Behavioural Change Toolkit · Deliver

Workshop — Behavioural Diagnosis (90 min)

Purpose: get a group from vague ambition to three specific behaviours with evidenced barriers. Who: 6–10 people. Must include people who do the actual work, not just managers. You need: wall space, sticky notes, the COM-B table printed A3.

Before

  • Do 4–6 conversations first (Barrier Analysis — COM-B Interview Guide) — bring anonymised quotes
  • Draft Behavioural Diagnosis Canvas sections 1–3 so you’re not starting from blank
  • Print the COM-B table A3
  • Agree with the sponsor that the output may change the plan ⭐ (otherwise this is theatre and the room will smell it within ten minutes)

Run sheet

0:00 — Frame (5 min)

“We’re not here to decide whether the change is right — that’s decided. We’re here to work out what has to be different in people’s actual days, and what’s stopping it. The most useful thing anyone can say today is ‘that won’t work, and here’s why’.”

0:05 — The Tuesday exercise (15 min)

“Six months from now, it’s worked. Walk me through an ordinary Tuesday. What would I see someone doing that’s different from today?”

Individually on stickies, 5 min. Then round the room, 10 min.

Facilitator move: every time someone says an abstraction — “more collaborative”, “taking ownership” — ask “what would I see?” Keep asking until it’s filmable. This is the whole value of the session and it will feel repetitive. Do it anyway.

0:20 — Cluster and cut (15 min)

Group the stickies. You’ll have 15–25 candidate behaviours.

Dot vote: three dots each, on “which of these, if it happened reliably, would make the most difference?”

Take the top five. Write each on a sheet on the wall.

0:35 — Sharpen (10 min)

For the top three, complete out loud:

”[Who] will [do what] when [trigger], instead of [current behaviour].”

Argue about the wording. The argument is the work — ambiguity that survives this session survives into the rollout.

0:45 — Break (5 min)

0:50 — COM-B barrier round (25 min)

Take behaviour B1. Walk the six components on the A3, asking for each:

“For this behaviour, is this a problem? Score 1 to 5. What’s the evidence?”

Facilitator moves:

  • When someone says “they just don’t want to” → “How do we know it’s won’t, not can’t? What have they actually said?”
  • Drop in one of your anonymised quotes at the point it’s most inconvenient
  • Write “ASSUMPTION” in red on anything with no evidence behind it ⭐

Repeat, faster, for B2 and B3. ~8 min each.

1:15 — First interventions (10 min)

For the lowest-scoring component on B1:

“What would make this so easy it almost happens by itself?”

Free generation, no evaluation. Aim for 10 ideas. Park them for Workshop — Design the Nudges (2 hr).

1:25 — Close (5 min)

  • The three behaviours, read back
  • The primary barrier for each
  • The red ASSUMPTION list — who’s finding out, by when
  • What you’ll do with this and when they’ll hear back

Facilitator notes

If the room turns into a complaint session: let it run for five minutes — it’s data and blocking it costs you the room. Then: “I want to capture all of that. Which of these are things we could actually change?” Move the changeable ones onto the wall.

If a senior person dominates: switch to silent-write-then-share. It’s the cleanest way to redistribute airtime without confronting anyone.

If everyone agrees too quickly: they’re being polite, or the behaviours are too vague to disagree about. Sharpen the wording until someone objects.

If they insist the barrier is “culture”: ask what specifically happens when someone does the right thing. Ladder it down as in Target Behaviour Definition.

Output

Write it up within 24 hours and send it to everyone who attended. Speed signals that it mattered; a write-up that arrives in ten days signals it didn’t.

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Last updated: 11 August 2026