Library of facilitation techniques

In Mad Tea/Calm Tea, everyone rapidly completes sentences related to a shared challenge to quickly provoke a deeper set of reflections and strategic insights among group members. Mad Tea is the louder, more energetic face-to-face version, while Calm Tea is the quieter online alternative. They both get people thinking differently, sharing new ideas, and understanding different perspectives while generating fellowship and laughter. Both bring to life LS Principle #9, Engage in Seriously Playful Curiosity. The questions focus attention and produce a fresh understanding of strategic options and next steps.

Quick, easy and democratic way to visually prioritize choices/ideas

What is going on inside a group? Have we paid attention to all voices, both the quiet and the loud? Is everyone on board or are some lost at sea?

Temperature Check gives an instant visual overview of the thoughts and feelings of every group member around a specific topic, and from here, creates an opening for deeper conversation and understanding. At best, a non-threatening way of addressing the elephant in the room.

The Six Thinking Hats are used by individuals and groups to separate out conflicting styles of thinking. They enable and encourage a group of people to think constructively together in exploring and implementing change, rather than using argument to fight over who is right and who is wrong.

Benefit-oriented and learner-centered transfer feedback forms are used as an evaluation tool at the end of the training, with transfer success and business impact as the target outcomes.

The key to such procedures as need analysis, market research, and evaluation is the ability to find patterns in available information, collect additional information, and come to logical conclusions. We devised a game with a pocket calculator to teach this type of logical thinking.

A rapid game of name learning with probably a lot of funny moments. Besides it teaches particiapants how to communicate and strategize in an effective way without being  explicit about these goals.

It is said that, “the many are smarter than the few,” but under what conditions? This activity encourages participants to reflect upon their own collaborative successes and failures for the purpose of determining which factors help to achieve effective collaboration.

Using multiple digital whiteboards, participants float to different whiteboards to add their thoughts, contributions, or questions. Final whiteboards are discussed and reviewed.

In Wicked Questions, participants ask, “How is it that we are doing two things in tension with each other simultaneously?” These questions reveal entangled challenges that are unintuitive or difficult to discuss. Wicked Questions can reduce either-or thinking and engage everyone in thinking strategically about how to balance competing priorities. It can be particularly useful in transitions because it exposes the tension between what is being said and what is actually being done. This structure reinforces LS Principle #7, Emphasize Possibilities: Believe Before You See.