Announcing the Workshops & Wizards facilitation deck!

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 a magical item that represents a core skill that helps facilitators, leaders and anyone working in a team to improve how they work together.

Below, you’ll find suggestions for how to use the deck for standalone activities, to support team building and as an entire training flow. 

The deck is designed for play and for experimentation and we know that creative facilitators like you will come up with your own wonderful ways to use the cards.

We’re still testing Workshops & Wizards and would love to get your feedback, suggestions and thoughts before moving towards a physical deck you can hold in your hands. 

If you have feedback or suggestions, let us know here!

You can also register your interest in a physical copy of Workshops & Wizards using the link below. 

How do I use the Workshops & Wizards deck?

I created the first prototype of the Workshops & Wizards to support internal facilitation training at SessionLab. 

We introduced the cards at the start of the session and encouraged folks to “give” the cards to other members of the team as they demonstrated the core facilitation skill on the card.

Throughout the session, the team gave one another kudos, had conversations about what they might improve and the cards they hoped to get, and even created their own cards during their session. They were great fun to use and helped engage the group in the training material.

This updated and expanded version of Workshops & Wizards can be used in a variety of ways, but here’s what we think it’s best at:

• Supporting facilitation and leadership training, particularly when you touch on the skills covered by the cards.
• Sparking conversations about facilitation skills and group dynamics. You might use the cards at the opening of a session to set intentions for how we want to show up or during a team building workshop to understand how your group might improve how they collaborate. 
• Giving participants an opportunity to give kudos when they see others demonstrate great collaboration or positive group behaviour. You might bring them to your regular workshops and meetings to bring attention to positive behaviours and celebrate one another during the session. 
• Exploring areas of personal development and facilitating self reflection. Facilitation skills = leadership skills = collaboration skills. These cards can be used to support personal development, whether individually or in a group. 

Of course, these are all just suggestions. We encourage you to play, experiment and let us know how you like to use them!

The cards 

Workshops & Wizards is a set of 22 cards separated into 3 levels and 3 suits – hand, heart and head. Every card represents a facilitation skill or aspect of a facilitator’s mindset. Let’s explore them now!

Level 1 cards

The seven Level 1 cards represent core facilitation skills and aspects of successful collaboration.

Level 1 cards are a great way to start having conversations about group dynamics, teach some of the most fundamental aspects of facilitation and to celebrate positive group behaviours!

Level 2 cards

The eight Level 2 cards go a little deeper, asking participants to pay greater attention to group dynamics and what might make others feel safe and valued.

Level 2 cards create an opportunity to bring some of that “invisible” facilitation work into the light and discuss softer aspects of great collaboration.

Level 3 cards

The eight Level 3 cards include facilitation skills and techniques that help move groups past obstacles and towards action.

Level 3 cards are an opportunity to talk about concrete techniques that participants can bring to future collaborations and group settings.

When using the cards with a new group, I recommend you start with the level 1 cards only. These seven cards create plenty of scope for learning and conversation without potentially overloading participants. In most of our suggested exercises, you’ll introduce level 2 and 3 cards later in the process.

It’s worth noting that none of these skills are “better” than any others and instead, they correlate more with a learning journey from the general fundamentals of facilitation through to some specific actions and outputs that may be beneficial for a facilitator to learn. 

The suits 

The Workshops & Wizards deck is organized into three suits: Head, Hand and Heart. 

Head cards represent ways of thinking and perspectives you might hold or encourage in others. 

Hand cards represent more practical facilitation tools and techniques you might call on during a session.

Heart cards represent qualities you may embody as a facilitator and softer ways of being that can impact group dynamics. 

In my experience, facilitation is fluid. Different faciltiators often have completely different ways of thinking about facilitation and the skills used while facilitating. 

These suits are just one possible categorization of core facilitation skills. Use them to create discussions, organize the deck and help participants consider what kinds of skills they naturally gravitate towards and which may need development.  

Downloads & resources

Here, you’ll find a PDFs for the print-at-home version of Wizards and Workshops.

Print at home deck

• Full deck including 2 copies of each card and wildcards (PDF)
• Level 1 cards only (PDF)
• Level 2 cards only (PDF)
• Level 3 cards only (PDF)

Generally, you’ll need as many cards as you have participants and as such, you’ll likely need to print out multiple copies of the appropriate PDF (minus the cover page.) To make this easier, use the level specific PDF to get the extra cards you need easily.

Miro template

The Miro template includes the full Workshops & Wizards deck plus additional assets for virtual workshops. You’ll find everything you need to bring the deck to your next online session.

Workshops & Wizards activities

Below, you’ll find a set of activities we’ve designed to help teach groups facilitation skills using the cards, support your meetings and give kudos.

Magical Kudos

Using a set of 3 cards, participants spot examples of effective facilitation in answer and give one another kudos during a session. We found this particularly effective during a facilitation training session we ran at a recent team retreat.

For me, good facilitation looks a lot like good collaboration and so you can use this exercise to support any kind of workshop or collaborative session and give your team the opportunity to reflect and celebrate healthy group dynamics.

Wizard Mingle

This activity is a simple networking activity which uses the cards to kickstart conversations about facilitation and group dynamics. After giving each person a card, participants must mingle, greet each other in a manner befitting a witch or wizard and then discuss the skills noted on their cards.

You can use this activity at the beginning of skills development sessions and facilitation training, regardless of whether you want to use the cards later in the session.

Wizard’s Boon

Wizard’s Boon is an icebreaker/check-in activity where participants select a card to embody during the session. Begin with a quick question about how the party in Lord of the Rings might have used the items to peacefully resolve Middle Earth’s challenges before inviting the group to choose a card they’ll keep for the rest of the meeting.

If using the digital version, try giving everyone a backpack and have them keep their item there for an added sense of ownership.

Facilitation Market

In this more involved training game, participants will first select their favourite items from the market and then work together in pairs to explore how a facilitation witch or wizard might use those items to lead an effective session. Pairs will then present learnings and ideas to the group, leaving everyone with a heap of crowd-sourced insights they can bring to their facilitation practice.

Personal Development Quest

Best used as a closing reflection, this activity asks participants to choose a card representing a skill they’d like to work on. Next, the present their quest to develop that skill to a small group who gives support and advice on how they might develop. Go round the circle until everyone has received support and then send everyone on their respective quests!

License and credits

Workshops & Wizards work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. You’re free to use, adapt and remix this material so long as you give clear attribution, indicate if changes were made, do not use the material for commercial purposes and distribute materials under the same license.

Workshops & Wizards is designed by James Smart for SessionLab.
Testing and development by Deborah Rim Moiso.
Visual design and illustrations by Laura Vidal.

Feedback

As mentioned above, we’re working on a physical edition of Workshops & Wizards and welcome all feedback. If you have any feedback, suggestions or would like to collaborate, please let us know with this short feedback form.

If you’d like to register your interest in a physical copy and get updates on the project, you can also leave your email address below.

James Smart Head of Content

James Smart is Head of Content at SessionLab. He’s also a creative facilitator who has run workshops and designed courses for establishments like the National Centre for Writing, UK. He especially enjoys working with young people and empowering others in their creative practice.