Library of facilitation techniques
find the right tool for your next session
Methods (1531)
Starship Canvas
Get your team on the same page about what they're good at, what they need, covering individual skills, personal goals, team values, and concrete commitments.
Future-Present
Notice threads in the present that if tugged on might unravel a more attractive future. Identify how the hints of a more ideal future are present, just not widely distributed yet. Participants can notice small changes, support structures, and local success patterns that have the potential to be scaled up to a global transformation. This includes surfacing strategies to overcome resistance and methods to spread early successes. Future~Present does not produce a plan to be implemented but rather builds momentum, imagination, social proof, and confidence in subtle or incremental signals. This builds capacity to actively shape next steps and pounce on opportunities. Future~Present enacts LS Principle #9, Engage in Seriously Playful Curiosity.
Network Relationship Patterns
In Network Relationship Patterns, participants identify how their group describes its work, how it actually works, and how it wants to work.
This structure clarifies current relationship patterns to map a transition toward new ones. It is designed to make conversations about intangible group dynamics easier by providing a shared language for describing and visualizing patterns.
Participants use simple cards to represent different roles, behaviors, or connection types in a network (for example, who initiates, who bridges, who withdraws, who amplifies).
By arranging and rearranging these cards, groups can explore how influence flows, where bottlenecks exist, and how new connection patterns might improve collaboration. This structure helps teams better understand relational dynamics and intentionally shift toward more productive and inclusive network patterns.
It brings to life LS Principle #7, Emphasize Possibilities: Believe Before You See.
Talking with Pixies
Uncover and challenge the hidden beliefs, assumptions, and internal voices that are limiting progress toward an important goal.
In small groups, one person shares a personal or professional challenge while two others play contrasting “pixie” roles – one advocating for change and possibility and the other representing resistance and caution.
Through this playful exchange, participants surface unconscious assumptions, explore opposing perspectives on risks and opportunities, and gain clarity on how to move forward. This structure helps reveal internal barriers, generate new insights, and support more informed action planning in individual and group settings.
Year Compass
A well-designed self-reflection & planning tool that helps teams & individuals to review the past year with mindfulness and intention, and set meaningful goals for the year ahead.
Meaning, Pleasure & Strengths (MPS)
A simple tool for deep reflection for participants to identify life elements that contribute most to their well-being.
It helps participants gain clarity on how to live more aligned, joyful, and purpose-driven lives. It also gives insights into what truly matters to them, and into their values and strengths.
Empathy Walk – nach Otto Scharmer / Theory U
Ein Empathy Walk stärkt deine Fähigkeit, Raum zu halten für jemanden, der sehr anders ist als du – und über eine bedeutende Grenze hinweg Beziehung aufzubauen.
Polak Exercise
Named after futurist Fred Polak, this reflective exercise asks participants to consider how they see the future, whether it’s bright or bleak, and how those images shape the present. It helps surface underlying assumptions and emotional responses to change.
Ring of Fire
Eine Gruppe hebt synchron einen imaginären Ring an und schleudert ihn in die Luft, bis der Moment absolut gemeinsam und stimmig erlebt wird.
Worth It! - Prioritization
Ever had a really fascinating workshop debate on how much value an idea or issue has without consulting the fact book? Get stronger real-time analysis on any issues or ideas brought up in a session to help decide what will provide the best return on investment that is grounded in fact.
Data doesn’t lie.
Use this to predict what the ROI should be on certain ideas before you go through the arduous design phase and leave rhetoric at the door.