About

As Publix looked ahead to shaping their product and design roadmaps for the coming years, it was clear that getting multiple teams aligned in one room would be essential. With groups spanning design, editorial, and marketing, the challenge wasn’t just collecting ideas it was making sure every voice was heard, priorities were clear, and the energy of collaboration carried forward beyond the sessions.

The central question for me became:
How might we bring diverse teams together in a way that sparks creativity, surfaces priorities, and builds momentum for the year ahead?

My role

I organised and facilitated a series of on-site workshops in Florida, bringing together around 20 stakeholders from across Publix and Fueled. My role was to design and lead the sessions so they felt engaging, productive, and memorable. I wanted everyone to feel not only heard but excited to shape the future together.

Approach

To break the ice, I set the tone with a playful exercise. Each participant arrived at their seat to find a placemat styled like a dinner party: a paper plate, sticky notes stacked like a coaster, and pens as cutlery. The menu was actually the workshop agenda. To kick us off, I asked everyone to write their favorite meal on the plate and share it with the group. This lighthearted activity quickly broke down barriers, set a warm atmosphere, and got everyone comfortable speaking up.

From there, we moved into the heart of the sessions: brainstorming ideas around what teams were most excited about and wanted to focus on. I guided the group through structured exercises including dot voting to surface the strongest ideas, followed by a “Now, Next, Later” prioritisation to map them against the roadmap. Breakout sessions gave space for each discipline to dig deeper: editorial teams explored content needs, design teams examined design systems and setup, while marketing teams mapped out upcoming campaign drives.

To keep the workshops fun and inclusive, I introduced a feedback system with visual cues. Each participant was given a green apple and a red pepper card. The apple was a quick way to show agreement, while the pepper signalled a question or disagreement. This simple tool ensured quieter voices had an easy way to join the conversation and kept discussions balanced. Later, we carried this practice into our remote calls by using green apple and red pepper emojis on Google Hangouts.

And, as a final touch, I made sure to bring some UK chocolate to share — a small gesture that helped make the sessions feel personal, memorable, and a little more fun.

Outcomes

These on-site workshops gave Publix a clear, prioritised roadmap that reflected the energy and ideas of the entire team. They created alignment across design, editorial, and marketing, while also strengthening relationships between teams who didn’t always collaborate closely. The playful structure from the dinner-party icebreaker to the apple-and-pepper feedback system made the workshops not only productive but genuinely enjoyable.

Most importantly, the tools and practices we introduced didn’t end when the workshops did. The apple-and-pepper system lived on in remote meetings, and the prioritization exercises became a shared way of thinking about what to tackle “Now, Next, and Later.” By investing in making the workshops engaging, I helped create momentum and habits that carried forward long after the sessions ended.