Library of facilitation techniques

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IAF is a worldwide community of facilitators promoting excellence in the use of professional group process facilitation to create engagement and impact.

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1,509 results

Methods (1509)

Hyper Island

Alignment & Autonomy

A workshop to support teams to reflect on and ultimately increase their alignment with purpose/goals and team member autonomy. Inspired by Peter Smith's model of personal responsibility. Use this workshop to strengthen a culture of personal responsibility and build your team's ability to adapt quickly and navigate change.

Gamestorming methods

RACI Matrix

Sometimes responsibilities aren’t clear. By creating a RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) matrix, a group will tackle the responsibility problem directly.

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Liberating Structures

Discovery & Action Dialogue (DAD)

DAD makes it easy for a group to discover better practices that only a few members are using to solve a common problem, called positive deviant behaviors.


We’re going to uncover the behaviors and practices some of us are already using to tackle our shared challenge. It’s like going on a treasure hunt to find the solutions hidden in our midst.”When held in a local setting close to where the problem manifests, it creates a safe space to invent new and more effective practices, sparking imagination and strengthening resolve to take action. It also builds relationships between people in diverse roles. This structure enacts LS Principle #2, Practice Deep Respect for People and Local Solutions.

Hyper Island

Feedback: I appreciate...

Regular, effective feedback is one of the most important ingredients in building constructive relationships and thriving teams. Openness creates trust and trust creates more openness. Feedback exercises aim to support groups to build trust and openness and for individuals to gain self-awareness and insight. Feedback exercises should always be conducted with thoughtfulness and high awareness of group dynamics. This is a good early feedback exercise when group members have developed some comfort and are still getting to know each other. It focuses on sharing appreciation and curiosity about each other.

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Gamestorming methods

Affinity Map

Most of us are familiar with brainstorming—a method by which a group generates as many ideas around a topic as possible in a limited amount of time. Brainstorming works to get a high quantity of information on the table. But it begs the follow-up question of how to gather meaning from all the data. Using a simple Affinity Diagram technique can help us discover embedded patterns (and sometimes break old patterns) of thinking by sorting and clustering language-based information into relationships. It can also give us a sense of where most people’s thinking is focused

Liberating Structures

Critical Uncertainities

In Critical Uncertainties, groups develop strategies for handling factors that are impossible to predict or control. This helps to quickly test strategies and improve our ability to respond to future challenges. Rather than creating fixed plans, this structure builds creative adaptability, enabling groups to envision multiple futures, articulate higher-order goals, and act flexibly. It brings to life LS Principle #7, Emphasize Possibilities: Believe Before You See.

Hyper Island

Design Sprint for Any Team

Inspired by Google’s design sprint process, this workshop provides a structure that teams can use to rapidly prototype and test new ideas. Use this workshop to rapidly ideate, prototype and try out a new concept and practice working creatively and quickly with your team.

Thiagi Group

Near and Far

Near and Far is a wonderful warm up game that provides excellent avenues to build connections and to discuss various issues of corporate culture and dynamics. I have used it in conferences and it is suitable for small, medium, and large groups.
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Thiagi Group

Leadership Envelopes

Leadership exercise in groups, working with practical leadership principles.

This activity helps groups to translate abstract leadership principles into practical on-the-job behaviours. Participants work in groups to come up with real-life application of leadership principles. The groups take multiple rounds to build upon the ideas of each other, and in the end, evaluate the best ideas to identify the most useful behaviours.

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