Library of facilitation techniques

The Fishbowl game is an effective way to activate attention—to prime our natural listening and observing skills so that a more substantive conversation can take place.

Everyone covers their camera and one person makes a statement that is true about themselves. If it is true for others on the call, they show their face to the camera as well. The initiation for the next prompt is passed to another person in the group.

Name all the bad ideas to make room for good ones. Coming up with the perfect solution right off the bat can feel paralyzing. So instead of trying to find the right answer, get unstuck by listing all the wrong ones.

When people must tackle a common complex challenge, you can release their inherent creativity and leadership as well as their capacity to self-organize.

Open Space makes it possible to include everybody in constructing agendas and addressing issues that are important to them. Having co-created the agenda and free to follow their passion, people will take responsibility very quickly for solving problems and moving into action. Letting go of central control (i.e., the agenda and assignments) and putting it in the hands of all the participants generates commitment, action, innovation, and follow-through. You can use Open Space with groups as large as a couple of thousand people!

Participants can gain insight into their own pattern of interaction and habits. Helping Heuristics make it possible for them to experience how they can choose to change how they work with others by using a progression of practical methods. Heuristics are shortcuts that help people identify what is important when entering a new situation. They help them develop deeper insight into their own interaction patterns and make smarter decisions quickly. A series of short exchanges reveals heuristics or simple rules of thumb for productive helping. Try them out!

By growing our emotional vocabulary, we can better identify our emotions, and check in with ourselves. Doing so can help bring a level of self-awareness, and a better understanding of others.

Dot voting is a collective way of prioritizing and converging on a design solution that uses group voting.

To be used when there are more ideas than can be feasible to develop further.

Light, energising exercise that helps the group to observe the other people on the call.

The Team Purpose Canvas is a simple and effective way to design your team purpose.

This is an exercise to inspire your team with products or services that they think they can use as inspiration for their concepts in the next phases of their design sprints.