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?

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! This document contains important information about getting the most out of this community, so please read through everything before you get started! 👇👇👇 💃 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 💛

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!

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?

Hi new faces, I'm Rayboy Nunez from Scotland of India, I help companies elevate the design for good. Design evangelist, Generalist Designer.