One of the ways I like to start a session is to connect people with people and people with the topic of the session in the first 5 minutes. Here are the 5 steps on how to start a strong session: 1. Small group share: make groups of 2/ 3 persons out of your group; small group sharing creates psychological safety 2. Listen and talk: answer in turns to the question: "Our .......is like what?" 3. Give a number: ask someone to give a number between half of the participant’s number and the total number of participants 4. Share in the big group: shout out x times what you discussed about that topic - the persons who listened are sharing what they heard from their group partners 5. Connection done: everybody is connected with each other and with the session topic Why is this method working? - It creates psychological safety, people’s relatedness button is pressed positively because they find similarities between their opinions and find a sense of belonging to the same group with which they will spend the next hours/days. - People like expressing their thoughts, and opinions, they feel heard right from the start of the session. - Active listening is warming up for the whole session - one person shares what they heard from their group partners, not what they said - Having this x number of shoutouts gives autonomy to the group of who wants to share and who does not - it’s not mandatory that each person shares - In case you were ever a participant where the facilitator used an “icebreaker” which had nothing to do with the session and you were more confused than connected afterward, you know what I mean with nonsense icebreakers - give them a meaning and people will remember them for the meaning and what they meant in the whole session outcome - otherwise they might remember it but have no meaning attached and the session was not valued out of them Variations: - You can use various materials as well in case you have the time, logistics, and so on: Lego Serious Play, Playmobil Pro, Facilitape, Climer Cards - When possible, the same method would be great to use as a strong ending, customizing it depending on your session - The leading question can vary depending on the session topic - Finding similarities of answers in each small group would skip the numbering step and reducing answers to the number of small groups (good as option when you have less time)

I'm currently on the lookout for some awesome remote brainstorming sessions that can really help bring ideas to life for businesses. Do any of you have any recommendations or favorite methods you've found effective? I'm open to any suggestions Whether it's virtual whiteboarding tools, collaborative idea generation platforms, or any other innovative techniques Feel free to drop your suggestions in the comments below 😃

Hi Everyone! Thanks in advance for any ideas or thoughts you have on my current challenge. I am working with a small team where there is significant conflict between two managers. I have been brought in to help the team (n=5) figure out what is working and what isn't and how do we move forward? I plan to use the sailboat exercise to better understand their world and it will enable those team members that feel shut down to have a voice – I love this exercise. I have completed individual interviews with each team member to better understand their challenges. All have an issue with their senior manager. They are however all keen (including the senior manager) to attend the workshop because the conflict in the system is causing so much grief and poor performance it cannot continue. There are also members who have reported mental health challenges as a result of the conflict and one manager has ADHD. I mention this because these have been contentious challenges with the senior manager who feels they have accommodated these challenges but "at what point do you have to have the poor performance" discussion. My question is regarding the heightened emotion within the team. Have any of you facilitated a session with a team that is in significant conflict and has the potential for members to shut down or react during the session? Any specific prep/set-up? Have you set any specific expectations? Handling reactive responses during the session that have worked/not worked? I am a healthcare professional, so have a good idea of how to manage conflict, however I am reaching out to the group to get different perspectives that may help inform my workshop next week. Thanks so much Leanne

Project Lessons Learned - How To Reflect and Learn In An One Hour Session You run a project and at one moment in time, you figure out you could have learned from some situations and act differently next time. How about doing a "Lessons Learned" session either in the middle of the project or at the end? It was last year when I was asked to come up with a short session where one team could reflect upon their learnings during their project. The request was to be able to run in ONE HOUR. Wow, I said, this is really hard! I usually need sessions of a minimum of 1,5 hours to be able to run a session similar to a retrospective. And now one hour? I was thinking of having some kind of Mentimeter word cloud, to ‘read the room’ fast so I created one in Miro or with sticky notes in person. Then I went through the reflection part, decided, and committed. It went super cool in one hour and the participants were so amazed at how much they could do in this time. Afterwards, I was iterating on it in person, online and this initial version was the best one. This is why I decided to share it after trying it out with other teams as well. Here you can find the exact steps in Miroverse: https://miro.com/miroverse/project-lessons-learned-template/ I used the amazing learning cards from Strategyzer which work smoothly every time with the participants and have a great impact! If you like it, give it some love in Miroverse please :) ❤️ Let me know if you use it and how it works for you :)

I am currently working with a client to create some ways up to 60 participants can connect with each other BEFORE they join a 10-day virtual leadership training. Here are some ideas I am thinking about, but more importantly: I am super curious if you have experienced or applied a cool idea that you're willing to share i the comments 🙏 🙂 1. Miro Profile Wall Set up a digital whiteboard where all participants can add their profile and browse who else is attending. I am envisioning adding a photo (or an avatar), their social links and answering a few questions about themselves. If you have examples of something like this or similar, please post them below. 2. Onboarding Bingo Create 12 challenges that need to be completed before the first session on a Bingo card. Challenges like: create your profile in the community, comment on someone else's post, send a message to someone, add the sessions to your calendar etc. I have done this several times, but extended the challenges throughout the whole cohort, so we announced winners at the very end. 3. Collective Art Piece I am not exactly sure what technology I would use for this, but I an thinking of a mosaic of individual drawings that create something larger. If this reminds you of something, please let me know. What other ideas do you have?