Hello Facilitators👋 I'm really curious about where everyone is from. I'd love to make this a mega post where we can see how diverse the Facilitator Club community is. Who knows, you might find a lot more people in your area than you thought! Once I have lots of answers on this post, I want to make a nice graph!

Hey, Workshoppers! Jonathan from AJ&Smart here! Almost every day, I receive multiple DMs and comments asking something along the lines of: "Where can we see an overview of what AJ&Smart actually does??" "What products/services do you offer clients?" "How can I/we work with AJ&Smart?" To answer this, I've decided to make a very lo-fi overview of our entire business model, our pricing, and most of the things we sell! So, if you've wondered what we do, out of either curiosity or because you're interested in working with us, then hopefully this is helpful! In a nutshell, we offer: - MOST PREMIUM: Consulting, Design Sprints, Strategy Sprints, Facilitation Training for teams, Running a company Hackathon/Keynote. This is only for larger companies. Prices range from $25k-$400k. (see more on our website) - MID-RANGE: Our Workshopper Master course & coaching program for Facilitators and Innovators who want to make a career out of Facilitation. Prices from $6k. (Learn more here) - FREE STUFF: This group, YouTube, all our books and social media channels. The video attached will tell you everything else you need to know, but above is a little summary! If you have any questions, or if I missed anything, lemme know! Cheers, Jonathan

I co-facilitated a full-day, off-site retreat for a company (comprised of nine team members) yesterday. All in all, it went really well. However, the one tricky thing was having to continually tamp down the urge from the team to venture into free-for-all discussion land. I kept feeling like I was the "time sheriff," cutting folks off who wanted to open the floor for group discussion. Any advice on how to allow for some discussion but still keep things tight and on track? Note: We set expectations at the start of the workshop... explaining the concept of "work together, alone," noting that we'd be moving quickly, and showing them/using the time timer.

We love what we do. We do everything to maintain a balanced life. We devote time to our family. We make efforts to maintain our health. We manage our finances well. We have done our programs day after day faithfully and conducted hours of research to add mew material. Yet, there comes those moment we feel like there needs to be something else, something more, so level of change. What do you do go manage burn out?

How important is knowing your audience to you when conducting a workshop? What do you do to prepare yourself when meeting with various people from different backgrounds?

Hey Facilitators! Last week @Rebecca Courtney hosted a special facilitation-themed live training, and it was PURE VALUE. Hundreds of people from all over the world tuned in to learn about: - The crucial role facilitation plays in driving success for your team in 2023. - The secrets to fixing broken collaboration and unlocking true team synergy. - The seven core facilitation skills. - How you can get a special, limited-time discount on our new program, Facilitation Fundamentals. My favorite part of the training was Rebecca discussing the Diamond of Participatory Decision Making (watch that part in the preview). When I first learned about this group process coined by Sam Kaner, it seriously blew my mind... I finally fully understood why we need Facilitators (and why Facilitators should unapologetically be charging top dollar for their invaluable services 💰💰💰💰💰💰💰) You can unlock the complete training here if you want to learn more. What's your take on the Diamond of Participatory Decision Making? Do you think it can transform the way teams collaborate and make decisions?

A few years ago I decided to learn more about Design sprints by reading the Sprint book by Jake Knapp and watching some of the videos created by AJ&Smart. While doing this I made some notes. Last week I was looking back at my notes and realised they actually make quite a nice guide for anyone who wants to learn more about Design sprints or even run one themselves. The notes consist of my written notes as well as links to all the videos (in order) that I watched. I decided to publish my notes here for anyone who is interested. Let me know in the comments if you found this useful or if you think there is enough there for you to run your own Design sprint with them. You can of course contact me directly too if you have any questions 😀 https://kiranchauhan.substack.com/p/i-accidentally-created-a-how-to-guide

Hey there! 👋 Facilitator Club is THE community for Facilitators or those who want to learn the skill of facilitation, where you can… ✅ Talk about facilitation and workshops (like the Design Sprint!) ✅ Talk about facilitation careers and how to build one (and make $$$ as a Facilitator!) ✅ Share workshop/facilitation insights, experiences, and resources ✅ Ask the AJ&Smart team questions about facilitation & workshops! These documents contain important information about the group rules and getting the most out of this community, so please read through everything before you get started! 👇👇👇 👮‍♀️ Group rules 🚨 💃 How to get the most out of the Facilitator Club community 🕺 Really happy to have you here, hope you love the community as much as we do! Lots of love, The AJ&Smart team 💛

Hey Workshoppers, I'm VERY excited about this: As many of you already know, I usually only do coaching inside our high-level paid community "Inner Circle"... BUT today I'm announcing a little experiment: I'm going to run a free, 1 hour, weekly coaching session right here in this community, starting next Tuesday (August 22nd)! 👉 Watch this video if you don't feel like reading! You can join these calls and ask me anything you like about: - Building your facilitation career - Running specific workshops - Getting help with running workshops/troubleshooting - Getting advice on working with clients - Sales and marketing tips - Whatever you like! The first call starts NEXT TUESDAY (August 22nd, 4pm CET) and you can see the full schedule of upcoming calls right here on the Skool Calendar. I'll decide if I'll keep doing these based on how many people show up/ whether you all find them useful! ⚠️ 2 important bits of information: ONE: These calls will be strictly ONE hour long. We'll get through as much as we can in that time. I do a 2-3 hour coaching session every week in our "Inner Circle All-Access" community (these are recorded & transcribed), for those who want to go deeper. We can talk about this in more detail next week if anyone is interested in learning more! TWO: There won't be recordings of these free Q&A sessions. Why? For lots of reasons, but in short: just come hang out live! Hope to see some of you next week, let's go! Cheers, Jonathan

One of the great things about what we do is you can do it as an employee or go out and become your own company. Whilst the later comes with amazing benefits there are a lot of areas that need to be considers… Like - What does it take to set myself up as a business or do I just contract in. - If I am setting myself up as a business am I a sole trader.. registering by business - Defining your purpose and setting clear goals yearly, quarterly - Defining your target customers, products, services and financials. Whilst this is a passion space for a lot of us, you still need to understand your revenue needs. - Branding and marketing - What do you need to set yourself up… physically, technology - Contracts for engagements - How to build a pipeline, managing you customer base Making sure you get work life balance! Would be interested in hearing and learning from each other on what made sense for you and what you would like to share with the rest of the community…

I am a Scrum Master and I want to facilitate a workshop with my team next week, I need some ice breaker games that can make them more engaged Any idea will be appreciated Thanks

Hey all, I just wanted to say Hi! I'm lucky enough to already be in the paid for Inner Circle community having completed the Workshopper Master course (whoop whoop!) as well as successfully receiving the go ahead for my first paid-for 2-day workshop with a client 🥳💪 One of the things I would have liked was to be able to chat with someone who has recently gone through the course and had seen the benefits of it in real-time...well...here I am 🤣👀 I'll leave this as open as possible...if you have any questions on being new to the WM course or in fact how I bagged my first client just ask! Happy to help where I can. Just to add...this is off my own back, any advice or opinions I may have are mine and not AJ&Smarts 😁

I've noticed over the last few months the level of engagement on here has dropped off, and some of the earlier leaders on the Leaderboard now rarely participate. It doesn't take much to appear on the Leaderboard. An average of 1 post per day over a month will have you on the 30-day Leaderboard... in the top 20 of over 3,500 members. Though, appearance on the Leaderboard is just one criterium to measure engagement. I took screenshots of the Leaderboard 7 days apart to see what the differences actually are. Take a look at the changes. Quite a lot on the 7-day, some shifts on the 30-day, and very little movement on the All-time board. So, what do you think could be added to the site to increase the level of ongoing engagement? The point system is meaningless by the time you get to my level and no incentive (I have about a year to go at my current rate of contribution to move up a level). What else do you think needs to be added here to maintain a higher level of engagement, particularly for those who have been on here more than a few months? I'm tagging those on the All-time Leaderboard to get their thoughts on this. @Kerri Price @Shannon Wagers @Will Stammers @Joao Ribeiro @Benedict Odjobo @Hassanein Ismail @Sam Pettersson @Jeff Panning @David Finnegan @Jakub Michalski @Rebecca Courtney @Ren Yee Quek @Andrea Browne @Salah Bouchma @Claus Höfele @Austin Govella @Alina Balan @LaYinka Sanni @Abdelrahman Hussien

Hello everyone. I am excited to be here and learn more about Design Sprints. I am currently a corporate trainer that focuses on Servant Leadership. I am looking forward adding Facilitation/Design Sprints to my list of services offered. I am also looking forward to gleaning from you all. Have an AWESOME day everyone.

I've recently embarked on my freelancing journey as an innovation facilitator, and I'm in search of a peer learner. I'm looking for someone with whom I can exchange insights, support each other throughout the process, and share our experiences. I firmly believe that connecting with fellow with the same goals can greatly enhance our performance. If you're interested, please leave a comment, and I'll get in touch with you

Greetings everyone! I'm absolutely thrilled to be here with all of you. I consider myself a versatile individual with a passion for innovation and creativity in all its forms. What truly ignites my enthusiasm is guiding and empowering others to discover their innate creativity. I firmly believe that creativity is an inherent trait in all of us, and sometimes, a gentle nudge is all it takes to unleash that spark. Over the past 15+ years, I've embarked on a journey through the realms of technology, startups, sales, and design. Equipped with academic qualifications including degrees and certificates in Industrial Design, UX Design, Innovation, and Design Thinking, I've honed my expertise in these fields. Feel free to reach out if I can ever lend a helping hand on your journey. Motto: Inspire. Lead. Create. - "To Create, one must first Lead, and to Lead, one must Inspire." 📍Current location: San Diego, California, United States, North America, Northern Hemisphere, Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, The Cosmos. 🤓 🤣

Hi everyone, I am new to this group here. Excited to get to know and learn from everyone here. I am from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Cheers!

I'm curious as to people's experiences developing workshops based on books. What has been your experience with this? Do you combine the use of multiple books to mitigate IP issues? What makes a book good to convert into a workshop? Your experiences and thoughts might help others in this community.

I'd love to know where Facilitators invest their money to elevate their sessions and businesses. Is it tools? Software? Continuous learning? Props & materials? Marketing? Hiring spaces? Working with co-facilitators? Or perhaps travel and networking? Let me know in the comments...

Hello fellow facilitators! I’m workshopping with a large group, around 45 participants regarding Ai strategy and I’d like to use generative Ai in our icebreaker to get everyone energized. Has anyone done anything similar and would be willing to share? I’ve been brainstorming and I can’t come up with anything viable that doesn’t cost money or work with a group this size. :( If we can come up with a few Ai enabled ice breakers, something tells me it’ll be something we all can use! So let’s hear those ideas! Any and all ideas welcome!

Curious how people approach having music playing in the background during their workshops. • Do you put a lot of energy into designing a playlist? • Does it depend on the group with whom you're working? Feel free to share your thoughts! I included a link to a new song I discovered this week. Enjoy!

Hello everyone, I'm a Service Designer from Dusseldorf. After reading Design Sprint, I'm super happy to have found this gem towards Facilitation. I've never done facilitation, due to fear and imposter syndrome kicking planning a workshop. I look forward to learn and share with the community.

Hello Meeting Enthusiasts, we are looking for some brave souls who want to become Beta Testers and shape ZipDo with us! We coined the term "Meeting Operating System" describing ZipDo. Sounds fancy, but the intent of our software is quite simple: Turning team meetings and 1:1s into a repeatable, consistent process. In an earlier life we have seen over and over how bad meeting are run across all management levels and how they lack the basics of a productive meeting culture. Therefore we created an app which allows managers and their teams to prepare meeting agendas collaboratively, keep track of decisions made during meetings and ensure everyone’s commitment with action items afterwards. Our MVP will be ready within the next days and we would be really grateful for some feedback from meeting pros, like you guys. You can sign up for the waitlist at https://zipdo.co or contact me via ajeser@zipdo.co. Let me know if you have any questions!

Hi everyone, First of all I want to thanks you for dedicate time to reading this post, it's very significant for me🙏 A little bit of context: I'm a design sprint masterclass student who finished the course and get the process principles. I never run a workshop and, I admit, I'm a little bit afraid about the idea to do this for first time. But I absolutely want to jump over the starting difficulties and make somethings good. And this is the plan that I've in mind: Cause my inexperience, I'm thinking to start from a workshop, and client, that's not so complex like design sprint and medium/big companies, as to make some experience without making people lose money and time. For this, I identify small/medium content creators or digital businesses who don't yet have a product or service, but want to start monetize their work. And this is the workshop that I tried to create: - Target segmentation brainstorming and voting - Compilation of job to be done canvas for every target choose and voting - Compilation of business model canvas based on value proposition found That's it. Now I'd like to listen some of your thoughts, observation and constructive criticism about my plan, both the specific workshop exercises that I choose, but also about the strategy that I'm thinking to follow. Thank you all so much for reading my post and I hope to return all the advice to this community when I'll be able to teach something.🙏

Hey Workshoppers, Ever wondered how decisions get made or how the day-to-day of working at AJ&Smart looks like? Well, we've started a weekly(ish) vlog on our channel to show you exactly that! If you're curious about the week-to-week things that happen at an agency like ours take a look! Hope you like it :)

Hey Members, I’m curious to know if there are any exciting and interesting facilitator jobs remotely specifically in terms of Design Thinking, Design Sprint or anything related to Learning & Development? Looking forward to know more details ! Thanks in advance 😊

Hey Everyone! I recently joined the workshopper master course! I am excited to join the community to learn and connect with fellow workshoppers! I am consultant based in Mumbai. I am a certified Lego Serious Play Facilitator and design researcher. I have experience designing and facilitating workshops for kids. I am looking foward to grow my career and small workshopping business 😀

I teach some seminars that have once-monthly sessions of a whole day, 4 in all. When the second module begins, I ask what the participants remember from the last session. Almost nothing.😩 So I started having some sort of quiz at the beginning of each new session, for instance, 2 teams get together and develop 5 questions about all the finished modules. Then the teams quiz each other and I keep score on a board. It is quite hilarious but it reminds everyone what's to be remembered. I can fill in missing information on the fly. I also composed a game like Jeapardy where questions are in little envelopes with a certain sum on them like 200 or 300. Whichever team reaches 2000 first (as an example), wins. The winners get to leave 10 minutes earlier that day or get some Gummi Bears. I think asking for favorite highlights at the end of each seminar day might cement the content a bit better. I would appreciate any tips!

When you try to be everything to everyone, you become nothing to no one. Facilitation is a powerful tool. It can streamline a difficult decision, ease the process of idea generation, offer clarity, save time and money and the list goes on and on. A gift and a curse. Because you cannot put your finger on it unless you experience it first-hand. And even then it's quite difficult to identify all the use cases. After more than 5 years facilitating all types of projects (persona generation, business plan development, internal process redesign, you name it!) I have decided that it’s time to stop waiting for clients to “get it” = understand what facilitation is and identify on their own the situations in which it can be extremely useful. It’s our job, as facilitators, to articulate a specific value proposition, relevant to a specific group of people. I’m still figuring out my zone of genius (as @Gay Hendricks describes it in his book “The big leap”) + who are the people I can serve best with my innate abilities and the know how I have gathered until this point. I don’t know how long/difficult this process is going to be but what I do know is that I’d rather put it in the work to find out than being everything to everyone, tempting as it may be 💰 Have you found your “zone of genius”? If so, what was your process? I’m just asking for a friend 🤓 P.S : I found this list of facilitation niches. I don't know about you, but I needed a moment:) BOARD FACILITATION CHANGE MANAGEMENT COACHING COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT CONFERENCE FACILITATION CREATIVE FACILITATION DIVERSITY, EQUALITY AND INCLUSION FOCUS GROUP FACILITATION GRAPHIC FACILITATION INFORMATION SYSTEMS FACILITATION ISSUE RESOLUTION MEETING FACILITATION OPERATIONS REVIEW ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PARTNERING SESSION FACILITATION PERFORMANCE CONSULTING PROCESS IMPROVEMENT PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROJECT PLANNING STRATEGIC PLANNING TASK FORCE FACILITATION TEAM ACTIVATION PROCESS TEAM BUILDING TRAINING CREATION/CUSTOMIZATION

As a recent member of this dynamic community and relatively new in facilitation, which best practices and tips can the experts share with newcomers? In other words, if you could travel back in time, what would you now share with a younger you in order to expedite this path. Thanks!