A successful Howspace process begins with careful planning. When you understand the context and define your objectives clearly, you build a workspace that truly serves the participants and leads to the desired results.
1. Define Contextual Factors
Describing contextual factors helps you visualize the overall goal and set realistic, appropriate objectives. Before creating a single page, consider the following factors:
Target Group: Who is participating and what is their starting level?
Number of Participants: Is it a small group or a mass of thousands?
Delivery Method and Duration: Is it a short webinar, a coaching program lasting weeks, or an ongoing community?
Content and Budget: What resources are available?
Time Management: Is participation strictly scheduled or flexible (self-study)?
Digital Skills: How much guidance do participants need to use the platform?
Cultural and Linguistic Factors: Are language versions needed, or should specific practices be taken into account?
2. Purpose vs. Objectives
In planning, it is important to distinguish the big vision from the concrete steps.
Purpose (Main Goal): Describes what the whole process is about and what it aims for. It is the "North Star" of the process.
Objective: A short, concrete, and measurable item that moves the participant toward the purpose. A good objective is active and describes what the participant does or achieves.
Use the Impact Tracker to follow your goals.
3. Objectives Guide the Workspace Structure
In Howspace, objectives are not just text on a screen; they form the basis for the entire digital environment. Defining your objectives directly affects the types of themes, content, and activities you build.
The structure of a Howspace workspace includes:
Navigation bar: The hierarchy of pages and folders that organizes the stages of the process.
Page structure: Layouts and widgets that determine how information is consumed and how participation happens.
Participant path: How the participant is guided through the workspace (e.g., via automations, visibility settings, and clear calls to action).
Remember the Howspace Speciality: Interaction.
When defining objectives, leverage Howspace’s strongest suit: the opportunity for interaction between participants. Interaction enables learning that is tied to the participant's own daily (work) life. Instead of just remembering and understanding information, interaction helps move toward deeper, applied learning and collaborative knowledge building.
Tip: Ask yourself: "How could this objective be realized so that participants learn from each other?"