SessionLabFacilitation Techniques and Workshop Activities | Library | SessionLab

Library of facilitation techniques

find the right tool for your next session

439 results
Skye Suttie

Human Device

In this interactive, teams will come together to become a human version of the device listed on their index card. This activity is a means to build team dynamics and also a way to address any challenges a team might be working through as this activity is completely dependent on everyone coming together as a group and playing a part.

Hyper Island

World Cafe

World Café is a simple yet powerful method, originated by Juanita Brown, for enabling meaningful conversations driven completely by participants and the topics that are relevant and important to them. Facilitators create a cafe-style space and provide simple guidelines. Participants then self-organize and explore a set of relevant topics or questions for conversation.

1
Hyper Island

Appreciative Inquiry: Root Causes of Success

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.

Liberating Structures

Wise Crowds

Wise Crowds make it possible to instantly engage a small or large group of people in helping one another. You can set up a Wise Crowds consultation with one small group of four or five people or with many small groups simultaneously or, during a larger gathering, with a group as big as one hundred or more people. Individuals, referred to as “clients,” can ask for help and get it in a short time from all the other group members. Each individual consultation taps the expertise and inventiveness of everyone in the group simultaneously. Individuals gain more clarity and increase their capacity for self-correction and self-understanding. Wise Crowds develop people’s ability to ask for help. They deepen inquiry and consulting skills. Supportive relationships form very quickly. During a Wise Crowds session, the series of individual consultations makes the learning cumulative as each participant benefits not only from being a client but also from being a consultant several times in a row. Wise Crowds consultations make it easy to achieve transparency. Together, a group can outperform the expert!

Liberating Structures

Purpose-To-Practice (P2P)

By using P2P at the start of an initiative, the stakeholders can shape together all the elements that will determine the success of their initiative. The group begins by generating a shared purpose (i.e., why the work is important to each participant and the larger community). All additional elements—principles, participants, structure, and practices—are designed to help achieve the purpose. By shaping these five elements together, participants clarify how they can organize themselves to adapt creatively and scale up for success. For big initiatives, P2P makes it possible to include a large number of stakeholders in shaping their future initiative.

Thiagi Group

Big changes

In a brain-pick activity, participants interview people who share a common experience or background. (These people are called informants.) Participants interact with these informants—and with each other—to collect and organize useful information.

This activity uses people who have undergone major organizational changes. Participants interview them to come up with a list of guidelines for coping with change.