To ensure that you are ready to facilitate a successful session, we’ve broken down the preparation into seven clear, practical steps that you can use as a checklist.
Step 1: Justify the Need of the Workshop to Stakeholders
Before you schedule anything, you must be able to articulate why this workshop is valuable to your customer or internal team when you see the need for it and you encounter resistance.
The reality is that many AI projects are failing to provide business value. According to a study by MIT, 95% of enterprise generative AI projects fail to deliver meaningful business impact. And Gartner predicts that over 40% of agentic AI projects will be canceled by the end of 2027. The main reasons are not the technology and its capabilities, but a "misalignment between technical execution and business reality". https://medium.com/@natishalom/95-of-ai-projects-fail-heres-why-that-s-a-good-thing-8a5936ebdea8
According to the MIT report, the lack of a "clearly defined business problem" and creating AI solutions that are "not designed to fit into existing business processes" are some of the major contributors to the lack of success.
In this context, the Joule Agent Design Workshop can be a project de-risking instrument and a financial safeguard. It works by moving the complex, costly work of requirements definition to the very beginning of the development process. This structured methodology is essential for identifying ideas that have real business value and turning a vague concept into a blueprint that you can actually implement.
Here are four key value points that you can use to explain why this session is not just a 'nice-to-have,' but a strategic necessity:
- Increased Chances of Solution Adoption:The financial return on an agent system is entirely dependent on people actually using it. By applying a human-centered approach and designing the Agent Experience (AX) around actual end-user needs, this workshop maximizes adoption.
- Increased Business Value:Most project failures are caused by unclear goals. By rigorously defining the agent's purpose upfront, the workshop ensures that the outcome is directly tied to business targets like cost reduction or error elimination. It forces participants to link the agent idea to solving a real business problem, not just using the latest technology.
- Gain Alignment and Common Understanding:The session is an opportunity to bring diverse teams (like IT and business) together to understand each other's needs, agree on scope, constraints, and success metrics in a single session. This collaboration leads to a truly holistic solution design and reduces the extra effort caused by silos and miscommunication between teams.
- Quick Validation Before Implementation:The earlier mistakes are addressed, the less expensive is to fix them. The structured output from the workshop allows teams to run quick validations of the agentic solution idea with sponsors and users, saving significant time and money by avoiding costly redefinitions after implementation starts.
Step 2: Clarify Expectations
If a colleague or customer requests this workshop, it’s important to talk to them first. Don't just accept the request. Understand the situation that triggered the request and ensure that the workshop can meet their goals.
Ask questions that help you understand what they are really looking for:
- Goals: "What do you want to achieve with this workshop format? What do you imagine as outcome?"
- Sponsorship: "Who is interested in the outcomes, and why?"
- Next Steps: "How do you plan to move forward with the results? Who is planned to implement the solution?"
Identifying the planed next steps and implementation team in advance and knowing the workshop is linked to a larger strategic initiative ensures that the results will be followed up, giving your session impact and preventing it from becoming a one-off exercise.
Step 3: Identify a Use Case
While a team may already have a use case in mind, it is often too vague. Before the workshop, you need to gain agreement on the purpose of the agentic solution. Make sure that the use case is well-defined and understood in advance, covering:
- The Process:What is the activity or process that needs the agentic automation?
- The User:Which role or teams will benefit and use the automated solution?
- The Goal: What specific targets or issues is the solution meant to address?
- The Fit: Is the use case a good fit for agentic AI(as discussed in the lesson "Identifying the Need for a Joule Agent Design Workshop" of this unit)?"
Use the Automation Scenario template and the Agentic Use Case template to document these details. Ideally, run a more exploratory session, like the Joule Agent Discovery workshop in advance to select an agentic use case. Check if the problem the use case aims to address is already covered by existing solutions. As mentioned in a previous lesson, you can use the SAP Business AI catalog of the SAP Discovery Center to check this.
Step 4: Ensure the Right Participants
You need a diverse mix of people to create a successful, grounded agent design.
Mixed skills: Ensure you have a mix of business experts or end-users who know the process and its challenges, and technical experts who understand the feasibility of implementation.
Team Size: You should have a maximum of 6 participants on each working team focusing on one use case. This size prevents discussions from dragging on and ensures that everyone contributes.
Learn more about how to form the teams in the Lesson "Exploring the Workshop Structure and Set-up" of this unit.
Step 5: Adapt the Workshop Agenda
Take the proposed agendas as a starting point and adapt them to your needs based on:
- Participant Count: More participants mean longer share-outs and presentation times. Adjust your timeboxes accordingly.
- Teams Count: If you have multiple teams working on different use cases, make sure to add time at the end for a cross-team share-out and review.
On-site Tip: Always prepare a simplified, time-boxed flipchart agenda for the physical room so participants can track the session flow easily.
Step 6: Prepare the Material
Your job is to make the experience seamless. For on-site sessions, organizing your physical materials is critical.
Print Outs:
- Print the Templates (Task Collection, Assembly Line, Risk Assessment, Job Profile, Instructions) and Card Sets (Agentic Qualities, Tools). Refer to the List of Print-outs for number of sheets and size.
- Prepare one Task Collection Template per participant with post-its, and ensure your post-its are colored differently for each task category (for example, green for tasks to be done manually, yellow for tasks to collaborate on, purple for tasks to delegate).
Visual Preparation:
- Draw the Flipchart Agenda, the Autonomy Spectrum for the warm-up, the Task Heatmap, and the As-Is process. These items should be drawn on whiteboards or large surfaces before the participants arrive.
Autonomy spectrum: use the prepared sheets for the different categories or just draw them on large post-its.
As-is process: prepare a vertical surface with the name of the process to automate, the main roles identified and the high-level steps. Take this information from the pre-filled "Agentic Use Case template" if you did a Joule Agent Discovery workshop before or have a session with the customer before the workshop to create it
Task Heatmap: prepare the Task Heatmap with the 2 dimensions and the different levels low medium high per dimension.
Supplies:
- Make sure you have a timer with alarm, post-its, and one marker pen per participant.
Step 7: Ensure and Prepare the Space and Equipment
The environment must foster collaboration.
On-Site Space: Ensure you have a large, flexible room that can accommodate all breakout teams. Each team needs a table and enough vertical space (a whiteboard, wall, or window) to stick their process and task flows. You will also need a monitor to present the necessary instruction slides.
Avoid moving between rooms during the session!
Virtual Space: If you’re using a platform like Mural, ensure you check that all participants can access the digital board ahead of time. A brief prep session or warm-up is a great way to test this.
Wrap-up
These seven steps will help you to assemble your toolkit and ensure you have all the information you need. Keep this list as reference for your upcoming workshops.
In the next unit, we'll dive into the hands-on part: Running the Joule Agent Design Workshop, where you will learn how to facilitate each exercise step-by-step.