Six-And-A-Half Tips for Designing a Good Warmup

If you've been a trainer or a facilitator, you've used them. If you've ever been to a workshop, you've been through them. If you're shy or impatient, you've dreaded them.

We're talking warmups - those short activities, built into training sessions, usually right after the coffee and muffins, to introduce or enliven participants. When they work, they can energize a group and focus  them on the day ahead. When they don't work, they can feel like a bad party game, and leave participants bored, embarrassed, and impatient to get on to "The REAL workshop".

But a warmup, properly selected and designed, IS part of the real workshop. Or should be.

Here are six and a half tips to help you ensure that your warmup exercises actually contribute to the learning, and DON'T feel like a waste of time.

A GOOD warm-up exercise should:

6) Have some actual point. In other words, the activity should relate to the content of the workshop. I once attended a training session where the facilitator thought it would be cool to have participants play "Twister" as a getting-to-know-you warmup. That would have been okay in a workshop about limited mobility among the middle aged, or fads of the sixties; the trainer could have used to experience to link with the workshop content or start a discussion. Unfortunately, it was a workshop in business planning techniques. We all learned that our middle aged bodies weren't very good at Twister any more, and that was about it - the exercise was a mildly amusing waste of time.

5) Create a positive group atmosphere.The tone of a workshop is set within the first five minutes. Will this one be fun? Will we be allowed to talk? To joke? To interact with each other? Your warmup should establish the climate you want to sustain for the duration of the session.

4) Involve disclosure. In a workshop where people are expected to work together, exchange information and share personal experiences, it's always useful to start with a warmup that allows a little disclosure, and encourages participants to share a revelation about themselves. It can be as simple as the question: "Tell us something about yourself that no-one in the room knows". It creates an atmosphere of trust, and sets a climate of openness. Never push your request for disclosure to the point of discomfort, which leads to my next point.

3) Never threaten or challenge, and always allow an opt-out.If a participant isn't comfortable with a warmup, don't try to cajole, kid, or bully them into participation. There may be issues in play you're unaware of; and in any case, adults are adults. Respect them.

2) Be fun. Another unfortunate warmup I once experienced involved small groups working on math puzzles. Now, there was, in fact, a connection with the workshop content (it was a session on group problem solving strategies): but (and I say this with all due respect for the accountants and mathematicians out there) it was about as exciting as a bowl of boiled Brussels Sprouts. A good warmup should energize, not anesthetize.

1) Happen.There's always too much to do in a workshop, and the trainer's first inclination is always "Cut the Warmup". Don't do it; the climate of the workshop is just as important as the content, since the climate determines how much actual learning will take place. And an appropriate warmup, well designed and delivered, can do a lot in the opening minutes to create a positive climate for learning.

And remember. NO TWISTER.