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 am asked to design a 3-hour workshop, which I will not facilitate myself, but which will be run by the client. The director of an NGO wants to review the current mission statement and brand positioning with her core team. And from this, formulate the identity of the organisation. (As a basis for a later workshop with the whole team on the values of the organisation). – The whole thing is very short-term. I have to present the workshop concept on Monday. So I am grateful for all your ideas so that I can work on the design over the weekend. THANK YOU!

Hey Legends! When I'm designing a workshop or program I've got a huge amount of activities that fall under different topics that I could pull into a workshop and use. Probably like most people here. Right now I just keep them haphazardly in google docs, as part of course outlines etc. I thought of a new activity this morning that doesn't have a natural place and that got me thinking "surely there's a better way to manage this". So my question is - does anyone use miro, trello or something else to store/manage discreet activities that may be used across topics? Happy to provide an example if this doesn't make sense.

Are you organizing a workshop but you don't know where to start? 🤔Here are 7 steps to prepare your workshop : 1️⃣Define the workshop’s objectives 🎯 2️⃣Identify customers’ expectations 🔍 3️⃣Pick the right team 💪 4️⃣Plan the workshop agenda📔 5️⃣ Create the workshop content 🟨 6️⃣Communicate to manage expectations 💬 7️⃣ Set-up the workshop experience While it's rare that a workshop will fully stick to the plan you prepared, the value of preparation lies in the deeper connection you develop with the topic, the ability to consider different angles, and ultimately be more ready for whatever comes your way. And you guys, how do you prepare for your workshops ? 🤔

Definitely applicable to the legends in this community, here’s the link and my thoughts below, would love to hear yours. Feel free to share links and experiments you’ve done! This article is a really nice example yet again of how each of us playing around gets you thinking about something from different angles and lived experiences - in this case - also across more careers and use cases. https://open.substack.com/pub/oneusefulthing/p/setting-time-on-fire-and-the-temptation?r=1t3rsq&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post My thoughts/ Given how fast the tech is being integrated where apparently it’s already in Google Docs and about to be released in Microsoft Office, if you haven’t had a play yet, I can highly recommend. For me the benefits of being an early adopter have always been “the potential” to sneak peek and fast track integrating something that will enhance, improve or speed up my ability to create. It’s a win-win, as there’s also gold in the lemons too. Because even if the thing you’re testing out ends up a dud, the likelihood of being rewarded with a key insight is pretty decent. This article reinforces the importance for as diverse a range of people to be playing with these tools as possible. For us to be as ready as possible for as many useful - and not so useful - applications. The diversity of minds and cultures we need to give this the respect and urgency it deserves. For proper, optimistic yet deep consideration of the governance, ethics and risk management required.

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!

I often have the opportunity to facilitate community events, workshops, and training, but feel I am just "ok" at it and sometimes struggle with certain bits. I don't know how I stumbled across AJ&Smart (probably googling my way through a workshop design....), but I'm so happy I did! Looking forward to learning from this community!

Lately, I've been mulling over different analogies to illustrate the Facilitator's role, particularly in the context of managing group dynamics. Here's an interesting one that struck me: Think of a group of people like a bustling city intersection. There are many different paths crossing each other, each with their own direction and speed. In this situation, it's easy for things to get chaotic or for some paths to get overshadowed by others. This is exactly what happens when people come together - there's a multitude of thoughts, ideas, and perspectives intersecting. People might have different viewpoints, some ideas might get side-lined, and quieter individuals might not get a chance to express their thoughts. It's like the louder cars drowning out the quieter ones or some paths being blocked by others. This is where a Facilitator steps in, acting like a traffic controller at this intersection. They ensure that each 'car' or person gets a fair chance to move forward, making sure everyone's ideas and voices are heard. They guide the 'traffic', or the conversation, to ensure that the team's discussions are effective and aimed towards achieving their goals. So, just like a traffic controller is crucial for smooth and fair traffic movement, a Facilitator is key to productive, inclusive, and goal-oriented group discussions. What do think of this analogy? I'd love to hear your own analogies or metaphors of the Facilitator's role in the comments!

Does anyone have experience with creating a workshop for a small group of 3 AND also being part of the workshop as a participant in addition to being a facilitator? A couple friends and I have an idea for an app, and we have different opinions about what the key experiences should be. My goals are to: - Try out workshopping for the first time - Have fun - Get a prototype that we can test with people - Keep it within 3 days I don't need it to be super formal, but I want the process to be intentional and follow a loose structure of "understand the problem --> frame the problem --> ideate --> decide --> build --> evaluate." I planned a draft of what activities to do (combined from the A&J's course and Workshop Tactics). To reduce the load on myself, I will delegate time tracking and getting supplies. Would love to hear suggestions or experiences from others. :)

I prompted this question in an intro call for another facilitation course and I got interestiing answers. Mine would be, that people as well as me are feeling energized after a day despie a fatigue and after they will tell me the talk of town often referred to a workshop and its outcome. 🗺️ Impact Mapping would be a factual tool to do so, but more from a gut perspective I love exploring this question. ⭕️ Another answer was "When they don't mention my name in the feedback round..." which for this facilitator was a sign of deeply ignited team dynamics – to her own professional satisfaction. So I am curios now, whats your clear signs and feeling or metrics, that it worked?

At the core of running a successful business is the ability to understand and relate to your target audience. Doing so provides the foundation upon which relationships, trust, and understanding can be built. Put simply, having empathy is essential for any successful business. What Is Empathy? Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. It doesn’t just mean being nice, but rather it encompasses the ability to see another’s perspective and feel an emotional connection to that other person. It is the ability to recognize, appreciate, and understand the feelings of both your customers and employees. The Benefits Of Empathy Empathy in business carries many benefits, both for the customer and for the company itself. For customers, having empathy in your business means that they are able to connect with you on an emotional level. They trust that their feelings, opinions, and experiences are valued by your business. This leads to customers feeling respected and valued, leading to loyalty from them. For the company itself, having empathy in business practices can increase employee engagement and motivation. It can provide a sense of purpose and fulfillment in the workplace, leading to improved productivity and increased team spirit. Additionally, having empathy in the workplace can lead to less conflict and better customer service, as employees understand their customers and are better able to provide the services and products that are tailored to their specific needs. Implementing Empathy In Your Business Empathy can be incorporated into your business in several ways. The most important way is to ensure that you are actively engaging with your customers; listen to their feedback and be responsive to their comments and requests. This can be done through surveys, focus groups, and interviews. Additionally, make sure that you take the time to get to know your customers. Take an interest in their lives, ask questions about their experiences, and listen to their stories. This will show customers that you genuinely care for them and value them as people, not just as customers.

Hi team, I am struggling to structure a workshop. And there must be an obvious solution, but I am afraid my facilitation knowledge is lacking a bit. 😅 Purpose: Sales team is looking to create a list of trading options that leads to Win-Win outcomes that can be used to negotiate deals instead of giving price concessions. Desired outcome: - A list of "GIVES": potential asks that could come from a future customer (think: discounts, free shipping, change in payment term, ...) - A list of "GETS" that the Sales team can ask in return (think: upfront payment, signature by the end of the week, providing a case study/reference call...) - A way to map the above in terms of importance or weight so the team knows what to trade (think: You wouldnt give a heavy discount in exchange for having a deal closed 1 day earlier) The underlying goals: - Increase the ticket price - Faster time to close - (there could be more but unknown) Some details: - The team that will be using the outcome consists of about 40-50 people (and preferably they all participate in this workshop); 7 of those are team leads/managers - The experience level is very diverse from 0 - 10 years in a similar position - The session should be fully remote - I have the chance to have someone co-facilitating this workshop My question to you: - Is there an engaging workshop exercise that comes to mind to find out all possible Gives, Gets and a way to map those? - How would you handle such a big group remotely? Do separate sessions with each? Or would you advice to nly involve the managers and then train the team on the outcome? - Additional points for having a way to practice and reinforce the use of these give-gets!

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…

Advice needed! I need to lead a team (4-6 folks) through a bunch of new projects that have been proposed (19 ideas on the table), some small some large. Thy need to choose their priorities. I proposed facilitating a 3-hour action-priority matrix workshop, to rank each project on impact & effort. In the past I've done this where we sorta group discussion / argue our way through placing the projects on the whiteboard. It sorta works/ sorta doesn't. And takes a lot of time. And defers to authority (this client is a university, and they have a higher authority deference). Has anyone done this with a group, using the together-alone principle where folks somehow place on their own and then somehow vote or validate? It obviously won't work to have every team member placing their own duplicate post-it notes of the project. Advice?

Hi everyone, Hope everything is going well. This is Joshe Ordonez from Ecuador. We are currently looking for a Freelance Facilitator to help us moderate a few business meetings throughout the year. We are a team of 9 people, we are all native Spanish speakers but we speak English as well. We are looking for someone that is also fluent in Spanish just in case. For context, our company Airpals is a B2B platform that helps teams to book and coordinate same-day local courier services. If anyone is interested, please get in touch with your project or hourly rates. joshe@airpals.co (not com) Thank you in advance for your consideration.

The goal of all kind of workshops is straightforward: generate, decide, prioritize and test challenges, ideas and concepts all within a time limit and with a clear set of rules ("No talking"!). This is to be efficiënt as possible. But what if there is a need to discuss certain ideas or concepts or maybe share some ideas or concepts to jumpstart some more timid workshop participants? Do you incorporate some discussion within a workshop exercise (at a certain step) or do you close off a workshop with a open conversation about the ideas/concepts discussed within that workshop?🤔 Or do you just completely hate discussing and wasting time doing so during workshops? 😃 That might be possible.

Hey hey Facilitators! I flipped through a couple of my old facilitation books the other day. It got me thinking about all the "pre-digital" resources and approaches out there, and how we might revisit and adapt them for our new hybrid now. One I turn to from time to time is called "The Essence of Facilitation: Being in Action in Groups" by Dale Hunter, Anne Bailey and Bill Taylor. It was published in 1999! Chapter 7 is called "Power-with" "Power and control issues lie at the heart of facilitation. You cannot get away from them. Facilitation is about releasing the group wisdom, and to do this requires every person in the group to be fully empowered and participating. Personal power, and power with others is essential for a powerful group." I agree! What do you think? Do you have books about facilitating in your collection that you turn to? What's on your shelves?

Hello everyone, As I said in one of my previous post. I'm currently doing my Ph.D., focused on Design thinking workshops. For this, I need to Interview DT facilitators. To make my research of value and to collaborate my own journey with it. If anyone would like to help me out, it would be a 1 hr zoom interview, in which I would tell you a little about my research and then would interview you to understand your own experience of facilitating. I would be happy to answer any questions regarding this, you can either send me a PM or just let me know below, and I can contact you. Thankyou so much!

I love the recent post from LEGO that just contains a brief movie but has no message or talking points. This leaves the interpretation up to the viewer which is very powerful. How Might We use some of this mystery, fun, and open-endedness when we promote ourselves and our businesses? ❓ I'm curious to hear what you think the message is from the LEGO video! ❓ I'm also curious to hear your ideas of how you might be able to use something like this for yourself. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lego-group_warning-this-video-may-be-unsatisfying-activity-7016372356172382208-ECJn?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Anyone got any great tools to employ in facilitation? I found this one, fairly basic, but keen to hear about any others that are useful: https://ai.boardofinnovation.com/how-might-we-statement see others in the menu.

Hi team 😃 I wanted to say a quick hello! I'm really enjoying being part of this awesome likeminded group - so great to see loads of questions being asked that i've also wondered about! I also wanted to share a challenge i'm currently experiencing to see if it's something you talented people could share any experience on! So, hello! I'm Louis - i'm a London based Innovation Lead in the charity sector - i'm also a freelance innovation consultant and facilitator which i'm going full time with from May...which i'm very excited about! I am currently doing the Design Sprint and Facilitation Fundamentals course which i'm loving... Turning into something of an AJ & Smart super fan! 😁 Anyway, my interesting challenge..... I'm talking to a charity at the moment who want to run three workshops with businesses and government bodies on one big challenge which they've narrowed down to three separate territories/areas. The overall challenge is around getting businesses upskilling low paid low skill workers. One of the challenges sitting under this is how do we ensure businesses have the data they need to convince them upskilling their low paid, low skill staff is worth their time and investment. They have done a lot of research and insight work on this upfront to show why this is an important challenge to focus on. The approach they want to take is: - Run 3 separate 'co-creation' workshops on 3 separate (but linked) challenges to generate solutions. They want these to be c3 hours long with 25 people. This is with businesses and government bodies. - As they work in the policy world which are very accustomed to 'roundtables' - as far as I can tell this entails lots of chat, not much action and plenty of unstructured conversations.. 😑 - In my view as they are very complex challenges it would be more beneficial to engage a smaller amount of people for a longer amount of time and am thinking best approach would be more like a Day One of the Design Sprint with Expert interviews, Lightning Demos and Concept Sketching and if time permits prototyping and testing.

Hello 👋 Facilitators! I'm looking for help facilitating a one- or two-day workshop on the Jersey Shore for a group of 15-20 people on June 14-15th. This will be in-person, so I'm looking for someone in the area with general facilitator skills. Still working out the details, but if you're interested, let me know and we can chat about timing, content, etc. Thanks!

As a community, we really need to hone in on this and help each other out. I'll begin... Looking forward to hearing more ideas from you! https://www.loom.com/share/c0e03755743640d49f4eeb4c366fc043

Hey fellow facilitators, I use Miro in my facilitation sessions - due to facilitating marketing and social media sessions - I often copy a lot of images into Miro. 😢 But organizing pictures in Miro is a pain. 🔍 But one hidden feature just got released that will change your life. 👍 Hit the like button if this was useful for you. Cheers Marc

Hello 👋 I'm curious to know if there are any job opportunities for following: 🕵️ Innovation Facilitator (Design Thinking) 🕵️ Innovation Program Manager 🕵️ Innovation Lead / Consultant / Evangelist Basically, anything to do in driving Innovation & building culture. Drop in the comments if you are aware of such openings, will be happy to connect offline..

Did you know that the average person spends 6 years of their life in meetings? That's a lot of time, so it's important to make sure that your meetings are effective and productive ! I've attended countless meetings and have seen my fair share of poorly designed agendas and meeting structures. It's frustrating to sit through a meeting that lacks direction or purpose, and it's a waste of everyone's time. That's why I'm sharing some tips on how to design effective agendas and meeting structures that will help you and your team achieve your goals. 1. Start with a clear objective: Before you even begin to design your agenda, you need to have a clear objective in mind. What is the purpose of the meeting? What do you hope to achieve? Having a clear objective will help you stay focused and ensure that everyone is on the same page. 2. Prioritize your agenda items: Once you have your objective in mind, it's time to prioritize your agenda items. Start with the most important items and work your way down. This will help you stay on track and ensure that you cover all the necessary topics. 3. Include time limits: Time is a precious commodity, and meetings can quickly spiral out of control if there are no time limits in place. Include time limits for each agenda item to ensure that you stay on track and don't run over time. 4. Assign roles: Assigning roles to each team member can help ensure that everyone is engaged and contributing to the meeting. Assign someone to take notes, someone to keep track of time, and someone to facilitate the discussion. 5. Use visuals: Visual aids can be a great way to keep everyone engaged and on track. Use slides, charts, or diagrams to help illustrate your points and keep the discussion focused. 6. Follow up: After the meeting, make sure to follow up with everyone to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that action items are being completed. This will help ensure that the meeting was effective and that progress is being made. Let me know your thoughts 🤗

Hi, I was reflecting upon vulnerability as a facilitator and wanted to share some thoughts with you. Also to ask what's your approach? We also have stomach pain sometimes, did not sleep well or not at all before a session, and sometimes our kids are sick at home and we have to deliver a session. Sometimes we are just putting half of the water glass on us 1 minute before we start the session 🤣. Or simply we are literally concerned about the outcome of the session…. Yes, all the above happened to me as well! How to stay “perfect” in front of your participants? You don’t have to…. It’s ok to be vulnerable. It’s ok to say what you feel, what you are experiencing. It’ok to share what your needs are and to set expectations towards them. One of the things I do in the setting expectations part at the beginning of a session is to add how I feel at that moment and what needs I have ( I refer if I will need help with something during the session, etc.). And I do this using humor about myself. Independent of how bad it is, humor about myself is one of the things that helps the participants to relax, they sometimes relate, and they see I am not something special, but human :) I also like to share some emotional rollercoasters with them, and how they might feel during the session. In some moments, it might be uncomfortable to work on a specific activity and that’s normal, but it will be all fine at the end. Tell me about you ....

I recently consulted a client who wanted to do better client workshops. To my surprise, they didn't use any rules to guideline that collaborative dynamics – which I think is absolutely key to avoiding loads of trouble. Also, I tend rather to call them --> GUIDELINES or --> RECOMMENDATIONS, because certain terms are more or subtle resistance triggers. I would love to know from you, hence use this as a sharing thread: + WHAT RULE SET DO YOU USE? + How participants integrate them? + How do you get them to comply? + How often have you to remind them/pointing the finger back to the rule set? PS.: Here are some of my favourites, pretty Design Thinking inspired: FlightMode / Fun is not the enemy of Work / Ask! / Hands-Up-Moderation / Done is better than perfect / CircleWork / One Conversation At The Time / No criticism without better suggestions / Work Visual / Coach Control (the force to feedback me instantaneaously, if I lost the track) / Built Up On Ideas Of Others / Communicate Your Needs / Headline Style On PostIts /...

For quiet some time I’ve asked myself now if freelance facilitation is only something for extroverts. Especially because of the additional marketing aspect that comes with it which requires additional human contact. Am I right or are there any freelance introverts in this community who are happy with it?

Tired of hearing participants express their lack of creativity or feeling like they don't fit into your workshops? 😫 It's frustrating to hear but simply throwing phrases like "be creative", "there is no such things as a bad idea" or "think outside the box" won't magically solve the issue. A common misconception is that only naturally creative individuals can come up with creative ideas. However, this is not true. Creativity is like a muscle that everyone possesses, even if it may be a bit rusty. So, how can you get your workshop participants back into creative shape without investing months in training? 💡💪 After doing some research and experimenting, I've compiled a set of techniques and rules that put participants in the ideal mindset for generating ideas. I call these the “7 laws of creative ideation” Are you ready to elevate your brainstorming sessions to the next level? Check out the carousel below 👇 Now, I'm curious to know—what are your tricks for boosting your workshop participants' creativity? 🤔 #Creativity #Workshops #Facilitation #Innovation