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 💛

I purchased these about a year ago. Anyone else use these to map out their workshops? If so, what do you think of them?

I think that I've heard AJ&S folks talk about a library of Miro templates we can use. I apologize if this has been asked before -- I have done a couple of searches here and in the Facilitation Fundamentals course, but I haven't found them. Would you point me in the right direction?

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!

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!

Hi everyone 🤝 👋! My name is Donatella, I have transitioned from a previous expat career as a Public Relations director in multinational companies to full time certified facilitator on the topic of community design, helping teams in organisations and citizens transform into communities that face change together. I am super excited to be there, AJ&Smart training and school when I first started were essential for getting a new profession out in the world, and do it with confidence and fun 🔥. When this community was born it was like they read my mind! I am really excited to exchange practices, connect and collaborate together with you. I am convinced facilitating is what the world needs right now, and I am determined to not make it a solitary pursuit anymore. Looking forward !

Hello Folks! Wonder if you have an suggesttions. 50 teens. Approx 20 mins. Exercise to illustrate our resistance to change! Any suggestions? I look forward to hearing from you......

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 have started the Design Sprint Master Class. So far so good. However, the company I facilitate for and will NEVER go for a 4 or 5 day Sprint. What is your approach for putting together a one day workshop, say that is 7 or 8 hours long?

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?

I was brainstorming with ChatGPT4 for a new video where I want to talk about one-off team-building sessions being a waste of money and instead of an annual event – it's a daily practice. Leaders should be weaving connection activities into every meeting to foster engagement, trust, and collaboration. Well...Just for fun, I asked it to come up with some funny tweets. Here are my favourites, which one is yours? 1) Why limit team building to annual events? Let's throw in connection activities at every meeting – it's like trust falls, but without the chiropractor bills! 😆 #CrackingUpAtWork 2) Team building: from annual trust falls to daily meetings, because nothing says 'we got this' like navigating trust exercises while holding coffee! ☕😂 #CaffeinatedCollaboration 3) Let's make team building a part of every meeting, because who doesn't want to bond over the shared fear of being late to the next call? 🏃‍♂️😅 #ProcrastinatorsUnite 4) Weave team building into every meeting – because nothing says 'I trust you' like sharing embarrassing work stories over a video call! 🎥🤣 #VirtualTrustCircle 5) Who needs annual team building events when you can turn meetings into group therapy sessions with connection activities? Get ready to laugh and learn! 😂📚 #TherapyWithPowerPoints Let me know in the comments, which one is your favourite 😂#TeamBuilding #Leadership #NoMoreTrustFalls

Hi All, I am going through the material and I'm wondering if there are any opportunities to shadow or sit in on a real workshop so I can observe and learn first hand? I find that that is the best way for me to learn and contextualize all of the information. Thanks!

I have recently started facilitating "Project Charter" sessions for our project teams. This group consists of internal and external members of the team. We provide that team with a finished "document" about a week after the session to show them what we have captured and agreed on. Is anyone else doing this? Also, would anyone be interested in a peer review of this document and offer feedback?

Hi everyone, I saw that a lot of you are not only Facilitators but also Trainers and was looking for an exercise recommendation. I am looking for workshop exercises for a hands-on practice session for a (sales) team to practice asking a set of pre-defined questions. For context: - We ran a workshop on "what are the right questions to ask" during a qualification (similar to BANT in case someone is familiar) - We compiled a list of questions (not a word-by-word script) based on that workshop (with dot voting) - We would now like to practice asking these suggested questions (no strict order, no fixed script) , so the team feels more comfortable with them - We are looking for exercises that go beyond the usual roleplay or analyzing a call recording. It can be experimental and out of the box -  4-8 participants per group around 45 mins I understand this is not a pure facilitation question. But I feel a creative facilitator mindset could help with coming up with something fun and engaging. What would you suggest to do?

Hi everybody, it is a great pleasure to be part of this community. I have no much practical experience in workshopping. Yesterday, I had a chat with customer of mine that shared he has a lot of ideas in his head but lack of structure and needs help with that issue. How would you recommend me to start and what kind of workshop to propose to him, what exercises would be best to include?

Hello! I am excited to be a part of the community of Facilitators. Just joined today!

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 🚀

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.

Hey guys I wanted to ask you : what’s your key(s)to growth personally or professionally ? Can’t wait for your answers 😁

Just wanted to say hello and say that I am grateful to be a part of this community!

Hello facilitators! I'm looking for recommendations on improving speaking and communication skills, which I believe are essential to any job and especially to facilitation. In particular, I'm interested in learning: - How to make interventions concise and clear - How to engage the audience and make a lasting impression - How to discern the appropriate timing for interventions particularly in meeting/workshop settings. Any tips or resources you can share would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

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/

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!

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 everyone! As someone from an education background, I found observations incredibly useful to be able to see what I've learned in action, and it got me wondering whether observing a workshop or facilitation session is a thing. Is it a done thing? I know it's something I'd massively benefit from, and would love an opportunity to see a facilitator in action in order to tie things together visually. I'd love thoughts from experienced facilitators who pivoted into facilitation from another industry/career path.

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.

During workshops, Sometimes i experience a sense of losing control over the process / participants. I'm interested in hearing about how you handle such a situation.

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.

Hello community. I'm from Buenos Aires, Argentina. My training is eclectic, I have a degree in international trade; Actor; Mago and for a few years I have been training in topics such as Innovation, Agile Methodologies, design thinking and I am studying the career of ontological coach. My interest in becoming a facilitator and generating networks. My weakness is that I don't have a very good command of the English language, but I always find alternatives to understand. I read the book SPRINT by Jake Knapp (in Spanish...) and I am open to talks in Spanish. Thank you so much