Most teams spend a lot of time on the wrong things.
They don’t mean to. It just happens. The busy work, the small fires, the meetings that feel important but rarely move the needle.
Before you know it, your energy is scattered and the results… well, they’re not what they could be.
In this workshop, I’m going to show you how to use the Pareto Principle. The idea that roughly 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts.
It will help you figure out where your team’s real impact comes from, and how to focus on it.
Why does it matter?
Because focus is the one thing that multiplies results without adding more hours.
Most teams think they’re focused. They’re not. They’re just busy. And that’s the trap.
I’ve seen it over and over: well-intentioned teams who don’t stop to ask the right questions about where their effort is going.
They work hard but never pause to separate the vital few from the trivial many.
And that’s why their progress feels slower than it should be.
The skill of identifying the most important 20% is one of the simplest and most overlooked disciplines in team development.
It’s not glamorous. But if you want real performance improvement, this is where you start.
Your team will walk away with:
- A clear picture of the few activities that drive most of your results
- Agreement on where to focus as a team and where to cut back
- Practical ways to shift energy from low-impact work to high-impact work
- A shared language for spotting the “vital few” in the future
- Commitment to specific actions that will actually make a difference
Let’s get into it…
Workshop Title
Applying the Pareto Law to our Work
Duration: 1 hour
Materials Needed
- Flipchart or whiteboard
- Sticky notes
- Markers
- Timer
- Coloured dots or stickers for voting
Workshop Plan
Introduction (5 min)
- Explain the Pareto Principle: 80% of results often come from 20% of efforts.
- Give a simple example (e.g. 80% of support requests come from 20% of customers).
- Emphasise that the numbers are a guide, not exact.
Brainstorm (10 min)
- Ask: What activities, projects, or issues do we spend most of our time on?
- Each person writes one idea per sticky note.
- Place them on the wall or board.
Group and Clarify (10 min)
- As a group, cluster similar notes.
- Clarify meanings and merge duplicates.
- Ensure everyone understands each item.
Identify High-Impact Items (10 min)
- Ask: Which of these give us most of our results, impact, or headaches?
- Give everyone coloured dots to vote for the top 3–5 items.
- Highlight the clusters with most votes.
Discuss Focus Shift (15 min)
For each high-impact item, discuss:
- How can we give this more attention?
- How can we reduce time spent on low-impact work?
- What could we stop, simplify, or delegate?
Agree Next Steps (10 min)
- Capture specific actions the team will take (minimum 2-3).
- Assign ownership and timelines.
Facilitation Tips
- Keep the energy high during the brainstorm by encouraging quick note writing.
- Remind people to think about both positive impact (results) and negative impact (problems).
- Watch for “pet projects” that might skew voting and refocus on the team’s shared goals.
- In the discussion, push for actions that are realistic and can be implemented quickly.
- Summarise agreed actions at the end and confirm commitment from everyone.
Other Ways To Use The Pareto Principle In Team Workshops
You can apply the 80/20 rule in many different ways depending on your team’s goals. Here are a few variations:
1. Identify High-Impact Activities
- List all tasks the team does in a week
- Highlight the 20% that create most of the results
- Plan how to give these more time and resources
2. Spot The Biggest Blockers
- List recurring problems or inefficiencies
- Identify the 20% of issues causing most of the delays or frustrations
- Focus on solving these first
3. Customer Or Stakeholder Focus
- Map out customer requests or complaints
- Find the small set that drives the most value or causes most of the issues
- Decide how to address these more effectively
4. Review Tools And Processes
- List all tools, processes, or meetings
- Identify the few that deliver most of the benefit
- Consider simplifying or dropping the rest
5. Skills And Development Planning
- Reflect on which skills give the most impact in each role
- Decide which to develop next for maximum return on learning time
6. Visual Mapping Exercise
- Draw two columns: “Effort” and “Impact”
- Map out tasks or priorities visually
- Spot the 20% high-impact items and decide how to focus there
Final Thoughts
Most teams don’t need more tools or more meetings.
They need more clarity on what actually matters.
That’s the beauty of the Pareto approach. It’s simple, fast, and it forces the hard conversations about priorities that usually get avoided.
You don’t need weeks of preparation. You just need an hour and the willingness to look at your work with fresh eyes.
If you run this workshop, expect some discomfort.
People might realise they’ve been spending time on things that don’t matter as much as they thought.
That’s a good thing. It’s the start of real change.
I’ve used this exercise with teams in all kinds of settings (remote, hybrid, in-person) and the pattern is always the same.
Once you’ve seen where the real value comes from, it’s hard to go back to the old way of working.
You start making better decisions without even thinking about it.
So take the plan, run it with your team, and see what comes up.
You don’t have to get it perfect.
You just have to start asking the right questions about your time, your effort, and your results.
Because in the end, the teams who win aren’t the ones who work the hardest.
They’re the ones who focus on the right things.
See you next week.