Library of facilitation techniques

find the right tool for your next session

Featured Author – International Association of Facilitators

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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379 results

Methods (356)

Hyper Island

Stakeholder Analysis

Managing stakeholders can help you ensure that your projects are met with success where others might fail. This activity supports you to identify your project’s stakeholders. It helps you take into account everyone who significantly impacts a decision, or could be affected by it. Identifying who has various levels of input and interest in your projects can help align decisions.

Hyper Island

Stinky Fish

A short activity to run early in a program focused on sharing fears, anxieties and uncertainties related to the program theme. The purpose is to create openness within a group. The stinky fish is a metaphor for "that thing that you carry around but don’t like to talk about; but the longer you hide it, the stinkier it gets." By putting stinky fish (fears and anxieties) on the table, participants begin to relate to each other, become more comfortable sharing, and identify a clear area for development and learning.

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Mirna Smidt  from Trainers Toolbox

Strengths Spotting

A reflective coaching exercise in which participants uncover personal strengths by engaging in deep, meaningful conversation with a partner. Using guiding questions, each person interviews the other and listens for clues about their natural talents, motivations, and flow states.

This coaching-style activity boosts self-awareness and is particularly useful in personal development, team-building, or coaching sessions.

Mirna Smidt  from Trainers Toolbox

The Belonging Barometer

Look past whether a team gets along and ask a sharper question: can people here actually disagree and still feel safe? Rooted in the Unity with Others pathway of the Map of Meaning framework, it focuses on the quality of relationships rather than mere presence, whether people can share what matters to them without silencing it. Ideal for team retrospectives, trust-building sessions, and leadership development, wherever a team needs an honest read on belonging rather than a surface-level one.