro board", "prioritisation workshop", "journey mapping session", "we need a workshop for X", "turn this into a FigJam", or any request to prepare a participatory session. Always use this skill for workshop design even if the person doesn't say "FigJam" explicitly — it produces the agenda, the board, the run-sheet, and the invite together so the whole session is ready to facilitate.
title	FigJam workshop builder
discipline	product
type	skill
tags	["workshops","facilitation","figjam","discovery","collaboration"]
added_by	fiona
added_on	2026-06-26
status	draft
summary	Designs a collaborative workshop and builds it as a ready-to-run FigJam board, with a facilitator run-sheet and a participant invite email.
spice	mild
source	{"kind":"original"}
pack	true

FigJam Workshop Builder

This skill takes a workshop from a fuzzy idea ("we need a discovery session with the client") to three finished artefacts: a collaborative FigJam board ready to run, a facilitator run-sheet (talk track + timings), and a participant invite email (objective, agenda, pre-work). It is built for Planes — we run highly collaborative, participatory sessions, not slide-led presentations. The whole point of a workshop is that the people in the room do the thinking; the board and agenda exist to make that easy.

Two principles run through everything:

• Collaboration over presentation. Every block should have the participants doing something — writing stickies, voting, sketching, ranking, discussing in pairs. If a block is just someone talking, ask whether it earns its place.
• Everything ladders to the objective. Each exercise should visibly move the group toward the stated outcomes. If you can't explain how an activity produces one of the outputs, cut or redesign it.

Workflow overview

1. Establish today's date.
2. Run the intake interview (objective + outcomes, length + headcount, draft ideas, context).
3. Gather context if asked (Granola, Gmail, Slack, Calendar, Notion).
4. Design a draft agenda and review it with the user; iterate until they're happy.
5. Ask where to build it (new FigJam file, or a link to an empty board).
6. Build the board (see references/figjam-build.md).
7. Produce the run-sheet and the participant email.
8. Verify legibility with a screenshot, then share everything.

Don't skip ahead to building the board. The board is only as good as the agenda, and the agenda is only as good as the objective — getting steps 2–4 right is where the value is.

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Step 0 — Establish today's date

Run date first. You need it to reason about how far away the session is (which changes how much pre-work is realistic) and to date the run-sheet and email.

Step 1 — Intake interview

Ask these as a single AskUserQuestion round where possible, so the user answers in one pass. Note that objective and outcomes are genuinely free-text: ask them open, or offer drafted options the user can edit, rather than forcing a multiple choice. Length, headcount, format, and the context question work well as multiple choice. The four things you must come away with:

1. Who is the workshop for, and what is its purpose? Push for a clear objective: one sentence, action-oriented ("Align the client and our team on the top 3 problems to solve in Phase 1"). Then the outcomes / outputs: the tangible things that must exist by the end (a prioritised problem list, a shared journey map, three agreed concepts, a decision). Outcomes are the spine of the agenda, so don't proceed without them.
2. How long is the session, and how many people are attending? Length sets how many blocks fit (see timing guidance in references/facilitation-patterns.md); headcount drives breakout group sizing and how much board space each exercise needs.
3. Do they have an outline agenda or activity ideas already? Capture anything they want to run, even rough. Their ideas take precedence — your job is to shape them into a coherent, collaborative flow, not replace them.
4. Is there context to pull in? Ask whether you should search their emails, meeting transcripts, Slack, or Notion for relevant background — or whether they'll paste what matters. Offer; don't assume.

Also worth establishing if not volunteered: in-person, remote, or hybrid? (changes timing, energiser choice, and how stickies are run) and how experienced the group is with workshops (affects how much instruction to bake in).

Step 2 — Gather context (only if asked)

If the user wants you to pull context, search the relevant sources for the client/topic:

• Granola — meeting transcripts and notes for prior conversations with this client/group.
• Gmail — recent threads about the project or the session itself.
• Slack — the project channel for decisions, open questions, and what's live right now.
• Notion — the project context page if one exists (see the project-context skill's projects), for current state and stakeholders.

You're looking for: the real problem behind the stated objective, sensitivities or politics in the room, prior decisions you shouldn't re-litigate, and raw material you can pre-load onto the board (e.g. known problems, existing research, draft personas) so exercises start warm rather than from blank. Summarise what you found and how it shaped the agenda; don't dump raw notes.

If the context shows the client wants Planes to bring a point of view (they've asked us to come opinionated, or a decision is overdue), plan to pre-place a recommended starting position on the board for the group to react to and move, rather than starting from blank. Reacting to a strong first draft is faster and tends to be the highest-value thing the board does.

Step 3 — Design the agenda and review it

Build a draft agenda that is appropriate for the length and the outcomes, and that maximises collaboration. Use references/facilitation-patterns.md for:

• the right workshop pattern to start from (discovery, kickoff, ideation, prioritisation, retro, journey/service map, etc.) based on the objective;
• timing guidance so the agenda actually fits the clock (including buffers, breaks, and not over-stuffing);
• an exercise library with each activity broken into manageable steps;
• prep / pre-work that sets exercises up for success (pre-reads, async sticky drops, pre-populated board areas, materials to gather).

Present the draft as a clear, scannable agenda: for each block give the name, duration, format (solo / pairs / small group / whole group), what participants do, and which outcome it serves. Open with how the flow ladders to their objective, and call out any prep you're recommending and why.

Then explicitly invite changes: timings, swapping exercises, adding/removing blocks. Iterate until the user signs off. Do not build the board until the agenda is agreed — rebuilding a populated board is far more expensive than editing a draft agenda.

Step 4 — Decide where to build

Ask the user one of:

• Create a new FigJam file — if so, you'll need which Figma team/project it should live in (the build reference explains how to resolve this), or
• A link to an existing empty FigJam board they've already made.

If they give a board URL, confirm it's a FigJam board (figma.com/board/...), not a design file.

Step 5 — Build the FigJam board

Follow references/figjam-build.md in full. The non-negotiables that reference enforces:

• Every section is a native FigJam Section node (createSection), laid out left to right in agenda order, with content positioned relative to the section's top-left. This is the container the workshop owner expects (movable, resizable), lets you screenshot each section to verify it, and avoids a positioning bug (the section name doubles as the title).
• Sized for real sticky notes. FigJam's standard sticky is ~240x240px; every working area is a grid of stickies with room to spare, and fill-in zones hold at least 4 to 6 stickies (never a one-line box). Seed one example sticky per zone to model the format.
• Large, legible text and generous spacing. Boards are read on shared screens and zoomed out.
• Bright, cheerful FigJam pastels (yellow, blue, pink, lilac, green, peach) with dark text; colour-coded by section. Not brand black/white by default.
• An intro section that sets the scene: title, objective, outcomes, agenda with timings, roles, norms. Every board starts here.
• Clear instructions and timings per section, in numbered steps so participants self-serve.
• Creative, participatory exercises in manageable steps, every one tied back to an outcome.
• Plain language, no jargon, and no em dashes anywhere on the board ("whole group" not "plenary"; use commas, "to" for ranges, or parentheses instead of em dashes).

Step 6 — Produce the run-sheet and the participant email

Always produce both, using the templates in assets/:

• Facilitator run-sheet (assets/run-sheet-template.md) — the minute-by-minute talk track, timings, what the facilitator says/does per block, materials, and setup notes. This is what Fiona actually holds on the day. Save as a .md (or .docx via the docx skill if she wants something polished to share with co-facilitators).
• Participant email (assets/participant-email-template.md) — a warm, concise invite that includes the objective, the agenda, any pre-work, the FigJam link, and practical logistics.

Step 7 — Verify and share

Because each section is its own node, screenshot each section with get_screenshot at a readable size and check it the way a participant would: Is the text readable zoomed to fit? Is the working area clearly big enough for several stickies, with an example sticky modelling the format? Are instructions and timers present? Any em dashes or jargon to fix? Also take one full-board screenshot to confirm sections read left to right in a sensible order. Fix anything that fails.

Then share the FigJam link and present the run-sheet and email files. Offer to drop the email into Gmail as a draft and/or add the session to the calendar if that's useful.

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Reference files

• references/facilitation-patterns.md — workshop patterns, timing, the exercise library, group sizing, prep, and remote/in-person/hybrid considerations. Read when designing the agenda (Step 3).
• references/figjam-build.md — the technical build guide: layout grid, sizing, colour palette, board structure, and the Figma Plugin API patterns for creating sections, stickies, and text. Read before building (Step 5).

Assets

• assets/run-sheet-template.md — facilitator run-sheet template.
• assets/participant-email-template.md — participant invite email template.