Facilitating the Workshop

Purpose: a facilitator’s role is to guide a group toward shared understanding, decision-making, or problem-solving.

Style of Delivery: facilitation is interactive, encouraging active participation, discussion, and group dynamics.

Content: in facilitation, the content often evolves based on group input and collaborative activities.

Tools and Techniques: facilitators use tools like brainstorming exercises, group activities, whiteboards, or even timeboxing techniques to keep participants engaged.

Role of the Audience: in facilitation, the audience plays an active role, engaging in discussions and shaping outcomes.

Outcome: facilitation is more about collaboration, achieving consensus, or making decisions as a group.

Duration

A few hours to a full day, depending on the complexity of the process.

Presenting the Process

1. Introduction
   1. What is SIPOC?
   1. Why is SIPOC important in Agile?
2. The SIPOC elements
   1. Suppliers: the people, organizations, or systems that provide the inputs to the process.
   1. Inputs: the materials, information, or resources required to execute the process.
   1. Process: the high-level steps that transform inputs into outputs.
   1. Outputs: the products, services, or results produced by the process.
   1. Customers: the recipients of the outputs – either internal or external stakeholders.
3. Application
   1. Clarifies and defines a process at a high level.
   1. Supports process improvement efforts.
4. Benefits
   1. Clear process understanding.
   1. Cross-functional alignment.
5. Example Scenarios
   1. Use real-world or hypothetical examples to illustrate a SIPOC in action
6. Implementation Tips
   1. Tools or frameworks (like SAFe boards).
   1. Common challenges and how to overcome them.
7. Q & A or Interactive Exercise
   1. Let your audience practice using a SIPOC template.

Example Board

Common Anti-Patterns

1. Too much or too little detail: including either excessive detail (turning it into a full process map) or being too vague.
2. Lack of stakeholder involvement: creating the SIPOC without input from key team members or customers.
3. Unclear process boundaries: ambiguous or shifting start and end points of the process.
4. Confusing inputs with process steps: listing actions or tasks as inputs instead of tangible items or data.
5. Neglecting the customer perspective: focusing only on internal outputs and ignoring customer needs.
6. Treating SIPOC as a one-time task: creating the diagram and never revisiting it.
7. Using SIPOC as a substitute for detailed mapping: assuming SIPOC alone is enough for deep process analysis.