Workshops & Wizards – Magical Kudos

In there purest form, the Workshops & Wizards cards can be used during facilitation training to help the group identify and acknowledge when other members of the group demonstrate key facilitation skills.

You can also use these cards in any group setting where want to enable participants to consider good collaborative behaviours and give one another kudos for practicing those behaviours.

Set-up:

• Download the Workshops & Wizards deck. For this exercise, you'll start by using the Level 1 cards, though with advanced groups or full-day sessions, you might introduce the Level 2 and 3 cards. 
• You'll need Level 1 cards totalling 3x the number of participants so that each participant will get 3 different level 1 cards. 
• If you're using the digital version of Wizards & Workshops, you can simply copy and paste the relevant market stalls.

Step 1

• Separate all the level 1 cards from the deck. These are the 7 core facilitation skills you'll want to start with. 
• Create stacks of 3 different level cards, one for each participant. Each participant should receive 3 different cards.
• Distribute these to participants however you see fit. You might leave them on people's chairs for when they come in as a surprise or leave them face down and ask people to come and grab one and return to their chairs after an icebreaker or energizer. 
• Alternatively, if there's potential for your group to lose cards or the session is messy, create a central space and layout the 7 level 1 cards. When someone sees a great example of the behaviour, they can come up and take the card before awarding it to the person they wish to give kudos. 

Step 2

• Briefly explain the concept of the cards to the group. In short, these cards are magical items that represent a core aspect of successful facilitation/collaboration.

• Let people know that during the session, we'll be giving these cards to one another as kudos for demonstrating that behaviour and to celebrate good collaboration

• Here, we’ve found it useful to show an example of one of the skills in action or refer to something someone has already done in the session. For example, if a participant has already asked a great question, you as the facilitator might award the Wand of Many Questions to them.

• At this stage, it can be useful to ask for the group to share an example of another of the cards if they’ve seen it already. The key is to get buy-in from the group and to get the comfortable awarding cards. 

Step 3

• Invite participants to try and give away all their cards by the end of the session, looking out for great examples of the skill or behaviours on the card.
• If your session design allows, we'd recommend encouraging people to give cards immediately and to let people know why they are been given the card. For some sessions, you might want to invite people to give cards only during breaks or between activities. 
• Where possible, we recommend adding the rule to only receive one card for each instance of a skill. This can ensure cards get spread around the group nicely. 

Step 4

• For the first day of facilitation training, these core cards are sufficient for helping strengthen fundamentals and for asking the group to give kudos to their teammates.

• In longer sessions, we recommend introducing the Level 2 and 3 cards on the second day or after lunch.

• If the group really enjoyed having cards to give away, spread the Level 2 and 3 cards out on the table facedown and as an energizer, invite them to come up and find three cards in three different suits in 30 seconds before rushing back to their chairs.

• In this case, it can be quite nice for there to be lots of cards and for everyone to end up with different ones - there’s the fun factor of seeing what everyone ends up with and discovering new cards.
• If the group prefers having the option to find and award cards from a shared pool or you have a specific training goal, set out only the cards you wish them to use
• In this case, I’d likely introduce only the level 2 cards or level 3 cards. There are 8 different level 2 cards and 7 different level 3 cards. Introducing them all at once in this format has a potential to overload participants.
• Introducing a mix of cards tailored to your session can also be effective at helping participants focus on particular behaviours.

Step 5 - Closing 

• As a closing activity for your session, you might start by asking participants to see how many cards they received and to reflect on them. Then you might ask:
• Which of the magical items you received or gave away was your favourite?
• What patterns do you notice in the cards you received? 
• How did these magical items impact you or the session?
• If you were to take one of the magical items with you for the rest of your week, which would it be?