Ideas for designing a workshop to identify competency gaps for Learning & Development Initiatives

Hi all,

I’m in the process of designing a workshop for a team of advisors at a housing cooperative (similar to real estate advisors). The goal of the workshop is to identify the key areas where they need to develop competencies, which will then guide the creation of tailored training programs, workshops, or other learning initiatives.

I have about 3 hours for the session and was thinking of using a Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ) or Design Sprint-inspired approach to keep things focused, without falling into long discussions. I’m aiming for an interactive format that encourages "working together alone" to gather individual input, but I also want to make sure we end up with clear, prioritized themes that we can use to build our L&D portfolio.

So far, my outline includes:

A short warm-up session to identify what’s working well.
A structured process to surface challenges or areas where they feel they need further development.
Prioritization of these challenges using voting techniques.
Refining the key challenges into actionable “How Might We” (HMW) questions.
Generating ideas for possible solutions (such as workshops, e-learning, etc.).
Using an effort vs. impact matrix to prioritize these ideas.

Does anyone have experience with similar sessions? I’d love to hear any tips, tools, or alternative exercises you’ve used that could help.

Thanks in advance for any input or ideas!

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