Custom workshops
Built around your problem, not a curriculum
The named workshops on this site are the ones teams ask for most. They're not the limit. I design and facilitate working sessions for whatever decision your team is facing, from a founding hypothesis to a strategy your whole company can execute, and every one of them ends with artifacts your team built and a capability your team keeps.
Facilitated end-to-end by Corissa Bowman, on-site anywhere in the US, fully remote, or as a retreat
Half a day to three daysSized to the decision, not the calendar
Any scenarioStrategy, market, prioritization, validation, or team dynamics
Your team does the workThey build the artifacts and own the toolkit afterward
On-site, remote, or retreatDenver and the Front Range in person, or anywhere in the US
When a custom workshop is the right call
A custom workshop makes sense when the decision in front of you doesn't fit a template, or when you need several pieces of work to land together. It's the right fit if:
- You have a strategy question nobody on the team has the bandwidth to own, and a meeting series isn't answering it
- Your leadership team agrees on the goal but not on the market, the customer, or the next bet
- You've outgrown the founding story and need a hypothesis the whole company can point at
- You want a specific outcome, a playbook, a prioritized roadmap, a validated prototype, and want it built by your people rather than delivered by a consultant
- Your team needs time away from the "resource" culture to work as a team, and you want that time to produce a strategy, not just a bonding exercise
Every engagement starts with a short conversation to find the decision the work has to inform. If a named workshop already fits, I'll say so. If it doesn't, we design one.
Workshops for every phase of the journey
Every product team I work with is somewhere between wondering and wonderful. Most custom workshops start by answering one question, where are you, and then pull from the sessions below. Run one on its own, combine several into a program, or work through the whole journey in sequence.
Wondering: who are we, and who do we serve?
- Foundation Diagnostic. A short virtual session to surface your most pressing strategy gaps and recommend a path
- Foundation Sprint. Three days with your founding or strategy team to develop the founding hypothesis: customers, unique advantages, and how you'll differentiate, with an executive readout across Product, UX, Marketing, Sales, Support, and Engineering
Wandering: are we building the right things for the right customers?
- Industry analysis. Industry research translated into business-relevant insights and trends
- Customer analysis and win/loss. Segmentation, a custom win/loss script, facilitated calls, and training so your team continues the practice
- Profiles and personas. Market profile templates, two profiles built together, and user and buyer persona workshops
- Competitive landscape. Competitors and substitutes, profiles, a comparative matrix, and battlecards for your top four
- All four run together as the Market Intelligence series, or in a shorter form as a Market Analysis workshop
Weighing: of everything we could build, what should we build?
- Opportunity Assessment workshop. One facilitated assessment plus a customized template, ROI calculator, and executive summary deck, good for testing the method before scaling it
- Opportunity Assessment program. Four assessments built together, idea generation workshops, affinity sizing, and a full-day prioritization workshop
- Customer co-creation. An idea generation workshop with six to twelve ideal customers and a customer prioritization session to validate priorities externally
Working: have we validated this before we invest?
- Design Sprint. The five-day method: map, sketch, decide, build, and test with real customers, with a pre-kickoff for the decider and an executive readout
- Design Sprint plus implementation roadmap. The sprint followed by two weeks of support translating the validated prototype into a delivery plan with engineering
Wonderful: how do we sustain momentum as we grow?
- Strategy Playbook. A two-day workshop producing a complete playbook: vision and mission, market overview, financial landscape, goals and objectives, and internal and external roadmaps, plus a reusable deck for presenting it
- Strategy Retreat. Three days that combine strategy refinement with team dynamics
- Capstone. Playbook and retreat together, for teams reaching scale
Between and after workshops
- Fractional strategy partner. Ongoing advisory on a monthly basis: regular check-ins, async support, and a seat with your leadership team between projects. For hands-on help with an individual or a product team, see product coaching
- The whole journey. All five phases delivered as one sequenced program over about a year, for funded start-ups and growth-stage companies that know they need it end-to-end
The Strategy Retreat
Three days that combine strategy refinement with team dynamics, for the C-suite and the product, UX, and engineering leaders who carry the strategy. It runs at preferred venues in and around Denver and Golden, Colorado, or wherever your team wants to be, and works best as the culmination of the market work above. Read about the Strategy Retreat.
How a custom workshop comes together
- Find the decision. A discovery conversation, or a short diagnostic session, to name the decision the work has to inform and take stock of what you already know.
- Design the session. I build the agenda backward from that decision, pulling from the sessions above and tailoring the exercises to your industry, your data, and your team.
- Do the work. Your team works. I facilitate end-to-end, keep the room in the problem, and push toward real decisions rather than comfortable non-answers.
- Read out and hand off. An executive readout of what was decided and what's next, and the templates and tooling so your team can keep doing the work without me.
Common questions
How long does a custom workshop take?
Anywhere from half a day to three days of facilitation, depending on the decision. Multi-part programs spread sessions across weeks, usually on meeting time you already have.
Where do you start if we're not sure what we need?
With a short diagnostic session. It's virtual, it surfaces the most pressing gaps, and it ends with a recommended path. If that path is a named workshop, I'll point you to it.
Who should be in the room?
The people who can make the decision and the people who'll live with it. For strategy work that usually means the leadership team plus product, UX, and engineering. For market work, up to about twelve people who can speak to customers, sales, or the product.
Can we combine several workshops?
Yes, and most clients do. The phases build on each other: market work feeds prioritization, prioritization feeds a Design Sprint, and all of it feeds the playbook. I'll sequence them so each session produces something the next one uses.
What do we keep afterward?
Everything your team built, in editable form, plus the templates, calculators, scripts, and decks used to build it. The goal is that you don't need me for the next round.
What kind of companies do you work with?
While I've spent a lot of my career working with healthcare and health IT teams, these workshops are designed to work well across all industries.