Group Order
This is an energizing activity that helps members of a group get to know each other, network, and recognize what they have in common.
Library of facilitation techniques
find the right tool for your next session
117 results
Methods (117)
Improved Solutions
You can improve any solution by objectively reviewing its strengths and weaknesses and making suitable adjustments. In this creativity framegame, you improve the solutions to several problems. To maintain objective detachment, you deal with a different problem during each of six rounds and assume different roles (problem owner, consultant, basher, booster, enhancer, and evaluator) during each round. At the conclusion of the activity, each player ends up with two solutions to her problem.
Job Description in 99 Words
Ask the participants to write what their job means to them in exactly 99 words (no more, no less), and then divide participants to explore and discuss the perception of their jobs.
Keep Your Finger on the Pulse
Public speaking is reported to be one of the top stressful events for all people. This jolt uses that fact to make a learning point about the physiological effects of stress on the body.
Participants take their pulse at the beginning of a session. They are later told they will be participating in a stressful event. When they retake their pulse, they realize how much the thought of the stressful event has caused their pulse rate to increase.
Lasting Impression Elevator Pitch
How do you explain what you do to someone you meet for the first time and make a lasting impression? Being able to explain what you do may result in a career spurt—or at least help you avoid some embarrassment.
Participants write a short pitch they can use to introduce themselves to clients or new acquaintances or to make unscheduled presentations. Later, they have the pitch critiqued and improved using a three-part rating system.
Leadership Advice from Your Role Model
This structured sharing activity provides a faster, cheaper, and better alternative to buying and reading a lot of books: You tap into the wisdom of the group—and of their role models.
Leadership Envelopes
Leadership exercise in groups, working with practical leadership principles.
This activity helps groups to translate abstract leadership principles into practical on-the-job behaviours. Participants work in groups to come up with real-life application of leadership principles. The groups take multiple rounds to build upon the ideas of each other, and in the end, evaluate the best ideas to identify the most useful behaviours.
Letter from the Future
Teams that fail to develop a shared vision of what they are all about and what they need to do suffer later on when team members start implementing the common mandate based on individual assumptions. To help teams get started on the right foot, here is a process for creating a shared vision.
Little Known Facts - I
People enjoy learning little-known facts (LKFs) about each other. (E.g. I have a twin brother / I always need to know which direction North is / etc.). They also enjoy revealing such facts to total strangers--perhaps because it makes them feel like celebrities. Participants guess LKFs about other people by asking Yes/No questions.
Little-Known Facts II.
People enjoy learning little-known facts (LKFs) about each other. (E.g. I have a twin brother / I always need to know which direction North is / etc.). They also enjoy revealing such facts to total strangers--perhaps because it makes them feel like celebrities. In this exercise teams match LKFs with participants.
Long Words
The real name of this jolt is Proactive Planning, but using that name will give away the key point that we want players to discover. Presented as a word game, this jolt lulls lures players to go after immediate gains in a mindless fashion only to regret the action later.
Management
A Reflective Teamwork Activity (RTA) involves participants creating a checklist and then evaluating their performance by using the same checklist they created.
Here's an outline of this activity: Participants are organized into groups of five. Members of each group are randomly assigned to the roles of a manager, an assistant manager, and three employees. Each participant prepares a list related to a different management topic. The manager has the lengthy task and additional supervisory responsibilities. Other group members have simpler tasks. After the list preparation activity is completed, a debriefing discussion relates the manager's behavior to the items in her list.