Delivery Matters

Stories behind workshop plans,
sticky notes and markers.

Author: James Smart

What to look for in training management software: a buyer’s guide

The right training management software should make it easier to organize your programs, coordinate instructors, and deliver consistent, high-quality learning experiences. But the exact features you need will depend on how your training team operates, the kind of training you are designing and delivering, and the biggest challenges you're facing with your current solution. This guide covers the key features to look for in training management software, what to consider when evaluating costs, and how to choose a system that fits your organization's needs. What to look for in training management software The best training management software isn't necessarily the platform with the longest feature list. It's the one that…

10 best training management systems for instructor-led training

Running a single instructor-led training session is relatively straightforward. But what happens when you're responsible for 50 sessions across different teams, locations, and timezones? The right training management system (TMS) can make a big difference when it comes to coordinating instructor availability, preparing materials for different audiences, and trying to keep track of what's happening across your program. In this guide, we'll explore ten training tools you can use when managing instructor-led training. We'll explore what each TMS is good at, and how to choose the right one for your program. What is a training management system? Training management systems (TMS) help organizations plan, organize, and coordinate their training programs.…

Photograph of participants playing a training game.

29 engaging training activities and games

Creating the ideal conditions for learning isn’t easy. Trainers need to balance information sharing and theory with experiential activities in order to create effective learning experiences. Training games are a great way to engage trainees with interactive activities that help facilitate the learning process. In this guide, we'll share our favourite training activities alongside tips for engaging trainees. You'll leave with practical ideas for improving your next employee training and add new methods to your toolkit. Let’s dive in! What are training activities and games? Training games and activities are interactive activities designed to engage trainees and create a more memorable and engaging learning experience. These games are experiential in…

A photograph of a trainer delivering content.

Instructor-led training: coordinator guide (best practices & trends.)

When designing and delivering employee training, one size rarely fits all. While some skills and topics can be effectively taught in a self-paced environment, instructor-led training continues to be a great way to impart knowledge and skills experientially. But how do you ensure instructor-led training is engaging and cost-effective at scale? Whether you’re working in a virtual or live environment, this guide to instructor-led training will help you and your trainers deliver exceptional training experiences. We'll share share best practices, actionable insights and help you decide when instructor-led training is right for you and your team. What is instructor-led training? Instructor-led training (ILT) is a learning format where an instructor or…

How to plan a team offsite: a complete guide

Planning a team offsite is a big responsibility. You're managing logistics (venues, travel, catering, schedules), balancing needs, and designing an experience that people are going to give their time, energy, and trust to. This guide is designed to help you plan and deliver a company offsite where teams truly connect, decisions are made, and where the team goes back to regular work with purpose and energy. You’ll find practical planning advice, example templates and insights from our years of running team offsites at SessionLab. A team offsite is about more than getting everyone in your company together in a nice hotel for a few days. A good offsite creates the…

How to scale facilitation in your organization

Most L&D managers and facilitators I speak to can name the problems of unscaled facilitation immediately. Inconsistent session quality and messy workflows. An impact that's felt in the room but impossible to demonstrate to leadership. A struggle to make good facilitation practices stick. In this guide, we introduce the facilitation maturity model. A four-stage framework for L&D and org dev teams wanting to deliver better interventions, greater ROI, and spread facilitation skills. This guide is full of practical, evidenced advice and resources for every stage of the scaling process. Giving a name to the issues caused by a lack of a facilitation capacity is easy. What's harder to name is…

How to create more effective facilitator guides

Running training at scale is a challenge. You need to maintain high-standards as your training programs grow and facilitators work across countries, languages and formats. Facilitator guides create a structured way to scale training and ensure quality, but how can you standardise and maintain version control while also giving trainers room to breathe? In this guide, we'll share what makes a great facilitator guide, walk through the key components, and offer practical tips for building guides that work whether you're supporting five trainers or five hundred. Let's dig in! What is a facilitator guide? A facilitator guide (also known as a training guide) is a structured document designed to help…

SessionLab is SOC 2 Type II compliant

We’ve recently completed our SOC 2 Type II attestation at SessionLab. This is a major security milestone for SessionLab, but it goes further. It reflects something broader about how facilitation work is evolving, and what teams increasingly expect from the tools they rely on. Being SOC 2 Type II certified helps us meet those expectations, so teams can confidently use SessionLab as a shared workspace for designing, managing, and scaling high quality facilitation. Let's explore why this matters and explain SOC2 type II attestation in a little more detail. What is SOC 2 compliance? SOC 2 is an internationally recognized compliance framework focused on how organizations protect customer data. It…

SessionLab 2025 recap

2025 was a big year for SessionLab. We focused on one core shift: bringing your entire session design workflow – from brief to follow-up – into one connected workspace. With Pages, Forms and the context-aware AI assistant, you now have the tools to centralize your process and streamline your complete design process. No more jumping between docs, spreadsheets, and different tools. This post recaps the most impactful product updates we shipped in 2025, along with a few practical tips to help you get more value from them in 2026. Let's dive in! 1️⃣ Pages: your session brief and report, right next to the agenda Pages introduced a dedicated space inside each…

Building a complete session design workflow in SessionLab

Designing an effective workshop does not start and end with an agenda. It’s a process that begins with client conversations and continues through planning, design, delivery, feedback, and reporting back to stakeholders. Whether you're a facilitator designing bespoke client workshops or an L&D lead creating training programs at scale, it can be a lot to manage. Below, we'll explore how SessionLab's new features combine to help you organize your end-to-end planning process in one place and streamline your workflow. Organizing everything involved in planning and running a session can be complex and time-consuming. Trainers need to connect needs assessment and training needs to their agenda design. Stakeholders need to be…

SessionLab Vs Excel

Before SessionLab, I would design complex sessions in Excel. Timing and organization have always been important to me as a facilitator and it seemed to make sense to create my agendas in a spreadsheet. When working in Excel, I found myself frustrated with endless copy and pasting, manually calculating timings and struggling to stay on top of my learning flow. Whether it was presenting a messy spreadsheet to clients or struggling to maintain formulas, the task of finalizing my agenda always filled me with dread. There has to be a better way, right? Back when I had to use Excel, I would always end up with a completed agenda and…

Announcing the Workshops & Wizards facilitation deck!

Workshops & Wizards is a deck of cards designed to teach groups about facilitation skills and support personal growth and development. Send participants on a learning quest, discuss what equipment perfect* facilitators might use or give kudos for positive examples of facilitation in action. Learn more about how to use Workshops & Wizards to support your session below. Download the free print-at-home version, try out the digital deck and register your interest in a physical edition. What is the Workshops & Wizards deck? Workshops & Wizards is a deck of cards that helps teach key facilitation skills, improve collaboration and help you run better workshops and meetings. Each card is…

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