Library of facilitation techniques

Shadowing describes the practice of accompanying/observing someone for a defined period of time during their work and learning from this observation.

You can improve any solution by objectively reviewing its strengths and weaknesses and making suitable adjustments. In this creativity framegame, you improve the solutions to several problems. To maintain objective detachment, you deal with a different problem during each of six rounds and assume different roles (problem owner, consultant, basher, booster, enhancer, and evaluator) during each round. At the conclusion of the activity, each player ends up with two solutions to her problem.

ROUND ONE

This textra game incorporates these important facts:

It is easier to compare two different items at a time than to compare a larger number of items.

When we compare two items, we understand them at a deeper level.

One, Two, And More is a flexible structured sharing activity for exploring different topics using different sets of questions. A unique feature of this activity is answering each question in three different modes: individual, pairs, and in teams.

A polling process for any workshop where a decision between several alternatives is hard to reach

You might be familiar with Thirty-Five as a structured-sharing activity. Thirty-Five can also be used as an effective debriefing game.

In this version, participants reflect on an earlier experience and identify important lessons they learned. They write one of these lessons as a brief item. The winner in this activity is not the best player, but the best lesson learned.

In the Understanding Chain game, a group shifts from a content focus to an audience focus, and draws out a meaningful, linear structure for communication.

You can tap a deep well of curiosity and talent by helping a group focus attention on problems they want to solve. A productive pattern of engagement is established if used at the beginning of a working session. Loose yet powerful connections are formed in 20 minutes by asking engaging questions. Everyone contributes to shaping the work, noticing patterns together, and discovering local solutions.

After coming up with great ideas, the next challenge is figuring out the best way to make them happen. This exercise is one of many types of “scenario” games which can be used to test ideas and try out different approaches to bring them to life.

Participants walk blindfolded through a fake mine field guiding each other.

ROUND THREE