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!

Hi everyone, I was wondering if anyone here has experience designing workshops or a design sprint for identifying the most practical AI solution for a client. I'm trying to come up with a good structure for an engaging, one-day workshop – where the client would come in as a team and work together to find pain-points, prioritise and come out with a roadmap to help them implement the solution that would be built by an external AI / ML company. The clients are usually not very technical so I'm thinking there would likely need to be some form of inspiration or educational aspect near the start, in order to help guide their ideas in a realistic direction. Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated !

Hi everyone! I need your help and suggestions regarding which exercise I should use to facilitate a one-hour workshop. The problem we are aiming to solve is the organization of a specific menu topic on our website. We intend to create multi-level menu links, but we are unsure which links should be placed at each level. What makes this task a bit tricky is that the participants come from different departments, each with their own preferences and wishes. Do you have any suggestions? Would card sorting be a good approach, or is there something else you would recommend?

How to practice inclusive facilitation is not easy eg. avoiding unconscious bias, ensuring everyone is heard, « prioritizing the learning of the group over the desire to make a point” etc. Being engaged to contribute to more inclusive work environments, I’m keen to know everything about inclusive workshop and facilitation formats, constantly evolving my skills. I found this article with valuable strategies really helpful, especially the part about fostering shared meaning in polarized environments. Do you have any other tips or resources? https://theinclusionsolution.me/lets-get-practical-3-key-inclusive-facilitation-practices-workplace-training-power-partiality-polarization-inclusive-listening-multipartiality-shared-meaning/?mkt_tok=NzAyLUNJSS01MDcAAAGOUrjcLL66p_1B9zu5QNs9fC0ZtVwXfjtR05Moqjbtq99pkbu7V2aBsyV_qwjmLAHNtF_gi2Pku3NxQjqLxciJ6qjO1EwregWskbws4JVVwB7K

A bit of venting: I've been let down last week by my Time Timer (again). I turned out that it doesn't work well with rechargeable batteries. And has no way of knowing when the battery is empty. When it does work, it sometimes beeps twice (or once or sometimes several times – who knows). That's in addition to randomly beeping while having the timer in your bag because the knob to adjust the time sticks out. Basically, I'm tired of it. I've discovered the Secura 60 Minutes Visual Timer as a potential replacement. It's a similar size. I'm intrigued because it doesn't need a battery. The winding mechanism is mechanical (you have to turn it clockwise to 55 mins and then counter-clockwise to the desired time). Anyone have experience with it? (Or have ay suggestion for a more functional timer than the Time Timer). https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Oversize-Countdown-Children-Mechanical-Management-dp-B0BYHK2J6B/dp/B0BYHK2J6B/ref=dp_ob_title_kitchen

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

Keith here, from Portsmouth NH. Brand new to the group … and SO curious to learn more & meet some folks! … many years ago I used to work as an “outdoor educator” - and ran a ton of “facilitation workshops” with kids aged 10-17. Lots of problem solving games, team building challenges and the like. My office was the woods! After 15+ years in “Arts & Education” - I am shifting gears in the hopes of becoming a 1%-er 🙌🏽.

TL;DR - The amazing @Andra Stefanescu has offered to participate in a (community organized) Q&A session with us and share her experiences of running Design Sprints. Based on the idea that you learn better together, a few Design Sprint newbies from this community got together in the last few weeks to share their insights. (Thanks to @Kumar R @Ren Yee Quek @Abdelrahman Hussien @LaYinka Sanni @Michael Passer for joining the sessions). To help us newbies out, Andra has graciously offered to share her experience. She's run Design Sprints in person, online, one week, two weeks, partial sprints, or summer edition sprints (over 3 months) 😀 I'm so excited to learn from her. Whether you attended the Friday sessions or not - we are now meeting on September 15th for the Q&A with Andra. Join us if you'd like! Here are the details (see also the attached calendar file you can import): Design Sprint Q&A with Andra Stefanescu 15. Sep 2023 at 17:00 to 18:00, CEST Andra's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andracristianastefanescu/ Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85636719114?pwd=NDVKYXErN2tXbGcwNkN1S2E4MkJoQT09 Hope to see you all there!

Watched Jonathan's "1 Hour Innovation Workshop - Lightning Decision Jam" on YouTube and was going to try to implement it tomorrow, as I have a team offsite with 36 members, a team that I inherited a few weeks ago. Was going to try to run an LDJ to address a general feeling that team members are disconnected with each other and other partners, working in silos. Was going to try 6 tables of 6. However, question is that do we start with "one" HMW, such as "How might we increase collaboration within the team and with partners/stakeholders?" Do we all work independently/jointly on the same HMW? On different HMW statements?

Anyone else in here who bought the Design Sprint Masterclass recently? I‘m looking for a group of people to keep me motivated to complete the course and discuss learnings. A bit like a book club The plan: - We split up the course (probably around 5 parts) - Everyone watches the videos by themselves - We meet virtually every 2 weeks to discuss our learnings (CET compatible timezone) Comment on this post if you are interested 🙋 I‘ll set something up if we find at least 4 people to join 🎉

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

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

Hi folks! I'm organizing a contract for 2 strategic and operational planning (training) workshops and I'm curious about your best practices for payment schedules and cancelation policies. I'm thinking: 50% at initial booking, 50% by the day of the workshops for each session (they're a month a part). Would love to learn more about your practices around this, wording, tone etc., and what considerations to make for cancellation or rescheduling policies. A consideration for the cancellation policy is that I'm really organized and will likely have prepped the sessions at least a month in advance... Thanks in advance! Erika

As some of you may know, yesterday Alex Hormozi launched his newest book $100M Leads…And he had over 500,000 registered attendees…With over 100,000 people actually showing up watching live. By all accounts, it was a massive and overwhelming success…A masterclass in how to overload people with value… And then at the end, he gave away digital copies of his book for FREE along with a legit $12k course… How can we apply his $100M frameworks to our Facilitation Offers?

Hi. Any ideas please, for a group of 80 to 90 workshops participants? Also, would appreciate tips on how to manage a large group. Thanks

Hey Workshoppers, I usually don't cross-post anything from our Workshopper Inner Circle community but this video I made for the group today kinda exploded and created a lot of really interesting conversations. So I said fuck it, let's pop it in here too :) P.S. Applications are still closed right now for joining our Inner Circle community, if they open again any time soon we'll post about it here 👍🏻 **************************************************here's the post*********************************** Hey all! I spend a lot of time coaching or being coached. I spend a lot of time around hyper-successful entrepreneurs and consultants, but also people who are stuck (and stay like that forever). I have some thoughts about what keeps people stuck and what makes people successful. I decided to make a little video about something I think is going to hold a LOT of you back from achieving success. It's a bit of an experiment so lemme know if it's interesting! https://www.loom.com/share/b03e24ebdf8449d3bb700abd7fa35cdc?sid=cc23381e-4203-4a6c-8057-631e886c3670 Cheers, Jonathan

Hello everyone, I am looking for a "repository"/website/etc... that contains visually appealing miro boards that can be used for workshops. I am interested in finding boards that not only serve their functional purpose but also have an aesthetic appeal. If you do not know of such a repository, please feel free to share any boards that you have created and are proud of!🤩

Any faves?:)

About 30% of the workshops I do are about designing amazing and effective teams, here are some tips to do it : The success of any team-based endeavor is dependent upon effective teamwork. With the right combination of skills, personalities, and a well-defined purpose, groups of individuals can achieve a great deal more than any of them could on their own. Designing a team with the right elements is the key to success. Define a clear and compelling purpose💡 The single most important factor for any team is having a clearly defined and compelling purpose. Whether the team is working on a project, problem solving, or constructing a new initiative, providing a well-articulated mission statement is essential in order to set the direction for the team. Purpose is the driving force behind success and should be detailed and relevant to all members of the team. Ensure Diversity 🙌🏼 One of the best strategies for creating an effective team is to ensure it has a broadened range of skills and experiences. Coming from different perspectives and having different views, each individual can bring a unique element to the team. This can include diverse cultural, educational, professional, and personal backgrounds. Be sure to consider the personalities, motivations, and strengths of each team member and how they may contribute to the group dynamic. Emphasize Collaboration 👥 The ability for team members to work together is essential to effective teamwork. Take the time to foster collaboration among members by creating an environment of trust, respect, and openness. Encourage members of the team to help each other, share ideas, and be open to feedback and constructive criticism. Establish Effective Communication 📲 Effective communication is essential to successful team work. Set up a communication plan that works for the entire team. This should include weekly team meetings, individual check-ins, and reliable communication channels. Establish communication protocols and make sure everyone is aware of them.

✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️ Hey fellow Facilitatresses and Facilitators, I am having a Leadership workshop soon with an international aviation team (I add that because that's a very delicate and sweet industry, full of volatilities and parameters). I am looking for some remarkable frameworks and exercises to explore and even enhance in the long run the effectiveness of the team's ambitions (loads of sales stuff, where the local market often needs to battle with the orders from the mothership). I am happy over any impulse, question, direction and stories of your experiences! 😀

If you sell your services at market price, then you automatically position yourself as a commodity. Great facilitators should be so unique that their customers have no obvious reference point.A famous and talented Romanian singer told me the other days that he sometimes finds himself in awkward discussions about how much he charges for “just” 45 minutes. It got me thinking that the same goes for facilitation. Often, the client looks at the “man-days” that go into a project. But what if you can create a workshops design in “just” 3 hours because you have so much experience that it’s now easy for you to do that? And what if you can save your client a significant amount of money through a one-day workshop? Should you charge “man-days” with a fixed price? Whether you are a singer or a facilitator, if you find yourself in the position to explain why you charge X amount for your services, think about this:- The client doesn’t understand the value you are creating => make it obvious (ex. the stress and costs you eliminate, the time you save, the money you help them make etc)- The client doesn’t understand the process you go through to create that value => explain what goes into your work (knowledge, creativity, and time to think are the core pillars of the services world)- The client has chosen a wrong reference point for your services => discuss what you and only you can bring to the table, so it becomes obvious that your services are quite unique (the assumption being that they are 😎 )The conversation about value is an important one! And we should have it with our clients before we set the price of our services. Different projects = different value creation = different pricing.Would you pay The Rolling Stones the same as a basement band, for 45 minutes?Credits go to Adam Davidson who wrote an amazing book (The Passion Economy), that gave me a brand new pair of lenses 🤓

Hello! My company is putting on an"HR Roundtable" event in which we're inviting clients and prospective clients to an evening conversation around the future of leadership. It's very lightly facilitated (we want it to be community building and discussion-based) and not salesy. While we don't want anything too structured/facilitated we are trying to figure out how to end the event (it's 5-7pm) in a way that isn't just the CEO saying thanks for coming and people mingling as they leave. Any ideas for a casual/not highly structured way to close out that leave people feeling energized? Thank you!!

I am taking on a project where I am going to do the design and develop of an app for a startup. After having many conversations with the team I'm starting to feel like they need alignment on the MVP of their product.They have conflicting ideas on how the product should work and some of the features need to be fleshed out. Which would you recommend? Not sure about if the design sprint is the right option or the 4C framework or something else. I think I can only get 1 day with them.

I recently finished FF (it took ages, because of health issues) and held my first workshop (hooray). I am so happy and proud. Reading a post by @Jérôme Bertrem about his upcoming first workshop made me think of sharing my first workshop experience and I am also writing this to reflect. Maybe it'll be helpful to other beginners. ✔️🎁✔️My main takeaway (if you don't have time for a novel): Fail and fix. This basic attitude to all communication also applies to workshop facilitation. Yes, I have forgotten to mention things. Yes, I could have been clearer. But I managed to fix it. Would it have been better if I hadn't forgotten? Possibly. But: It doesn't have to be perfect to be better than most meetings. So even as a beginner, I can make a difference. And: workshop facilitation is FUN! ✔️🏁✔️If you are interested in the rest: I am the head of marketing in my company and I want to make meetings better. Mostly for myself 😅, but also the team and the company. It was a cross-departmental workshop and I came out feeling energised and happy. Which was great, as I went in feeling quite stressed because it was also the first time I had used Miro, and I was a bit uncomfortable taking on this different role amongst my colleagues. But all in all it went really well. ✔️👷‍♀️✔️The workshop: The topic was gathering information for a persona project we were starting. We wanted to gather input and questions from all departments so that we could put together a representative catalogue of questions to ask and assumptions to prove or disprove. With 8 participants and the remote location, the group was a bit bigger than I would have liked for my first time. I spent ages thinking about the structure, the topics to cover and preparing the (huge) board (see screenshot), but it was fun and well worth it. I'd set up an agenda, a playground, a workspace for each participant, a space for everyone to put their top 3 sticky notes from each category, an effort/impact matrix and a parking space. The 🎵 playlist I had made during FF came in handy. I had recorded and sent out a Loom beforehand (also a first), showing the basic functions and introducing the Miro playground, as most of the participants were new to Miro.

I just finished Priya Parkers book Art of Gathering📚 I have seen it mentioned here several times and finally decided to pick it up. And Wow! Many of the best practices I learned and used have moved from things I've known to do into something I now understand on a way deeper level🤩 It is not work-related but I'm hosting a beach party on Saturday and I now feel like many of the pitfalls that I have been able to tackle in a professional setting now are now something I also have tools to handle in a personal/festive setting 🏖️ Somehow the cruelty of being a relaxed host for these types of settings and the tools for ushering people into the ring headspace had not translated between the contexts before🙃 Have you read it? In that case, what was your biggest *face-palm realization*?

Does anyone have experience with creating a workshop for a small group of 3 AND also being part of the workshop as a participant in addition to being a facilitator? A couple friends and I have an idea for an app, and we have different opinions about what the key experiences should be. My goals are to: - Try out workshopping for the first time - Have fun - Get a prototype that we can test with people - Keep it within 3 days I don't need it to be super formal, but I want the process to be intentional and follow a loose structure of "understand the problem --> frame the problem --> ideate --> decide --> build --> evaluate." I planned a draft of what activities to do (combined from the A&J's course and Workshop Tactics). To reduce the load on myself, I will delegate time tracking and getting supplies. Would love to hear suggestions or experiences from others. :)

The sailboat exercise is great. It can be used as a full-on exercise or as an ice-breaker. I've written about this in the past. But now I'd like to introduce another way to use it. However, this is not just another way to use it. It's a whole other way of using it. Allow me to explain: The sailboat exercise asks people to share the good things that are pulling the organization forward and the challenges that are weighing the organization down. In my experience, I've found it hard to get people to share things that are negative -- especially when their bosses are in the same room. Having people write on sticky notes anonymously helps. But to ease everyone's nerves and really get them sharing openly... Well, here's an alternative, and I'd love to hear how fellow facilitators are using it. Instead of asking: "What's pulling us forward and what's weighing us down?" Ask: "What do you currently like and what do you wish would be different?" This is inspired by the book Creative Confidence by the Kelley brothers.

I would like to create a facilitation kit for on the road and also a organised kit for in house. I'm wondering what kinds of things everyone would put in their kits. I can come up with: - Sticky notes 🗒️ - Sharpies 🖊️ - Voting dots 🔴 - Time timer ⏲️ - ... ...and also where do you put all those things in? Is it a plastic box, a suitcase or something else? Please leave your thoughts in the comments, maybe my new kit is created by all of your input.🙂

I have a few company-internal as well as external workshops (online and offline) under my belt. Nowhere near enough exposure to call myself a master, but a lot more than nothing. I was wondering if anyone knows a way to intern/support more experienced facilitators to practice the craft. Alternatively, do you know about groups/non-profit organizations that are looking for help and are willing to experiment with workshops? I'm based in Berlin, Germany if that makes a difference

Hey folks! I would like to work on my graphic facilitation skills. Do you have any tips, courses, books or links to recommend? 🖌️🖌️🖌️