Hands-On Workshop · SEFI Annual Conference 2026

A Hands-On Expectationeering Workshop for Engineering Education

Equipping engineering educators to surface, map, and align the stakeholder expectations that shape learning, collaboration, and the societal meaning of engineering work.

Upcoming · September 2026
Event: SEFI Annual Conference 2026 When: September 2026 (exact date TBC) Where: Location TBC Format: 120-minute interactive workshop Speaker: Eric Nikkelen, ReqVision With: M. Metz, J. Lacroix & R. Bezemer (TU Eindhoven / Philips)

The Workshop

Expectations: The Under-Examined Variable in Engineering Education

Engineering education increasingly tackles complex societal challenges with diverse, often conflicting stakeholder expectations - especially in AI-enabled, socio-technical contexts. Yet those expectations usually stay implicit, fragmented, and are rarely examined as a design challenge in their own right.

This hands-on workshop introduces Expectationeering, a structured facilitation and design approach that helps engineering educators frame societal challenges, elicit pluralistic stakeholder expectations, and translate them into pedagogically and societally meaningful outcomes.

Rather than working from predefined examples, participants bring authentic cases from their own teaching and curriculum design. In guided exercises they reframe problem definitions into societal challenge contexts, systematically map stakeholder expectations, and identify the expectation gaps that influence learning, collaboration, and perceived success - then apply Expectationeering to build alignment strategies for their own context.

The session contributes to the wider conversation on emphasising humanity in engineering, and is grounded in ongoing research. It is led by Eric Nikkelen (ReqVision), creator of Expectationeering, with co-authors M. Metz, J. Lacroix and R. Bezemer (Eindhoven University of Technology / Philips).

How the Session Runs

120 Minutes, Hands-On

A deliberately interactive format - short conceptual inputs only to frame the exercises, with most time spent applying Expectationeering to participants' own cases.

15 minIntroduction · Aims and method; groups form and choose an authentic case
30 minChallenge Framing · Define the actual and desired state, identify the gaps
30 minExpectation Elicitation · Identify stakeholders and elicit solution-neutral expectations
30 minCurriculum Design · Translate expectations into key curriculum attributes and design directions
15 minSummary & closure · Share outcomes, reflect, and transfer to your own teaching

What You Will Take Away

A Reusable Framework, Not Just a Discussion

Participants leave with a structured expectation-alignment framework embodied in the Expectationeering Workbook, adapted for engineering education contexts.

Expectationeering Workbook

A reusable instrument that moves you from challenge framing to stakeholder identification, expectation elicitation, and gap analysis.

A Structured Mapping Method

Identify stakeholder groups and elicit, organise, and document their expectations across Learner, Industry, Institutional, and Regulatory perspectives.

Expectation-Aware Interventions

Initial teaching, curriculum, or project-design changes grounded in the workbook structure and your own cases.

Teaching Engineering and Curious About Expectationeering?

Bring the workshop to your faculty or programme, or talk with Eric about weaving expectation alignment into your curriculum.

Start the conversation See the research