Before the day · Page 13
Who is in the room
For you only
Keep it small. Eight people is my suggestion. Four teams of two. Small enough to facilitate alone, big enough for real difference in the room.
| Role | Why they are there |
|---|---|
| Product manager / product owner | They carry the problem |
| UX designer (probably you) | You define the challenge and run the room |
| Marketing and sales | They hear the customer language you do not |
| Subject matter expert | The person who actually knows the domain |
| A developer | They often build the fastest |
| Leadership, for the last hour | The CEO, CPO, or head of product. The person who can say yes |
The rule for the room: invite the people who decide what gets built, and the people who quietly shape those decisions. Get them building next to each other for one day.
Two of these entries surprise people. The developer, because the whole pitch is "no code needed", and yes, exactly: they are not there to code, they are there because they often build fastest with the AI tools, and because a developer who has watched a salesperson ship a working screen goes home with a different opinion of the rest of the company. And leadership, because inviting the CEO to a workshop sounds like a way to kill it. That is why they come for the last hour only, when the room is full of working software instead of sticky notes.
Who decides. Someone has to own the challenge. This is wartime, not democracy. One person defines what you are building against, so the room does not spend three hours arguing about the problem. Users settle the rest.