Library of facilitation techniques

Roses, buds, and thorns is a quick and simple team exercise that can be performed at the start of a group meeting. The idea is to evaluate a project, team task, or even your day by having each team member come up with a Rose (positive highlight), Thorn (struggle or challenge), and Bud (opportunity for improvement). The goal of this activity is to open up discussion among team members and acknowledge the strengths and weaknesses of others. This can allow you to put measures in place to do more of what's going well, and fix what needs fixing. As well, this activity inspires creativity and debate within teams. Discussing Buds can encourage new, creative ideas to come to the fore. Finally, the activity allows you to gain insight from all members of the team as communication and honesty are important for every group!

How many can you build in three minutes?

The goal of the game is for each team to create as much high quality tested planes that can fly a distance of at least 30 meters . The world record holder last checked in June 2016 was in Germany.

A major purpose of an opening activity is to help participants get acquainted with each other. Here's an opener that identifies and rewards participants who would make good politicians.

In the Design Sprint process, the interview is a crucial step to test your prototype.

This method provides a deliberate and scientific approach to conduct effective interviews. A consistent process and unbiased mindset yield realistic feedback. Effective scoring gives clarity to the results and primes you to make strategic decisions.

A blend of Open Space and World Cafe that gets large groups of people working on action, in a co-creative, peer coaching environment.

What made success possible? In less than one hour, a group of any size can generate the list of conditions that are essential for its success. You can liberate spontaneous momentum and insights for positive change from within the organization as “hidden” success stories are revealed. Positive movement is sparked by the search for what works now and by uncovering the root causes that make success possible.

Find new opportunities by testing the limit of what's possible? Sometimes getting unstuck means zooming out and then dreaming big. Here's your opportunity to get fantastical. Don't worry about viability or resources, worry about saving the world.

A fun activity that helps participants working together as a team while teaching the importance of communication, strategy and trust.

Even though Three Questions takes just a few minutes, it provokes the participants into reflecting for a long time.

Used as a post-session follow up or multiple session activity, participants share their action plan or project success. Results can be posted and discussed on a shared network or brought to a later live session (such as a review session or informal group catch up). 

The object of this game is to examine an issue from another perspective and find significance in the issue.