Library of facilitation techniques

Ice breaking at the beginning of the workshop/meeting

Even with established teams, it’s important to get people into the holiday mood and encourage creativity and collaboration.

Assign people into pairs or triads and each pair/triad needs to write one pair of rhyme for the music of a popular song. In this holiday-themed version, we'll ask participants to create a version of Jingle bells.

Whatever the occasion or song, it's a nice twist if they incorporate something in the lyrics that is related to your own company and culture.

As a leader or manager in a large organization, you probably have a sense of the culture and people challenges facing you, but at the same time, you must also manage not only down but up and across the organization.

Culture Mapping gives you the intelligent information you require to make a business case for the interventions, executive support, and budget you will need to minimize risk and maximize the chances of success for your change initiative.

The MPS exercise is a simple, deep reflection tool designed to help participants 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.

Help a group get to know each other better with simple mnemonics in this fast, fun game played in a circle.

MoSCoW is a method that allows the team to prioritize the different features that they will work on. Features are then categorized into “Must have”, “Should have”, “Could have”, or “Would like but won‘t get”.

To be used at the beginning of a timeslot (for example during Sprint planning) and when planning is needed.

Wizard's Boon is a quick, energizing activity that encourages group presence and invites participants to consider how they might collaborate more effectively in the session ahead.

Players perform a scene based on an audience suggestion. At any point during the scene, the Host may blow a whistle and call for a “New Choice,” (or "Change!") at which point the previous line of dialogue and/or action is replaced with a new line of dialogue and/or action.

The purpose of a retrospective is to reflect on the process of the team’s collaboration, rather than on the content of work itself. This opening icebreaker helps participants to get in a reflective mood and share their thoughts and feelings.

This is a classic business tool used to keep meetings and workshops focused on track. During discussions, questions will often emerge that are important but not fully relevant to the focus at the moment. These questions or issues are “parked” on a flipchart, to be addressed and answered later. This practice helps ensure that important questions do not get lost and that the group can stay focused on the most relevant things.

Open your workshop / session / meeting with a visual check-in that enables people to be there as who they are and what's on their mind:

• Every participant selects a picture representing how they are
• Take turns sharing how this cards represents them/their mood/situation