[Sigia-l] Group Mental Model Workshop

[Thomas.Donehower at eurorscg.com]

Hi, 

I've been tasked with designing a group mental model workshop. Goal of the 
workshop is to create a mental model for three unique customer segments. I 
plan on having roughly 6-8 people in the workshop and have about 3 hours. 
I am planning on coming with a persona for each segment to help 
participants understand each segment. The participants are not users. 
Although they are from the client side, they are very familar with users. 
I realize it would be best to do the workshop with actual users, but 
that's not going to happen right now, so I have to rely on the client's 
knowledge. 

After introducing a persona, I plan on having lots of post-its and was 
just going to have the group brainstorm tasks the customer would need to 
accomplish in order to achieve their goal of being healthy. I am wary of 
leading or having the group focus on certain areas as I don't want to miss 
out on potential tasks. Once I feel the group has exhausted themselves of 
listing tasks, I will have the group start to organize the post-its into 
larger groups and then smaller groups. They will also have the ability to 
add any tasks during this stage as well. Once the tasks are grouped into 
sections, I will have the group consider what larger task each section 
represents. The end result will be a series of larger tasks with smaller 
tasks attributed to each larger task. The whole model will be in some sort 
of overall organizing logic, i.e. chronological order, priority etc. I'll 
finish by asking participants if there is anything they would like to add 
or change. 

Was wondering if anyone agrees/disagrees with my methods or has any 
suggestions/pitfalls to avoid with developing mental models in a group 
setting. 

-Tom