Lesson 24 · Expert · 20 min
Training your colleagues: a one-hour workshop ready to run
A one-hour workshop on Copilot Chat, ready to run: cold attempt, demonstration, exercise in pairs, teaching a colleague, proof to take away.
- Goal
- You will be able to run a one-hour workshop on Copilot Chat that has people practise before explaining, has participants teach each other, and ends with a proof that is kept.
- Skills
- Steer
Training your colleagues does not consist of showing Copilot Chat for an hour. The workshop that works has people try before explaining, has them produce in pairs on a fictional document, has one pair teach another, then ends with a task redone unaided and kept as proof. The plan below is timed and ready to run with six to ten people.
1Three facilitation rules and a timed run sheet
Three facilitation rules carry the whole workshop. Have people try before you explain: someone who has got stuck on the task listens to the explanation differently. Useful feedback says what to correct, not well done: "a stated length is missing" moves things on, "that is good" does nothing. And whoever explains remembers: having a pair present their prompt to another pair beats a reminder from the facilitator.
You are not a substitute trainer. You are the person on the team who makes the others autonomous, on a task they really do. Here is the plan.
Minutes Sequence Instruction Visible deliverable 0 to 5 Hook A real task of the department, announced; everyone checks the green shield Goal on the board 5 to 12 Cold attempt "Have this fictional report summarised as you would on your own" Prompt saved, never graded 12 to 20 Micro-lesson The four ingredients, a weak prompt and a strong prompt projected A one-page memo 20 to 33 Exercise in pairs Rewrite the cold attempt prompt, run it, compare Prompt and output 33 to 43 Teach Each pair explains its prompt to another pair, which scores it with the grid Grid filled in 43 to 50 Error hunt A projected output contains two inventions; find them and say how to check Errors marked 50 to 57 Unaided proof Redo the task on a variant, alone, and compare with the cold attempt Final prompt and output kept 57 to 60 Transfer "Where will you use this this week?" One sentence per person 
Diagram "A one-hour workshop in eight sequences"Diagram generated by AI and reviewed 2Building the doctored minutes for the exercise
Workshop materials are prepared directly with Copilot Chat. The facilitator needs a fictional document with calibrated challenges and a peer evaluation rubric.
Weak prompt, in the same conversation:
Create an exercise on Copilot for my team.Copilot proposes a generic quiz on "artificial intelligence at work", without a business scenario, unsuitable for practical skill-building.
Strong prompt: Turn 1 (generating the fictional scenario and planted errors):
Write a fictional 400-word meeting report for a procurement department workshop. Context: monthly supplier review, six invented participants, no real company names. The text must include: two agreed decisions, three actions with one missing an owner, an unresolved disagreement, and an inconsistent date. Do not highlight these traps in the text. Provide a separate list of injected errors with their positions. Format: report text, followed by the answer key as a list.Copilot delivers a credible report and, separately, the key to the five planted anomalies.
Strong prompt: Turn 2 (creating the peer evaluation rubric):
Using the report and answer key from turn 1, draft an evaluation rubric with three observable criteria that pairs will use to score each other's summaries. Each criterion must be scored from 0 to 2 with a binary verification question.Copilot produces the operational rubric. The facilitator now possesses a realistic case study, an unambiguous answer key, and an objective grading scale.
What changes: the prompt grounds the exercise in actual team responsibilities. Calibrated anomalies turn the session into a critical thinking workout. The rubric enables rigorous peer review.
3Write the run sheet of your own workshop
Prepare your own workshop. Here is the starting prompt to improve:
"Prepare a one-hour workshop on Copilot for my colleagues."
Specify the target audience with their role, team size, and skill level. Define the recurring task serving as the common thread, and detail the eight timed segments of the session.
Generate the fictional document with its planted errors and the three-criterion peer evaluation rubric. Request the final output as a summary table and a logistical checklist. Run the session and collect one sentence of feedback per participant.
Self-assessment grid: (a) every sequence has a duration, an instruction and a deliverable; (b) one sequence has a participant teach another; (c) participants leave with a kept final prompt and output.
4The attendee who lets Copilot do the exercise
During the hands-on exercise, a participant pastes the entire brief into Copilot Chat: "Do this exercise for me." Thirty seconds later, he displays a polished prompt, a smooth output, and earns the top score from his partner.
This result is an illusion: the participant framed nothing, checked nothing, and steered nothing. The exercise measured Copilot's capability rather than the employee's skill, creating false confidence.
Design the exercise to require explicit justification of the reasoning process. Require the initial and final prompts side by side, with a sentence explaining every added constraint. Have peers interrogate the author on their editorial choices. Always evaluate the thought process, never the raw generation alone.
5Quiz
Three questions, instant feedback. Each option comes with an explanation.
6Proof of mastery
Submit your timed workshop plan (sequences, durations, instructions, fictional document used), then, after running it, one sentence of feedback from two participants and what you will change next time. If you are learning alone, replace that feedback with your own run sheet played again after 24 hours and the list of sequences you shortened.
Criteria
Going further
The workshop's micro-lesson takes up the four ingredients; the error hunt relies on the failure modes, and the human resources card provides job prompts for an HR audience. The next lesson, on the usage policy, gives the document to hand to participants. The Copilot prompts for managers sheet provides the prompts to hand to the team leaders who leave the workshop.
Frequently asked questions
Must every participant have Copilot Chat?
Yes, with their work account and the green shield shown. Copilot Chat is included in Microsoft 365 business and education plans without an additional licence. Have access checked the day before; in pairs, one computer is enough.
How many participants?
Six to ten, in pairs. Beyond that, the peer-teaching sequences become impossible for a single facilitator to follow, and individual feedback, which does most of the learning, disappears.
Can I put screenshots of Copilot Chat in my slides?
Yes, for teaching purposes, citing the source and the date, and after anonymising any real name or document. Microsoft brands are written in nominative use, without a logo, without implying any affiliation.
What if Copilot Chat is slowed down during the workshop?
Microsoft states that standard access, without a paid licence, can be temporarily restricted at times of high demand. Prepare outputs saved in advance for the demonstration and the error hunt, so that the workshop does not depend on the service.