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 💛

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 all, loving this forum so far, great to have a network of people to reach out to and seek advice from. I have recently introduced Team Canvas sessions to our organisation and the response has been excellent. My experience to date(circa 30 sessions) is with groups of 10 or less participants. However, later this week I am facilitating for a team of 24 people and I am looking for advice on how I might handle this. I ensure that my sessions are very inclusive and that everyone gets a voice through each section of the canvas, but with a group of 24, how can i do this and ensure that everyone remains engaged? Love so tip on this

One of the great things about what we do is you can do it as an employee or go out and become your own company. Whilst the later comes with amazing benefits there are a lot of areas that need to be considers… Like - What does it take to set myself up as a business or do I just contract in. - If I am setting myself up as a business am I a sole trader.. registering by business - Defining your purpose and setting clear goals yearly, quarterly - Defining your target customers, products, services and financials. Whilst this is a passion space for a lot of us, you still need to understand your revenue needs. - Branding and marketing - What do you need to set yourself up… physically, technology - Contracts for engagements - How to build a pipeline, managing you customer base Making sure you get work life balance! Would be interested in hearing and learning from each other on what made sense for you and what you would like to share with the rest of the community…

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.

Curious how people approach having music playing in the background during their workshops. • Do you put a lot of energy into designing a playlist? • Does it depend on the group with whom you're working? Feel free to share your thoughts! I included a link to a new song I discovered this week. Enjoy!

I am back in Australia after enjoying a wonderful 3 months touring Italy and surrounding countries. (although it was so hot) so I know we have seen some decline but you will see a lot more of me in the future. @David Newman Kicking off my new website Will Stammers Design Leader It's taken a lot of work, but I went live 3 days ago and landed on 3 core services: 1) Facilitation of Quick Wins - Short and Sharp and my favourite Design Sprint 2) Evolution of Services and Products - Service and Product Design 3) Digital and Product Transformation - Supporting Strategy & Advisory Services If you have time, I would love you to check it out at https://www.willstammersdesignleader.com/ All feedback is welcome, and you can email me at wstammers@gmail.com Some other areas of interest from the group: 1 - Pricing Strategy: I would also greatly appreciate any pricing strategies for the delivery of Facilitation. I do not want to deliver this at an hourly rate but as a package and price it as a get-your-feet-in-the-door proposition. I will mainly support Australia so any guidance would be most welcome. I think @Jonathan Courtney you had some guidance here, to that you shared after we just kicked off the club. 2 - Getting the message out there: I have started to write blog posts and launch them on LinkedIn to bring people to my site. Are there any other locations people have found to be successful? Well hope this finds you well, and I look forward to your guidance, collaboration and most of all engaging with you fine people!

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?

The recently published "State of Facilitation report for 2023" is now available for access. Conducted by SessionLab, the report involved gathering feedback from more than 1000 facilitators, aiming to reflect the current state of facilitation and offer useful guidance, knowledge, and perspective for those who work as facilitators worldwide. You can find the report by clicking on this link: https://www.sessionlab.com/state-of-facilitation/ What do you find most interesting? What do you find most surprising?

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! 👇

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.

Hello facilitators! 👋 For remote facilitation, do you use Miro, Mural, or Figma and why? Do you create templates in all of them? Or do you stick to one? I have realized I am creating different boards across all 3 and think it might be best to consolidate to one. 🤔 Hope this post can also shed light on best practices for everyone when choosing !

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.

This is not a paid promotion lol 😂 Ever found yourself being provided a space and you notice there’s not a whiteboard insight..: I came across these during lockdown and after down in Melbourne Victoria we had a good stint of them my whiteboard withdrawals were kicking in week 2… Magic Whiteboard Sheets Stick on Wall - A1 Static & Portable White Board for Walls, Doors, Windows, Fridges, & Glass - Easy Clean, Plain White Dry Erase Board for School & Office https://amzn.asia/d/1wXozOB The pretty much stick to any surface.

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?