Would love to hear some tips or strategies used to keep audience engaged during virtual facilitation.

Hello, Everyone. I have just picked up an interest in facilitation, and I came across this group while doing my research last year. Now, I am ready to pursue my dream. I need help in finding out where exactly and how to start. I will appreciate your suggestions, ideas, resources, and material that will help birth this dream. I also do not mind any form of coaching. Thanks

Hey Facilitators👋 I wanted to share this exercise with you all. I love to kick my workshops off using a very simple exercise called 'Hopes and Fears'. This exercise is used in various contexts, such as team meetings, workshops, or group discussions. It's a great way for you as a Facilitator to set and get expectations from the participants right from the beginning! This is how you run it 👇 1️⃣ All you need is a whiteboard and you as the facilitator will divide the board in two categories; Hopes and Fears. 2️⃣ Give each participant a sharpie and two blocks of sticky notes. Make sure the two blocks of stickies are different colours e.g. blue for hopes, yellow for fears. 3️⃣ Encourage participants to write all their hopes or positive expectations about a particular project, idea, or situation. One idea per sticky! Stick them in the 'hopes' section of the board. 4️⃣ Encourage participants to share one or two 'hopes' each. 5️⃣ Repeat the same process for the Fears. This exercise helps team members express their feelings, align their perspectives, and build trust by understanding everyone's viewpoints before diving into solving the challenge at hand. Try it in your workshops! It's really nice. Let me know if you have any other nice exercises or activities that you like to use to kick off your workshops 😊

Hey Facilitators 👋 I wanted to share my journey to Facilitation with you all. Maybe some of you have a similar journey or are thinking of changing careers but are hesitant to do so. Let's go 🔙 Before I started working with AJ&Smart, I was working as a Primary School Teacher and I loved it BUT, I noticed a few things over time: ❌ “Busywork” made up 80%-90% of my day ❌ During staff meetings, it felt like we spent more time talking about “how” to do something, rather than doing the work itself ❌ Collaboration in every school I worked in was ineffective and broken ❌ I didn’t have a say in any of the decisions being made in the school ❌ I had no freedom to use my creativity, I had to stick to the curriculum ❌ I felt stagnant, that I wasn't being challenged enough to grow and develop new skills. I felt stuck! While I was having these realisations and feelings around teaching, I was having lots of conversations with Jonathan (CEO of AJ&Smart, my brother) who was also experiencing similar challenges but in different industries. And it all comes down to one simple fact: collaboration, in all shapes and forms, in all types of work, is incredibly complex. People (in most companies/industries/organisations) don’t know how to productively collaborate in groups. No one has ever taught us how to effectively and efficiently think, share our thoughts, and listen to others’ opinions in groups. Given the lack of awareness about the topic, it's unsurprising that collaborating in groups often becomes messy and ultimately breaks down. 💡 The solution to this problem? After years of trial and error, reading every book, doing every training, Jonathan realised that ALL groups need someone to guide them through solving problems and making decisions. ALL groups need a Facilitator! After seeing the power of Facilitation and how AJ&Smart was helping so many companies with their problems, I knew I needed to be part of it. I needed to be part of changing the way groups make decisions and work together.

As more and more workshops and meetings are being held online, it's important to understand the unique challenges and opportunities that come with virtual facilitation. I have found that one of my best practices for virtual facilitation is to create a structured agenda and to stick to it. I also make sure to use interactive tools such as breakout rooms and polls to keep my audience engaged. Another tip that I follow is to actively monitor and manage group dynamics, as it can be more challenging to read the room when working remotely. From building engagement to managing distractions, how do you ensure your virtual workshops are productive and effective? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below and let's start a conversation about virtual facilitation best practices.