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 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 💛

Facilitation plays a critical role in promoting organizational change. Change is the only constant in today's fast-paced business landscape. To successfully adapt and thrive, organizations must manage change effectively. And at the heart of this process lies the art of facilitation. Here's why facilitation is paramount when steering the ship through the turbulent waters of organizational transformation: 1. Facilitators act as communication bridges between those making the changes and those impacted by the changes. 2. Facilitation enables active engagement which builds trust and buy-in. 3. Facilitators create a safe space for open and honest dialogue which promotes feedback. 4. Facilitators can address conflict from uncertainty and stress. 5. Facilitators are good at tailoring their approach to suit the organization's culture. In the ever-evolving business landscape, change is inevitable. Embracing change with skilled facilitation can turn what might seem like chaos into a well-orchestrated symphony of progress. Facilitators not only guide the organization through change but also empower it to adapt, innovate, and thrive.

Sometimes when people hear the word 'icebreaker' they cringe or might feel super anxious about taking part in one. Yes, icebreakers can make you feel a bit awkward initially, but they are proven to help enhance relationships and encourage creativity. 'Icebreakers can help increase team bonds, boost performance and creativity'—Harvard Business School study Integrating icebreakers into your workshops or meetings is a great way to get everyone relaxed and ready to participate. But how do you choose the right ones so that you avoid those dreaded awkward silences? Here are my Top 2 Icebreakers that are easy to implement (in-person or online): 1. My First Job Ask everyone in the group to write down their name, their first job, and what they learned from that job. Then go round the group and have everybody read theirs out. 2. Pointless Questions Prepare a few fun questions ahead of the workshop, then go round the room and have everybody take turns answering the questions. It’s as simple as that—you don’t even need to write anything down! Here are some question suggestions to get you started: - If you could invite a celebrity over for dinner, who would it be and why? - What is your most prized possession and why? - You can have an unlimited supply of one thing for the rest of your life. What do you choose? Here are some more icebreakers for you to explore! What's another great icebreaker that I can add to my list?

If you missed the @Aj Smart session yesterday on the 3 secrets to building a successful facilitation career, the following three books were recommended. I found the discussion of group dynamics really interesting and all this time and who know there was science to back up the skill. But I digress…. Here are the books that were recommended by @Rebecca Courtney . What other books are you reading.. or can recommend to the group?

My absolute favourite icebreaker is called draw a duck, it’s as simple as it sounds. 🦆 1️⃣ Give everyone post-its and a sharpie 2️⃣ Give them 60 seconds to draw a duck 3️⃣ Have them all put their ducks on the whiteboard 4️⃣ Briefly review your ducks as a group. That’s it. I love it because it’s a quick and effective way to inject a bit of fun into the start of the workshop. Plus, it lowers the bar for visualising ideas later, showing that ability to draw doesn’t matter. Want to practice? Grab a post-it and drop a picture of your duck in the comments, then tag someone in Faciltiator club do the same! 🦆 I'll start us off in the comments! 👇

I've been playing a lot with ChatGPT in the context of facilitation. Check the overall conversation by opening the images in this post one by one! This stuff is mind-blowing!!!!! Some conclusions: ✅ ChatGPT is wonderful for inspiration! Think of it as a co-facilitator ✅ You need to know what to ask! Problem framing and critical thinking are skills even more valuable in the age of AI ✅ The robot wont run the workshop for you ;) So the whole human element and real-time ability to adapt give facilitators even more value! ✅ I cannot wait to see the amazing abilities AI will give facilitators. One example is to use AI tools to quickly capture visually some exercises outputs without the need to be a great scribbler/sketch-noter. You can try it out at chat.openai.com :) How about you? What experiments have you been doing with AI and facilitation?

Hi everybody, Stephan here from The Netherlands!🎈 Short introduction: I'am Stephan and as a CCO responsible for introducing Splandid (www.splandid.nl) on the Dutch market. Splandid is a new Field Service Management tool for SME companies. It is unique through the combination of ERP, CRM and planning software.

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.

I have previously shared how to use chatGPT to prepare for a workshop (link in comments). Now, I want to share how one might use it **during a workshop**. Just open the pictures and scroll through them :)) Some conclusions: ✅ ChatGPT as a co-facilitator you can resort to throughout the workshop. ✅ Prepare the robot beforehand and give it context, so it can help you during breaks ✅ Keep the chatGTP window open and have a two-way conversation, sharing back your own learnings along the way ✅ I cannot wait to see the amazing abilities AI will continue to bring facilitators How about you? What experiments have you been doing with AI and facilitation?

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.🙂

Hi guys, I’m a Content Manager at a branding agency in Aarhus. I create content and campaigns for Danish brands and also facilitate branding workshops for our clients. I am currently working on ways to strengthen our creative process internally in the agency, to more consistently develope great ideas and not always depend on “creativity on command” in unstructured meetings.

Hi everyone, I am French, located in Munich DE (2/3), and Grenoble FR (1/3). I started doing facilitation as a UX lead and migrated to workshop creation and facilitation also bringing change management and innovation into the picture. I am currently interested in visual practices like scribing https://www.u-school.org/visual-practice#vp-programs (from Theory U) and how it relates to workshop facilitation. Are there any visual facilitators in the group? I have no scribing experience but I used to draw a lot during boring meetings, so I think I should give this a try 😁 Looking forward to interacting with the group.

I love the recent post from LEGO that just contains a brief movie but has no message or talking points. This leaves the interpretation up to the viewer which is very powerful. How Might We use some of this mystery, fun, and open-endedness when we promote ourselves and our businesses? ❓ I'm curious to hear what you think the message is from the LEGO video! ❓ I'm also curious to hear your ideas of how you might be able to use something like this for yourself. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lego-group_warning-this-video-may-be-unsatisfying-activity-7016372356172382208-ECJn?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

During one of my team building programs, a very exciting participant wasn't satisfied about the result and she argued loudly and aggressively demanding extra points for her team, and this is the moment for us as facilitators to show our strength and wisdom, it was very tough moments for me, how to handle it, because if I let it go it ll ruin the whole program, I changed the debriefing around that point and linked it with the objectives of the game and involved her at the discussion along the way several times, later I had a conversation with the manager who were attending, she told me that I was watching and waiting for you to handle it :) - Have you eve faced a vert tough participant or similar situation ? - How you handled the situation, or what tools you used?

Helloooo Facilitators 👋 This is a question that comes up A LOT and I would love to hear your answers to it. What's the value of Facilitation? In other words, why do teams need Facilitation/Facilitators? It's so important to be able to answer this question because it will help you convince potential clients of the value you can add to their teams as a Facilitator. Leave your answers in the comments. Looking forward to getting a discussion going on this. Rebecca 💟

Hi all! My name is Caterina a.k.a. Cat (pronouns: she/her) and really excited to connect with fellow facilitators! I just joined AJ&Smart's Workshopper Master program and am already blown away by how this is going to amplify my skills and offerings. And I'm excited to continue sharing with and learning from you all in this community as well. In my full-time role, I'm a national program director and facilitator for anti-bias and DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) education programs across the US. I'll soon be shifting roles to lead change management. In my side hustle that I'm launching this year, I'm a DEI facilitator, consultant & speaker that focuses on shifting org culture through systems work, strategic planning & mapping, and change management. I've been facilitating for a few years now and absolutely love it, so I'm excited to have found this community. I'm originally from Dominican Republic and currently based out of Orlando, FL in USA with my partner and two Golden Retrievers. Big foodie and cook over here, so I'm always happy to talk food and recipes. Excited to get to know folks here, and happy to connect: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caterinamrodriguez/

I'm going to share the top 5 things you can do to set your video conference meetings apart from 80% of other meetings like them in your organization. The nice thing is that these are simple to do and you can start them today. #1 Welcome people by name as they join the meeting. There's nothing worse than sitting in awkward silence as people are joining the meeting. Welcoming people breaks the silence and sets you apart from other meeting hosts. #2 At the end of the meeting, thank people for their time and for joining the meeting. Let them know they are appreciated. #3 Start your meeting at 5 minutes past the hour or half-hour and end your meeting at 5 minutes before the hour or half-hour. This will help people take a quick break that have back-to-back meetings. Sure, you have 10 minutes less time in the meeting so you will need to use an agenda, keep people on task, use a parking lot for longer conversations, etc. You should be doing these things anyway. #4 Share meeting notes quickly after the meeting ends. If there are any loose ends, follow-up after they are resolved. #5 Only invite people to the people that need to be there. Share the meeting notes with others that may be interested by didn't need to sit through the meeting. They will appreciate it. I'll admit that I don't do all of these for all meetings. I'm working on it. However, when I do these simple things they set my video conference calls apart from most of the other ones people join throughout the day. Do you have any more suggestions to add to the list?

Hey all! Very excited to be here in the Facilitators Club. Makes me happy to see already so many people from the Workshopper Master Community but also a lot of new faces who are interested in facilitation! I have a background in architecture and am located in Belgium. Interested in anything that has to do with facilitation, architecture, our behavior in buildings, workplaces and how that affects our mental health, productivity, collaboration and so on. Currently doing more research about it so if you know any podcasts, articles, books, people, ANYTHING 😂 please let me know! PS: I'm also a beauty and the beast fan and I can sing every word to 'Be Our Guest', but only in Dutch (with facial expressions). Working on the English version at the moment. Take care and I'll see you around!

Hello everyone! My name is Jason and I am an expat 🇺🇸 living and working in Beijing, China. I work in a private school, but also 'moonlight' as a workshop facilitator 🕝. I have organized and run a few 'design sprints' 🏃‍♂️ within the context of senior leadership in schools. Most of the time our topics are about 'community optics' or 'curriculum'. However, as a 'design' educator I use sprints with students as well. Cannot wait to connect and collaborate! 🤝 I also created and host a podcast all about the 'design' of education if anyone is interested then please give me a shout! And happy year of the rabbit!

Love this! I'm based in Amsterdam and would love to connect and collaborate with other facilitators interested in cultural impact and societal development. Looking forward 🚀

Hey everyone!! My name’s Asif and i’m a Scrum Master in a Management Consultancy based out of London. Happy to join this vibrant community. Look forward to learning more about Facilitation from you all 😀.

Hi, I'm Isabella. I'm from Colombia and living in Chicago. In university I did Graphic Design, mostly interested in illustration, packaging (and surprisingly to me at that time - I was seriously thinking I wouldn't like it) UX/UI. I first learned about facilitation and workshops when I graduated and was very lost and unsure on how to go forward. I found it so fun and interesting, but to be honest it took me two more years before I decided to give it a shot. Now, I recently did the Design Sprint Masterclass and I'm excited to start workshopping!

Hey Y'all. Looking forward to sharing and learning in this club.

Hi Everyone! So much experience and expertise in this community ... thrilled to be a member. I have a four-hour (same day) virtual session coming up and after the hour lunch break, I begin with energizer that gets the participants out of their seats and have a laugh. I have done ... find objects, eye yoga and the “after lunch shuffle”. Please what are your ideas? Thank you for sharing! Take care.

"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." - Bruce Lee Imagine you could pick a single workshop exercise to truly master - and do it 10,000 times. Which one would it be - and why?

You're probably (hopefully!) already convinced about the value a Facilitator can bring, BUT one of the biggest issues we see people in our communities face is explaining this value to others (clients, their team/boss, etc) AND explaining what a Facilitator actually does! The video linked below should help you clearly describe what a Facilitator actually does, and this thread from @Rebecca Courtney has some really interesting insights about the value of facilitation!

It seems there’s a lot of teams that are getting pretty good at idea generation. ✅ They’re leaning into creative processes. ✅ They’re banning ‘yeah but’ and embracing ‘yes and’. ✅ They’ve discovered the power of going wide, before going narrow. 💡 And they’re cracking out some awesome thinking and brand-new ideas. The problem is, once all their thinking is on the table, they resort to sticky dot voting and settle on a safe bet. All those innovative ideas get left on the table!🤦 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗮𝘀 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗴𝗼 𝘁𝗼 𝘄𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲: 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟭: Give each team member two sets of dots, in two different colours, and ask them to vote on their favourite ideas. One set of dots is for ideas that make sense and seem do-able. The other set is for ideas that sound amazing, but feel unrealistic or infeasible. 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟮: Invite team members to form small groups of 2-3 and ask each group to choose an amazing (but seemingly unrealistic) idea that they would like to explore some more. 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟯: Give groups 30 minutes to run the idea through a Constructive Evaluation process. (If you’re not familiar with this process, let me know and I can email you a template.) 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟰: Invite each group to share back their findings to the whole team, including their recommendation for ‘the one decision we can make right now’. 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟱: Celebrate how do-able those seemingly unrealistic ideas actually are! 🥳 💥 🚀 Wrap up the session using whatever process you usually use to decide on next steps. I’m willing to bet that “more exploration of those ‘unrealistic’ ideas” makes the list.

For all the corporate facilitators (or people working as an employee for someone else), how do you promote your facilitation skills? How do you promote new ideas, techniques, and capabilities you gain to others in your company? There's so much value facilitation can bring to a company, I think it would be good for us to share the ways we promote ourselves and perhaps brainstorm on a few ideas we can all use. Here are my top 3 ways to promote my facilitation skills at my company: 1) Through my Director to others. I have an amazingly supportive director that loves to talk to others about what I've done for our team. If you have a supportive boss, make sure to utilize them. 2) Other word of mouth. I've done workshops and retrospective sessions for senior managers at my company and have had others approach my because they heard what I have done. 3) Offer to help. I have offered to facilitate upcoming sessions for projects and other initiatives for others where I think I can add value. We are searching for a new ERP system, so I have offered to lead discovery sessions for requirement gathering to more than one person. The idea is to show others how you can help, so next time they think of you up front. What are your top 3 ways to promote your facilitation skills at your job?

One of the toughest skills to learn as a workshop facilitator is managing circular discussions. I'm talking about those discussions where where the team goes around in circles discussing the same topic multiple times. Here’s my top tips on how to handle circular discussions: - Time-boxing - let the group know that you’re going to set a timer for this discussion, the time-pressure will help people be more concise in their thoughts. - Note taking - Listen to the discussion and add notes to your whiteboard. Visualising a discussion will help the team recognise when they’re repeating themselves. - Addressing repetition - Tell the team when they’re repeating themselves, highlight the notes on the board that cover what they’re saying and ask them (politely) to move on. - Challenge relevance - Circular discussions have a tendency to get off track, if you feel like what’s being discussed isn’t relevant to the topic at hand, highlight it with the team. - Summarising - Once you feel like enough has been said, interject with a summary, ask the group if you’ve missed anything and if not, move on. - Deciding - If the discussion needs a decision to move forward, summarise and then ask your decider to decide what you should move forward with. - Parking lot - If a discussion is stretching on too long, and its not crucial to resolve it for the purpose of your workshop, add a post-it to your parking lot and return the discussion later if you have time What are you top tips for managing discussions in a workshop?