Help me out people! I need to update my music playlists. Specifically some good upbeat, high energy instrumentals for the start of a workshop, or for bringing people back in after a break. And at the other end of the spectrum--I'd love some ideas for reflective instrumentals that aren't nature sounds. (No disrespect to the whales 😉) What's your go-to playlist?

Hi everyone, Are you scaling your facilitation business beyond yourself? And if yes, how? I understand AJ&Smart has both online courses and services within the company, online courses being the most scalable while keeping the services side fairly lean. What other models have you found? (e.g. pair up with other freelancers to offer more comprehensive services; Refer work to others if you cannot deliver on it yourself taking a fee; etc.) Please share your experiences! Thanks!

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?

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! 👇

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 💟

Hey Facilitators! I want to take a moment to express our gratitude for your dedication, collaboration, and enthusiasm in the Facilitator Club community. Your consistent engagement, insightful advice, and willingness to share your knowledge have been instrumental in nurturing the growth of the Facilitator Club. We are SUPPPPPPPER grateful for the amazing energy you bring to this community and can't thank you enough for your contributions. Huge shout-out to everyone on the leaderboard! 🥳 @Shannon Wagers @David Finnegan @David Newman @Jan Keck @Benedict Odjobo @LaYinka Sanni @Kerri Price @Msoo Mee @Brendon Cappelletti @Austin Govella @Tomoo Okubo @Shaul Nemtzov @Joao Ribeiro @Donna Benjamin @Will Stammers @Jeff Panning @Hassanein Ismail @Sam Pettersson

I'm curious to know what kind of facilitation everyone does...? While I recognise that Facilitation Skills/ Principles apply across all types of facilitation, I've seen a lot of posts/comments around Design Thinking, Design Sprints, UX... Apart from supporting facilitators to hone their craft, I do a lot of facilitation in the Community Engagement / Social Impact space. Strategic Planning, Community Consultation, Partnership Brokering... that kind of thing. I'm keen to see the breadth of facilitation that's in this community.

To all the folks working in Corporate Innovation domain, just wanted to check from this elite group of facilitators - What kind of facilitation you have been doing majorly? It could be multiple items as well, but wanted to understand what's that 1 thing which you are passionate about and you do your best while facilitating 😊 Looking forward to see your responses !

I'm curious what y'all use to bring silence back to a room (e.g. after a breakout discussion)? With the first program I was trained to facilitate (Search Inside Yourself) we used a singing bowl like the pic attached. Works like a charm, but definitely has a mindfulness vibe and isn't perfect for every setting. Are there are tools, techniques, etc. that you've found work well?

Hello Facilitator Club! I'm looking to connect with HR, POPS or executive professionals who lead their organization's wellness initiatives. I have almost a decade of marketing experience in fast-paced and high-stress environments working with leaders and team members at all levels. Now, I'm an executive meditation guide and intuition coach working with leaders all over the world to be more in tune with their strengths, manage their stress, and access deeper levels of wisdom and creativity. I'm interested in bringing meditation and stress management tools to organizations emphasizing initiatives around team effectiveness, retention, and emotional intelligence. If you'd be open to chatting about what challenges you're facing in this era of work, I'd love to meet you. If this sounds like you, or you know someone who fits this profile, please tag them or message me directly. ☺️

Recently I've been reflecting on how much time we spend setting the scene for a workshop. Most facilitators are very intentional about making sure everyone is on the same page about why they are there, and we work hard to ensure people feel safe and comfortable to engage. However, when it comes to the end of the workshop, it often wraps up in a hurry. There might be an action list created, perhaps a quick whip-around to see how people are feeling, but I'm not convinced that the wrap-up is always given the time (and energy) it really needs to be done well. (And for the record...I'm reflecting on my own practice here...maybe I should replace 'we' with 'me'.) I'm keen to hear how others wrap-up their sessions. Are there specific exercises you use to bring things to a close and encourage next steps are actually taken? I've got a few tried and true methods I use, but I'm keen to give it more focus.

Hey guys, "may the force be with you 🖖" As AI is embedded or in progress in all areas today, can you suggest if there are any AI tools that can be leveraged for effective workshop facilitation? Not looking for an AI takeover 😀 but more like an assistant. I know there are a few tools in the market for quick prototyping like https://uizard.io/design-assistant/. Adobe is doing major updates with Firefly etc. Thoughts?

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.

Hi guys, hoping to draw on some of your experience. I'm new to facilitation and learning the design sprint. I'm doing well at talking about the design sprint and there seems to be some buy-in. However, our organization is highly technical (some seriously big brains) and we have an internal set up called "Digital Factory" which they are using for acceleration of transformation. Admittedly, focused on the digital aspect. They are using agile sprints. My question: What is the real difference between a design sprint and an agile sprint? And how can I highlight to my colleagues that it could be worth doing design sprints up front in the innovation process? I do understand that agile is more of a downstream process. So, I guess, does anyone have experience with what teams start from in an agile setting? Use cases for example... Looking forward to your comments / thoughts. Thanks

Let's accept it - workshops not always go as planned, and we are always dealing with 'oh-no' situations (at least me!) So I thought to share and also learn from everyone's failures but with the mindset of 'failing forward' - every mistake can turn into a stepping stone for success in the future. I'll start with one learning from this week, and I'd love to hear your lessons learnt too! [plan] In an online workshop where participants from various countries were expected, I did an ice-breaking exercise where I shared a screen of a white world map and asked colleagues to put a stamp on where they are at the moment. [what happened] it took forever for some participants to find out how to stamp and annotate on zoom, while some got it immediately. So it wasn't smooth. Lots of scribbles on the white board too. And, actually majority of them were from the same countries so the activity didn't really serve the purpose of showing the diversity of participants. It fell flat and made it a not-so-cool start of the workshop. [lessons] - keep the technology super simple, especially if you aren't sure of the level of familiarity - have some back-up questions/activities, in case one question didn't spark interest,

Here’s why 😀😂

The first time I ever facilitated a workshop, I was terrified. I had never been in charge of keeping a conversation on track before, and I certainly didn't know how to handle silence.Silence is a fundamental tool for facilitation. In fact, it can help teams to better collaborate and come up with creative solutions for highly complex problems. At first, silence may be seen as a challenge to participants, but over time, they realize that silence allows them to listen more carefully and think more deeply about their proposals.They also understand that silence gives others the opportunity to do the same, and as a result, everyone becomes more thoughtful in their interactions and produces better results. Working together-alone is a way to use silence. Walking meditation is another. How are you using silence in facilitation?

Mastering the art of eliciting information is very crucial in order to understand client needs clearly, sometimes the clients may not give you the root causes for their issues, you may end up treating symptoms and that's will impact the delivery and outcomes. Asking the same question from different angles and different people will give you better clues. mini-meeting with several members from the client's team; will give you the chance to observe how they are interacting and guide each other to the root causes. anymore ideas :)

Recently I read a post by @Kerri Price in linkedin where she was asked if “Aren’t you worried they’ll copy your stuff?” when she readily shares her tips and tricks with other facilitators. Her answer is similar to mine so I decided to share here with you a video I use as reference to address this topic where Steve Jobs is quoting Picasso and saying: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” What this means is that we are all stealing from each other! Aj&Smart steals from the Design Sprint and dozens of facilitation books, the Design Sprint steals from lean startup and agile methodologies, the business model canvas steals from visual thinking, and so on and so forth! Now, notice that stealing in this quote is better than copying! While copying would be the mere act of doing the same as someone else without making it your own, stealing is here referred to as the act of copying with care, property and adaptation to your own context. This is what Picasso was referring to. So steal away, avoid copying, and give credit where credit is due! This is how we evolve ;) Joao

Perhaps one of the biggest perks of a community like this is to openly share failures and have a laugh about it 😀 What were some of your most memorable fails to date throughout your facilitation journey? Either yours or that you witnessed first hand! Let’s hear it! I’ll start in the comments!

In workshops and other group settings, I've found that using music as a separator of activities can be really helpful in getting people to transition from one activity to the next. For example, to signal we are about to start a task like writing down our own individual thoughts on post-its, I will often put on some mellow background music to create a more focused atmosphere. That way, people aren't so inclined to jump right into conversations with one another and can take a few minutes to gather their thoughts.Then, when it's time for us to move on, I'll usually stop the music and invite everyone's attention back to the group. Over time, music becomes a natural signal on what we are about to do next.It's amazing how something as simple as music can help people move seamlessly from one mode of thinking and working to another! How are you using music in your facilitation practice? P.S. I am sharing my go-to playlists in the first comment below.

Hi all, As asked today during our meetup here is a link to the egg drop exercise. It's from Nasa and good enough to get started https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/556927main_Adv-RS_Egg_Drop.pdf @Jonathan Courtney if you have a more detailed resource please share it :) The variant I recommended today was to divide participants in two types of teams: - The "More time, less tries" team: this team has 1 to 1.5 hours but only 2 eggs, and they need to have 1 egg for the final demo when the time ends, so in practice they have one try-out. - The "less time, more tries" team: this team has 30 to 45 minutes but has unlimited eggs (well nothing is unlimited but you get what I mean ahah) When you drop the eggs in the final comparison 99% of the time the "less time, more tries" teams win! The exercise stimulates collaboration, prototyping and experimentation, demonstrating that more experiments and iterations beat more time and analysis. Joao

I'm planning to facilitate my first workshop using the tools from attending the Design Sprint MasterClass and currently doing the Facilitation Fundamentals one. My plan is to do a 3 hour workshop and use the Expert Interviews, HMW, Long Term Goal, Sprint Questions & Map exercises and tools. In preparation, I will be revisiting the Remote Design Sprint Masterclass and will be speaking with the client tomorrow for the pre-sprint call. I plan to use the template Miro board prepared by AJ & Smart and will do a mock run through with my technical facilitator a few days before. Considering my lack of experience, I guess I'd appreciate advice, if I might be missing something fundamental that i should consider/prepare for. I'm really excited about it, but in equal measure, quite anxious about it too and sometimes think I might be setting myself up for failure.

Currently I am in the search for some inspiration for songs /tracks for making my own playlist filled with music that is chill but sparks creativity at the same time. If you have tips about genres that works well or other points that gives me inspiration on this topic I am all ear for suggestion 🙌🌟

Hello! I am brand new to facilitation and have probably facilitated under ten times since starting my new role in September 2022. I landed a role as a Learning & Development Specialist and I am working on developing leadership skills within Texas A&M University staff & faculty employees. I love implementing things from AJ&Smart videos on YouTube and I hope to gain plenty of insight from this club too! I am MBTI and DDI certified and I am happy to provide any insight on those as well. Thanks for your time!

Just joined the community and wanted to wave hello to you all. I live in Rotterdam in the Netherlands and just started out facilitating in my new job. I found out it is hard to just start doing it. So I came here to learn more about what makes a good facilitator. And how I can become better.

In what situations would you say facilitation and workshops are the wrong answer and approach? One obvious to me is when the problem is well defined, solution is fairly known and it can be implemented by a handful of people. In other words, when there are low levels of uncertainty. What else? Let's hear your thoughts :)

Hello everyone. I have a burning question!!! How do you think the increasing use and advancement of AI technology will impact the role of facilitators and trainers in the professional development industry, and what changes might we expect to see in the way training and development programs are delivered as a result? Is our industry at risk? What are your thoughts?🤨

Lateral thinking is a creative problem-solving approach that involves looking at a problem from different angles or perspectives. Its techniques can be very useful for facilitation processes, for example for brainstorming. Let's see how we can use chatGPT to help us improve our lateral thinking capacity. Swipe the images to check it out. How are you using lateral thinking in your facilitation practice?

Good day, everyone. I was wondering if any of you had any experience with sensitive topics. Discussing a negative organizational culture with the organization's founders and executive team. According to the needs analysis, leadership is required (in their own words repeated 41 times out of 67 "TOXIC"). How can I facilitate the conversation about establishing a new culture without causing problems? PS. The leadership team is comprised of aggressive and dismissive/defensive individuals. 😎 How do I demonstrate my worth?