Dear fellow facilitators, I would like to consult the community intelligence I keep getting requests for strategy workshops to tackle issues, define focus areas for both the strategic but also the coordinative level. Going more into design thinking / mediation facilitation with this one, what are some of your hints or experiences with such non-product workshops? What sort of exercise have proven helpful and constructive for you? To set the scene, I do like IDOARRT and figured the 'Sailboat' would be a neat fit to uncover what is going great, and what is dragging the progress. I've considered 'Negative Brainstorming' (what's the worst possible way, and how to turn this into the best possible one). Thanks in advance, Stefan
How awesome would it be to have a book club and discuss it all together? Calling on all executives 😀 @Rebecca Courtney @Jakub Michalski @Jonathan Courtney
What a great idea @Shaul Nemtzov , I would be really interested too. Maybe we can also have a voting on what sort of books we want to circle, there's plenty of great tools out there now.
As a facilitator, I made an interesting discovery about DIFFICULT ATTENDEES. From time to time, I become one of them MYSELF. This happens when the trainer: ▸ Rambles ▸ Lacks any sense of humor ▸ Is not prepared (e.g. reads notes) ▸ Did not build their ethos as an authority on the topic ▸ Says things I disagree with AND are unable to defend their opinion ▸ Presents as a fact things they only know from books, not from experience How about you? Is there something that can turn YOU into a difficult participant?
I guess we can all be difficult at times 😄 Also, you address a lot of different possibilities, which again come in various level of seriousness I suppose. Worst case, that person is the decider. For the second part of your list, I guess one can always refer to the decider if someone is blocking the process/progress. - Sense of humor - I definitely had rooms with different levels, so here merely feel the room. If I get no replies on jokes or witty lines (at least they are to me), I focus on the content and progress to be made ahead. - Not prepared - you can always give someone a quick run-down of what's ahead or was already covered. I would always ask first if I can jog their memory ahead of explaining though. - Ethos issue - typically, I do my research on the people attending the workshop. So I'd try to move him away from topics where he thinks is the expert to actual areas he likely knows. Or I involve the crowd to discuss the topic at hand. - Disagreement - I'd acknowledge the opinion to make them being heard. If it's a real tough cookie that doesn't give in, again I'd usually involve the room for a more fruitful and fact-based discussion. - Book worms - not everything that is done through experience is right, nor is everything from theory applicable in practice. I would dig deeper here and ask for references where a particular theory / thought of train has worked, if the person does not see any issues when converting this into practice and so on.. Curious on other responses here too 🍿
Hi fellow facilitators 👋 Recently I have run some continued design sprints, which were building on the initial, more broad design sprint. Although I made some adaptations to the exercises and shortened particularly some of the first day (HMW, make a map), two of the participants gave me the feedback that they wished we could have just gone straight into the sketching. I gladly accepted the feedback and said I would consider this for future continued design sprints. My brief reasoning on why I did not get rid of these exercises was: - Since there were two new group members and the initial sprint week dated more than 2 months back, I felt it was necessary to reiterate our goals, our sprint questions and perform the HMW. - Also, I somehow feel this breaks people away from their initial thinking and opens the mindset for a different style of work. What are your experiences on continued design sprints? Do you tweak exercises and if yes, which? How would you respond to this feedback? Looking forward to the community exchange 😊🍿
@Shreyas Iyer certainly, thanks for your input. I think reusing the initial material from the first sprint might have been useful. needs more prepping than for the initial sprint though. ideally you could just walk back into the room as you left it :)
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?🤨
Joao's post is fantastic and shows how facilitation just gets better with AI. however, this does not mean we do not need to adapt. The requirements on the topics from clients will change and are much more likely to move towards AI usage or solution. 33A came up with an AI Design Sprint format (https://www.33a.ai, endorsed by Jake Knapp), which I find really interesting. Although I have the card deck, I keep missing the experience sessions because of agenda conflict. In fact there is a session this Thursday.