In this guide, we’ll share an effective ideation workshop structure and a heap of tips for running an effective ideation process, whether you’re trying to solve problems for users or simply need to create innovation in any context.

What is an ideation workshop?

An ideation workshop is a structured format for going from zero ideas to great ideas. Typically, an ideation session will follow a process that begins with defining the problem and brainstorming potential solutions.

After initial ideation, groups will then refine those ideas and begin turning them into well-defined solutions. Once those solutions have been presented and explored, groups will tend to end a session by choosing one to move forward with or committing to further research and exploration.

While the exact make-up ideation workshop will differ based on the problem statement, team and solution space, they will generally follow a similar structure to the below. Here, we’ll explain each stage in a typical ideation session and offer a little advice for each too. Let’s dig in!

User research and data gathering

Generating ideas without a good understanding of the problem you are trying to solve is a surefire way of creating an ineffective solution. The most effective creative process often starts with research and gathering data to inform the innovation process before the date of the workshop.

This can look like everything from conducting interviews with users, gathering and collate quantitate data, exploring the wider competitive landscape and more. We’ll explore this more below, but the key takeaway here is that you should always do some research before approaching any ideation process.

In some cases, you might even invite experts to your session so participants can ask questions before they generate ideas. In the Design Sprint 2.0 workshop, for example, the first day starts with a section on expert interviews that helps inform the rest of the session and provide a foundation for new ideas. These experts might be users, members of your target audience or simple those people in your team most familiar with the problem space.

Try and provide as much supporting information as you can to help define and contextualize the problem you’re solving while also providing valuable insights for creating solutions that will actually solve that issue.

Problem analysis and discovery

Once you’ve gathered all this raw data to inform your understanding of the problem, you need to make sense of it and set a direction for the rest of the ideation session. This can be as simple as creating a problem statement based on the findings, or opening up further avenues of discovery with the group.

The key here is that you and your team have a strong understanding of the problem you are trying to solve, even if the specific root cause is still elusive.

For example, let’s say you’ve created a fitness tracking app and your users aren’t renewing their subscriptions. What should you do? It’s likely that some initial ideas will spring to mind, but without first gathering insights from users, those ideas may not actually solve the issue and you’ll end up wasting time pursuing.

Then, let’s say you’re running a cross functional ideation workshop to help explore new ideas and create a solution. If you’re not aligned on the actual problem you’re trying to solve, it’s possible your teams diverge completely and again start ideating in the wrong place.

In my experience, a successful ideation workshop is one that moves between convergence and divergence at the right moments – get aligned on the problem you’re solving, but absolutely encourage your workshop participants to diverge in how to solve it, at least at the start of the session.

Ideation and brainstorming

This is the stage most people get excited about when attending an ideation workshop. The moment where everyone is encouraged to come up with as many ideas as possible in a free flow of creativity.

Typically, the facilitator leading the session will use their favoured ideation techniques or brainstorming activities alongside principles like no bad ideas, idea mash-ups and more to aid the free flow of possible solutions.

As discussed above, it’s imperative to have a proper grounding and alignment before you ask a group to generate ideas. It find it helpful to frame this as less of a (brain)storm raging in all-directions, but as a way of directing the group’s collective energy to drive a wind turbine. Focus and a general direction are your friends here!

Once that’s in place, let the creative juices flow but ensure you have thought about how those ideas will then be shared, discussed and refined. If in doubt, try a technique like The Six Thinking Hats to build this kind of feedback loop into your session with ease.

Clustering

This part of the ideation workshop is about making sense of the ideas generated so far, to begin noticing patterns and help set the stage for idea refinement. Typically, workshop participants will add their ideas to a shared space, perhaps briefly framing their idea and then together, the group will begin to cluster ideas together and make sense of where they’re at.

In some settings, it’s common for a facilitator to use ideation techniques like mash up innovation or a form of brainwriting to have a stage of early refinement before clustering.

Personally, the decision comes down to our understanding of the problem, the level of divergence in the group, and the time available. If the group requires a bit more warm-up, I might have them create 10-20 ideas in a first round and then ask them to do a second round.

On the other hand, if the group I’m working with already has a strong understanding of the problem and have perhaps ideated before the session, we might move straight to clustering after a silent brainstorm.

In any case, I’d always recommend having a clustering and sense making step before moving into refinement. The best ideas often come from a synthesis of others, and making the groups thinking visible can help facilitate alignment and excitement. It’s also possible to see that one idea or cluster is clearly rising to the top and so exploring that particularly solution space more deeply may be of interest.

Refinement

Remember what I said about coming up with ideas being easy? This is where you take all those first drafts and (potentially) horrible ideas with a seed of greatness and collectively turn them into something that will stick.

The refinement stage is the one most pliable to the needs of the group. Some teams will have a sticky note for each idea up on a board that everyone is encouraged to silently review before then undergoing a second round of ideation. In other teams, facilitators will put folks into groups to improve the most innovative ideas and turn them into something a little more concrete.

In our fitness tracker example, someone may have the idea to give people extra subscription time based on performance in order to help retain them as a customer. Okay, not bad. But what would that look like in practice? Could you take it further or refine it so that it matches your brand values and the specific problem statement?

While the ideation step was to get all the ideas out and share them with the group, refinement is about helping the best ideas rise up organically and beginning to turn them into something that you might deploy.

Depending on the group, you may run multiple rounds of refinement or even go as far as having groups start to build a business case or begin to scope the work necessary to deploy a solution. Often, the best bet is to refine enough to have a paper prototype, mock-up or clear vision you can share with the group, but not go too deep into implementation. Who knows – your idea might not make it or may be refined further down the line.

I think of the refinement state as taking a raw idea and transforming it into a potential solution. The aim is to shape, add depth and start to think about what that grand idea might look like in practice.

Presentation and voting

After the group has successfully refined their ideas, now comes the time to present them to the rest of the team. The format for this can differ based on the session you’re running and the nature of solutions you’re working with.

When we’re working on product ideas at SessionLab, we’ll often create paper prototypes and hang them up in a space that folks can walk around like a gallery, leaving comments and sticky dots on the bits of the solution they like.

On the flip side, if we’re ideating on strategy and marketing items, a stand-up presentation is often a better way to help everyone understand the vision, ask questions and then qualify next steps.

After everyone has had the chance to present and/or review the various solutions, now comes the time for folks to share what they think and give an indication of which solution they would most like to implement.

In some cases, this is a democracy, where the group will collectively decide which idea to implement. In this case, a method like dot-voting is a fast, proven technique time and again by facilitators running ideation sessions.

It’s worth noting that even if there’s a single decision maker, it’s a great idea to give the group chance to share a snapshot of how they’re feeling. This can help inform the team lead’s decision and ensure everyone in the session continues to be engaged and included in the process. It also helps get an early sense of the roles various folks might play in implementation too.

Decision making

The culmination of a successful ideation workshop is usually the moment where you choose a solution you’re excited about and that the whole group is behind.

Sometimes, making a decision is as simple as getting folks to vote on which they think is most likely to resolve what came up in your problem statement.

In other ideation workshops, you may need to undertake a more involved process of ranking possible solutions. You likely consider possible impact and effort while thinking through the ramifications of possible solutions in order to pick the best one to work on right now.

With our fitness tracker example, it’s possible that you have a great idea for radical new features and diversifying business strategies, but you simply don’t have the capacity to implement them at present.

As such, your team might choose a simple solution in the short term while beginning to work on a larger project. (An impact/effort matrix is perfect for this!) Making the right decision means taking a little time in the ideation session to think about what it actually takes to make those ideas a reality and selecting a solution that solves your challenges while still being feasible.

Want to go deeper? Learn more about how to effectively make group decisions in this post on decision making techniques.

Next steps and closing

So you and your team generated a heap of new ideas, refined them as a group and then decided on a solution. Super! An effective ideation workshop also ensures that action is taken afterwards and that folks are best positioned to continue the momentum of the session.

I find it useful to have each person say what they’re going to do following the session and set a date for the next check-in meeting. This keeps things moving and ensures accountability and ownership.

As with any workshop, it’s also valuable to have a check-out round where people reflect on the process, share what they’re feeling and provide feedback. Symbolically closing your ideation workshops can help participants shift gears, putting aside those bad ideas they were attached to or adding them to a backlog and creating focus for the task ahead.

Though these steps are not exhaustive, they do provide a solid structure for an ideation workshop that you can tinker with further. I hope it’s given you an understanding of what to expect in an ideation workshop and how you might approach designing and running such a process.

Specific frameworks such as the Design Sprint also include steps for prototyping and testing you may want to consider too. As with each of the points above, consider what will best address the problem you’re working with and what is most feasible for the project and group present.

This ideation workshop template from the Board of Innovation is also a great example of how to approach the ideation process with a group. Check it out for inspiration or adjust to your needs!

Why run an ideation workshop?

In my experience, no single mind is better than a diverse group of people at solving a problem. Ideation workshops provide a powerful structure for helping a group quickly come up with new ideas and refine them into solid solutions that will actually solve the challenge at hand.

Running an ideation workshop is especially great when trying to solve important, complicated issues that have no obvious solution. If you find that a problem keeps occurring despite your attempts to fix it or you have a business critical issue that needs your attention, that’s a great trigger for a workshop.

So in short: if an issue is important to your business and you don’t know how to solve it, running an ideation workshop will help you discover how to solve it, get buy-in from your team and give you next steps too.

One misconception I’ve seen is that ideation and innovation workshops are only suitable for product teams or for folks that are building and designing things. While it’s true that the origins of these design thinking frameworks comes from product teams working to solve user issues, their application doesn’t stop there.

In my experience, a (tailored) design sprint or ideation session can be effective even when approaching any complex issue you want to solve collaboratively. Whether that’s a challenge like low employee morale or complex systems issues and team conflicts.

While these frameworks aren’t quite one-size fits all, a skilled facilitator using a general ideation structure can help any group of people make progress on solving tough problems.

Tips for running an ideation workshop

So you’re running a dedicated session for ideation. Your room is booked, the right people are invited and you’re turning your mind to running the workshop and guiding the group towards the perfect solution.

In this section, we’ll share some tips and advice to help you and your group get the most out of your session. Not only will these help you in moment-to-moment facilitation, but they’ll ensure that you create a workshop structure and approach that is best suited to the problem space you’re working with.

There are no bad ideas (but there are irrelevant ones)

No bad ideas is one brainstorming rule you might have heard of. So what do we mean by bad ideas, and why are they okay? There are two main reasons:

1. Warming up.

Sometimes it’s helpful to think of ideation and creativity as a muscle. Before you go out for a big run or lift an incredible amount of weight, you warm-up and stretch. Not only does this help prevent injury, but it helps you achieve more during your exercise too. Not-so-great ideas are the equivalent of a warm-up for your creative brain.

This is also an extension of the quantity over quality principle. Don’t worry about whether they’re good ideas or bad ones, just get out as many as possible as quickly as possible in order to clear the way for better ideas to arise.

2. Creating a sense of safety.

The most effective ideation sessions I’ve ever been a part of have been ones where it’s felt safe to take risks, dream big and suggest something left field. Even if those first ideas that come out during the early stages aren’t perfect, feeling safe to suggest them helps the group go wider, think differently and keep moving.

In some groups I’ve also seen the term “negative ideas” used. While this can mean “bad ideas” it can also mean, challenging ideas, or ideas which upset the status quo.

Sometimes, those ideas which challenge us the most are those which present new angles and help create genuine innovation. Make it safer for the group to truly innovate and solve business problems by letting all ideas exist in the space without being too quick to label them as good or bad.

So “bad ideas” are encouraged, but where I try and guide the group more carefully is when it comes to “irrelevant ideas.”

For example, let’s say we’re running ideation workshops on the subject of our fitness tracking app. During that session, one of the attendees writes an idea on a post it and presents it the group that reads “Soda should contain less sugar.”

Is it a bad idea? Technically no, but it is an idea that isn’t attuned to the needs of this particular ideation session. We don’t sell soda. Our users haven’t told us that soda is a problem they’re facing. The danger of an irrelevant question is that it splits the groups attention and sends folks down a rabbit hole that doesn’t serve the problem space you’re attending to.

All that said, an irrelevant idea is less dangerous than creating a sense of unsafety. No reprimands or public dressing down, please! In the above case, I’d gently try and move things along, guide the group back to relevancy and restate the problem space you’re working with.

Choose a wide or narrow approach

A framing question I find useful when thinking about running an ideation workshop is “how clear is the problem we’re trying to solve?”

The answer to this question will determine everything from who should be in the room to the ideation techniques you’ll use in order to find an effective solution.

Let’s take the example of the fitness tracker app with low user retention. You’ve got some background data but you’re not yet aligned on what’s causing the issue nor how should you approach it.

The cause of that issue is likely to be quite complex and so the specifics of the problem are unclear. As such, starting with the wider problem space of low retention is likely a better approach than narrowing immediately to an assumption like “our user emails have low engagement and that’s why retention is low.”

In this case, I’d advise the group to start wide and explore the low retention problem space before narrowing towards a solution.

On the flip side, if you’ve already done extensive research and discovered that your user onboarding emails are a big problem that deserves the team’s full attention, then the problem is clear, and so you can direct your attention to working on that explicitly with a more narrow approach.

Once you understand your level of clarity on the problem, then you can best choose who needs to be present.

If things are unclear and you need to do some big picture thinking, enlist those people in the group. Getting into the details of your entire onboarding program and need to discuss creative ways to personalize your communications based on user data? That’s likely a slightly different group of people.

Narrow and wide approaches are both extremely effective, but you’ll want to ensure you’re deploying the one that matches your challenge for best results.

Clearly frame the problem space you’re working on

So we’ve established above that an ideation workshop can take a wide or narrow approach based on how much clarity you have on the issue. An effective ideation workshop is also one in which everyone is aligned on the problem you’re solving, regardless of their initial approach to solving it.

In the fitness tracker with low user retention example, you would frame either approach by saying that the the group will be working on the issue of user retention and then provide some supporting information. Why is this important? This framing ensures that people are focused and aligned on what to bring to the table. Without it, you might get great ideas that have nothing to do with the issue and find a lack of traction or shared understanding.

While you might have different perspectives on how to solve the problem you’re facing or even a different understanding of why a problem is occurring, but it’s vital the whole group is aligned on the core issue you’re working on. Think of it as a north start you’re all travelling towards, even if the route is different for different participants.

Having trouble getting to the core problem you want to solve? Try The 5 Whys activity to help a group go deeper and frame the problem space effectively.

Work on the right problem

It’s one thing to have everyone aligned on the problem you’re working on, but it’s also vital that you are working on the right problem.

Narrowing down to a specific problem too soon or making an assumption without exploration can result in teams working on the wrong problem and thus spend time creating solutions that may not actually help address your biggest challenges.

So how do you avoid working on the wrong problem? Depending on how your organization works, you should have a way for challenges and initiatives to be recorded and to rise to the surface.

At SessionLab for example, we have a quarterly planning session where we choose what to work on in order to achieve our company goals. In this framework, challenges go through a consistent process of validation, background research and consideration before the planning session and even more during it.

Aligning your problem discovery process with your company goals is a great first step, but beyond this, you’ll also find that creating a well-defined problem statement, conducting user research or doing a root cause analysis before or during the session is helpful.

If you’re taking a wide approach to ideation, try starting the workshop with an exploration what your participants consider to be the biggest contributors to the issue.

The Sailboat exercise is a fantastic example of an ideation technique you can use to explore a problem space with a team and narrow down to the right problem in an informed, practical way.

Do your (user) research and gather data

Good data and user research are vital for any ideation or problem solving process. They are foundational pillars you’ll use when crafting a problem statement and also when informing new ideas and the solutions you develop.

In many cases, user feedback and data is what triggers the ideation session in the first place. Whether that’s consistent feedback about broken features or data to show a consistent decline in new subscribers year over year.

Whenever possible, bring data and user insights to share at the start of your ideation workshops and to support the framing of your challenge. This can help ensure you’re solving the right problem and also orient folks towards the root cause or even start the creative gears turning.

Whatever you do, ensure you’ve done some data analysis or can rattle off a summary to help folks make sense of what you present. I’ve seen ideation sessions get derailed by vast swathes of data that isn’t actually relevant or which would have been better presented in the form of a summary.

It’s also important to note that it’s not always possible to source deep user research to inform every idea or problem. Some times, you actually need to move faster than data gathering permits. In these cases, having experts and well-informed, smart people in the room is a good stop gap.

For example, you might not have been able to survey dozens of facilitators first hand BUT you can bring your company facilitator expert into the session to provide insights.

The final thing I’ll say on data is that there are times in an ideation workshop where making a decision on two great ideas feels impossible without first doing some further research to validate some assumptions.

In these cases, create a focused research task to be done at the first available opportunity and defer the final decision a touch until you can get at least a little validation.

Document everything (and make it accessible)

In both my personal and professional life, diligently recording ideas and taking notes has been instrumental in making projects become a reality.

A lot of ideation techniques involve each team member writing ideas on sticky notes and then sharing them with the group.

Take a photograph of the completed idea boards or ask a note taker to record those that resonate with the group and any connected conversations. It’s unlikely that you’ll implement all potential solutions immediately, and so these notes can be helpful when a product manager needs to remember that one great idea that now makes sense but which you can’t quite remember.

If working with an online whiteboard board or document, this is especially easy. Simply ask all workshop participants to add ideas to the virtual board, drag in inspiration and leave comments for everyone to see. You’ll also find online workshop tools that can help create summaries or transcriptions of your online chats to ensure nothing is missed.

The idea of documenting everything also extends to using a parking lot to capture conversations and ideas that might be peripheral to the problem at hand, but are worth coming back to. In a tightly structured ideation workshop, it can feel important to stay on topic. A parking lot means that anything that comes up while running an ideation technique isn’t lost, and you can circle back to it when it’s appropriate.

Balance solo and group thinking

Ever been in a session where one person speaks for an hour before you get chance to contribute or even have space to reflect? Not the best environment for new ideas, is it? Round robin brainstorming techniques can be incredibly exciting and effective at producing as many ideas as possible. Be sure to balance these group activities with time for reflection and solo ideation for best results.

Solo thinking and reflection time is also vital for avoiding group thinking and giving time for divergence to really occur. Particularly in groups with strong personalities and loud voices, this personal time can ensure that all areas are properly explored and you don’t double down on a particular solution just because the boss like it.

1-2-4-All is a great example of a technique that helps balance solo and group thinking while also ensuring everyone in the group is able to participate and have their ideas heard.

Engagement is key

When everyone in the room is fully engaged in the process, it can feel a little like magic. One person suggests something that challenges a long-held assumption and something clicks. Ideas come thick and fast and people step up to take ownership of deploying the solution. Getting participants fully engaged in the process and the problem is a large part of what facilitates this outcome. So how do you engage your group?

A well-designed agenda with varied ideation techniques is a great start. Try using brainstorming techniques that encourage visual thinking and critical thinking alike so that people with a broad set of skills can take part.

Workshop facilitation best practices can also help create an engaging atmosphere that positions the session for success. You’ll want to ensure you guide discussions effectively, solicit input, create space for reflection and much more. For more tips on facilitating engagement, read our guide on how to run a workshop.

Conclusion

When you bring the right people together with a common purpose and an effective structure, you can create genuine innovation and solve tough problems. An ideation workshop provides the ideal structure to make that happen.

Whether you’re looking for the perfect ideation technique to inform your process or some advice for leading the group effectively, I hope this guide has helped provide some practical examples you can bring to your next workshop.

Looking for an example ideation workshop as inspiration? Design Sprint 2.0 is a tried and tested process you can run over 4 days, including time for prototyping solutions and validating those prototypes via testing.

Need help understanding how to put together your ideation workshop? Explore our guide on how to plan a workshop to start making your session a reality.

But how to choose the right workshop format to use and how to make the most of time spent together as a team? In this blog post, we’ll share workshop ideas ranging from corporate sessions you can use to make an impact in the workplace all the way through to creative activities you can use to engage participants at any workshop event.

When should I host a workshop?

While there are a near infinite number of potential triggers and workshop topics, the primary reason you may need to host a workshop will likely fall into one of these two camps:

1. You have a group of people together in one place and someone (maybe you) says “Let’s use this opportunity effectively and run a workshop!”
2. You have a specific, (often challenging) goal that requires people to collaborate.

While the specific circumstances can differ, I find this useful to think about when understanding why you should run a workshop, and what kind of a workshop you should run.

If you have a specific goal, this is easy. Whatever your challenge or task, a well-facilitated workshop that is designed to achieve that goal is a great way to go. In the context of this blog post, you’ll find different types of workshop that each have a goal in mind, whether that’s skills development or problem solving.

Using these sessions as inspiration for your next workshop event will help you move things along swiftly while benefit from the insights of experienced facilitators too.

If you’re running a workshop event that is not in response to a specific goal, this is a little trickier. Maybe you have a three-day company conference and have been tasked with running a workshop one afternoon. What do you do?

In this case, it comes down to thinking about the needs of your participants and the context that brings them together. Workshops are always purposeful, even if that purpose is as simple as having fun as a team and building bonds.

If this is you, you’ll find a heap of workshop ideas that can serve as inspiration below. In addition, it’s worth talking to your team, your managers and event organizers to determine what would best serve the group with the time you have available.

You can read much more about this topic in our post on what is a workshop and why you should run one.

If you’re ready to move towards planning your workshop agenda, check out our guide on how to plan a workshop which also includes a template for a series of client planning meetings.

Different types of workshops 

So now we’ve established that workshops are a powerful way to bring a group together and get things done and you’re eager to run one. Next, it might be useful to understand some of the different types of workshop you might run.

Whether you’re organising a session in a workplace environment, at school or as part of a community, each of these workshop activities can be a great way to encourage teamwork and make meaningful progress on your goals.

Before you jump into designing a session, we’d recommend considering this (non-exhaustive) list alongside your goals and the needs of your workshop attendees. By holding all these details together, you can select the right workshop format as the basis for creating an engaging, interactive session.

Whether you’re looking for online workshop ideas or an agenda for an in person event or hybrid workshop, you’ll find something fit for your needs here.

Added bonus, for most of these workshop ideas we’ve also included a ready-to-use, high-quality template for you you can look at for inspiration or even take as a guideline to base your next workshop on! Let’s take a look.

Corporate workshops

In a corporate setting, workshops tend to be used in two primary ways:

1. as an efficient structure for collaboration;
2. as an engaging format for learning and development.

There are many ways to use workshops as a collaborative workplace tool. You might run a workshop to create innovative ideas and solve tough problems facing your company.

Workshops can also be used to set team values, develop company strategy or effectively open or close an important project. What all these use cases have in common is a need for a group to work collaboratively on a common goal. Workshops provide an excellent format for structured work that encourages participation and shared responsible.

For example, a leadership development workshop can help aspiring managers develop the skills they need to lead their teams and build confidence. Similarly, a communication or public speaking workshop can improve how team members interact with each other and with clients, leading to more efficient and harmonious workplace dynamics.

By addressing specific needs and challenges within the organization, corporate workshops can drive significant improvements in performance and morale.

Skills development and educational workshops

While traditional lectures and teaching formats will always have their place, workshops are a powerful tool for learning. Educational workshops are designed to enhance knowledge, skills, and competencies by focusing on the latest research, trends, and best practices in various industries. Examples of educational workshop ideas include college workshops and industry-specific sessions tailored to meet the specific learning needs of the participants.

Educational workshops are particularly effective because they offer a hands-on, interactive learning experience. Participants can engage with the material in a meaningful way, ask questions, and receive feedback from experts and peers.

This approach not only deepens understanding but also helps attendees retain and apply what they’ve learned. Whether it’s a workshop on the latest technological advancements or a session on effective teaching strategies, educational workshops are a powerful tool for continuous learning and growth.

Creative workshops

Remember: all workshops have a goal. Sometimes that goal can be lofty and specific, such as in a strategic planning session or project retrospective. Other times, the goal of workshop events can be to simply create space for fun, memorable experiences with a group.

Creative workshops are interactive sessions where participants get the chance to practice and develop creative skills in a safe and engaging environment.

Examples of creative workshop ideas you might use with a group include art classes, music, and creative writing workshops. These sessions encourage participants to think outside the box, develop new skills, and build confidence in their creative abilities, all while sharing the experience with others.

For event planners, creative workshop ideas can be a great addition to a conference program, networking event or as part of a company retreat. At SessionLab for example, we always try to build in time for collective creativity during our team retreats, whether that’s an art class, pottery making workshop or even cooking together.

In our experience, the right creative workshop can also have profound effects on things like team cohesion, trust and general happiness. Especially as a fully remote team, we’ve found running a virtual workshop with the express goal to have fun and be creative as a group has helped keep our emotional batteries running high.

Corporate workshop ideas

Workshops are one of the most effective ways for a group to get things done. In a corporate environment, workshops can be used to help teams tackle workplace challenges, create innovation, learn new skills or even have memorable, team bonding experiences.

One misconception I’ve seen is that workshops are fluffy by nature, only for exploring creative topics and learning skills, and not for serious work. On the contrary, workshops provide a structured space for collaboration in whatever form is needed by the group.

You might run a leadership development workshop where would-be managers can share experiences, practice their skills and gain confidence as leaders. On the other hand, you might run a workshop to plan your yearly strategy or resolve an emerging problem.

It’s key to remember that workshops are goal and outcome oriented, designed to reach an intended outcome by engaging all participants in the process. If you have a clear goal and bring the right people together in pursuit of that goal, there are few things you cannot achieve in a workshop.

What’s more: workshops produce results quickly. Under the guidance of a facilitator, a corporate workshop can move things forward more swiftly than endless emails or Slack threads.

Here are some impactful ideas for your next corporate workshop:

Leadership development

Great leadership doesn’t happen overnight. The best organizations know that investing in learning and development is a powerful way to equip new and existing managers with the skills they need to lead their teams well.

Leadership development workshops often comprise a combination of training scenarios, skills development and peer support, all designed to engage new leaders and improve their abilities.

While it’s possible to teach many of these skills asynchronously, the experiential format of a workshop can help spread best practices, improve learning potential and help new leaders learn from one another as they grow. Interactive workshop activities can play a crucial role in making these sessions more engaging and effective for leadership development.

The workshop format also allows participants to practice leadership skills and techniques under the guidance of an experienced facilitator. Yes, a role-playing scenario might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but in the right format, it can help new leaders feel more confident in leading and managing their team.

Check out the leadership development workshop template to see what such a workshop looks like in practice.

You might also find our collection of leadership training activities helpful for building out a learning and development program.

Team building

Team building can come in many different forms. Happy hours, escape rooms and fun games can all strengthen relationships in your team, but you can go further.

Team building workshops offer a dedicated space for collaboration that helps teams practice and demonstrate skills that will also help in their day-to-day work. These can come in the form of group problem-solving games, collaborative challenges or even exercises designed to expressly deepen connections and help people get to know each other more.

In our experience, these kinds of workshops can help improve communication, create memorable shared experiences and build bonds.

Explore our team development day workshop template to see how you might effectively structure such a team workshop.

Have limited time but want to add team building elements into your session? Our collection of team building activities come in all shapes and sizes so you can easily plug them into an existing agenda!

Design sprint 

When you have a tough problem without a clear solution, a design sprint is one of the best ways to approach the issue. First developed at Google, the design sprint is a structured approach for teams to explore a problem and ideate, refine, prototype and test solutions.

One of the major strengths of a facilitated workshop is structure. When collaborating on tough challenges with others, it can be easy to go down a rabbit hole or spend time inefficiently. Workshop formats like the design sprint have been tested and refined by facilitators for years. By using the benefit of all that experience, you’ll instead be able to focus on resolving challenges and creating innovation.

Check out the 4-day Design Sprint 2.0 template by AJ&Smart for a ready-to-use method for solving tough problems. Want to focus on fresh ideas and brainstorming? The one-hour brain sprint template offers a self contained brainstorming workshop that is ideally suited to a short workshop event.

Diversity and inclusion workshop

Workshops led with the guidance of an expert facilitator can be one of the most powerful ways to explore emotionally charged and complex concerns. Promoting awareness and action on diversity and inclusion can help create an equitable and inclusive work environment, but it’s not enough to just update company policies and ask folks to read up.

Workshop events can be used to create a safe forum for discussion, help participants feel seen and heard and to give practical examples to the group. By dedicating time and space to DEI, you can ensure that it’s given full attention by participants and ensure complete understanding too. 

When running a diversity and inclusion workshop, we’d recommend that you bring in an external facilitator to help. The expertise of a skilled facilitator with dozens of DEI workshops under their belt can’t be underestimated. Furthermore, the role of a facilitator as an unbiased third party can really help create the psychological safety needed for such a topic. 

Project opening and closing

So your team is starting a big new project. Isn’t the best bet just to email all stakeholders and say you’re getting started? Nope. A workshop is an ideal forum for kicking off complex projects, engaging all stakeholders and surfacing potential issues before they arise. 

A project kickoff is designed to engage all participants in the planning process and ensure that work will be smooth once you get started. It’s a great place for everyone involved to air concerns, ask questions and get aligned. You’ll often end with a list of follow-up actions, check-in dates and clear scope for the project.

Closing a project with a dedicated workshop is also important. A retrospective workshop can ensure key learnings are shared, celebrations are held and that the project is symbolically closed. 

Kickoff and project retrospectives are two formats that especially benefit from meta analysis. Take the time to reflect on the process itself and improve how you run these sessions in order to make future workshops even more effective.

Read more in this guide for running project kickoffs or try using this kickoff workshop template as the basis for your next agenda. 

Running a retrospective? This retrospective workshop template provides a simple and effective structure to aid reflection and help team members work on concrete steps for improvement.

Strategy planning workshop

Working on company strategy is rarely easy. Companies have many moving parts, competing priorities and organizational needs. The process of exploring, planning and implementing a strategy is often best served by the dedicated space of a workshop. 

A strategic planning workshop typically involves a process of exploring possible strategic directions and tasks, discussing them in line with overall goals and then formulating a plan for implementation.

Getting your best minds in one room and following a structure such as this EOS strategy planning workshop can help ensure decisions are made effectively and that all stakeholders are able to contribute effectively. 

Templatizing your process is a great way to simplify and improve how your strategy is created and rolled out. At SessionLab, we run a quarterly strategy planning process that benefits from reusing a recurring agenda and a Miro board that’s been refined over many strategy planning sessions.

Learn more about how we approach this process at SessionLab with this guide to running a strategic planning workshop.

Company values workshop

Your organization’s values determine everything from cultural norms inside your company to your direction and focus. It’s not uncommon for companies to develop internal friction if these values aren’t defined or people aren’t aligned on how best to live and practice them. 

A company values workshop is designed to either define or refine a company’s core values. Your team will explore questions like: What does the company stand for? What is most important to us? How do we want to treat one another and work together? How are our shared values reflected in our goals and company mission? 

By dedicating time and space to exploring these as a team, you can help create alignment, improve team cohesion and create a set of core values you’re proud to stand beside. 

Want an example? Explore your team values and define how you want to work together in this team canvas workshop template.

Stress management and mindfulness workshop

Mindfulness in the workplace needs more than lip service in order to be effective. While wellness budgets and no-meetings Tuesdays can help, you can have a more profound and lasting effect on employee stress levels by holding workshops designed to help solve root causes and teach valuable techniques to your team.

Stress management workshops and sessions dedicated to mindfulness can come in many forms. You might teach time management techniques and provide resources for reducing stress and achieving a better work-life balance. Alternatively, you might host a problem solving workshop on the topic of workplace stress and discuss the various obstacles and opportunities for tackling the issue.

Remember that workshops are emergent by nature: even bringing people together to talk about the subject can have transformative effects on how your team approaches stress and self care.

Using a group discussion format like World Cafe to invite folks to self-organize and discuss what’s most important on the topic of stress and mindfulness can help whatever needs to surface come to the fore.

Training workshops

When you need to teach your employees important new skills, competencies or train them in the use of technical equipment, you’ll likely need to run a training session or distribute learning materials. While some concepts can be taught with a single email or seminar, important topics can benefit from the experiential learning environment of a training workshop. 

While classic training may be more passive in nature, training workshops are designed to be interactive and practical. Participants will be expected to get involved, share their experiences with other participants and learn by doing. Training sessions like these are especially effective when teaching softer skills or when it’s beneficial to receive instant feedback from the trainer or facilitator. 

You’ll find more on this in our guide to running a training session and in our various skills development workshops below. 

You might also find this training workshop template – heavily informed by Kolb’s learning cycle – useful when it comes to structuring your next training event.

Skill development and educational workshop ideas

The distinction between a training session and a workshop can feel quite narrow, especially in the hands of an experienced facilitator or trainer. While training sessions may have a pass/fail criteria for participants learning a new skill, skills development workshops are often softer in approach.

For example, if you need your participants to master a piece of highly precise technical equipment, that’s a training session. If you want your participants to practice various ways of giving and receiving feedback in order to improve their interpersonal skills at work, that would work great as an engaging workshop.

In this section, we’ll share some ideas for workshops where learning and skills development is the primary goal. These are extremely useful for developing individual competencies or helping teams work together more effectively moment to moment. Let’s take a peek.

Conflict Resolution

Conflict and friction can occur whenever passionate people work together. In our experience, conflict is often a sign that something is important and needs extra attention. What’s important is that people are able to express a difference of opinion without it escalating into an unproductive or damaging discussion. As such, it’s important that companies equip their teams with the skills to manage and resolve conflicts effectively.

Developing conflict resolution skills in a workshop can look like a combination of case study analyses, role-playing activities and de-escalation techniques. It can also be incredibly effective to work on building team trust or giving participants tools like active listening and self management techniques that can help ensure discussions are more inclusive and productive in the first place. 

Read more in our collection of conflict resolution techniques, which contains exercises designed to teach conflict management skills alongside frameworks for discussing and deescalating conflict.

Emotional intelligence in the workplace

Emotional intelligence is one of those so-called soft skills that is incredibly important to the functioning of any organization. Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and understand the feelings of yourself and others and respond effectively. When folks are emotionally intelligent, communication is good, people feel seen and heard and collaboration is a joy. Without it, communication breakdowns occur, people feel misunderstood and it can be hard to get anything done.

Emotional intelligence can be broken down into distinct skillsets and techniques such as self awareness, self management, empathy, group dynamics and more. This self awareness workshop template is an effective session for exploring and strengthening this skillset with practical techniques. 

Want more? See this guide to emotional intelligence activities for more practical techniques and workshop ideas you can bring to virtual workshops and in-person sessions alike.

Decision-making

The ability to quickly make effective decisions is an important skill to master. In truth, making good decisions often comes from a composite of many different skills working together and the application of decision making models. Good decision makers need to leverage everything from critical thinking, root cause analyses and interpersonal skills when making decisions.

Running a workshop on improving decision making skills can have a profound impact on how your team makes decisions both micro and macro. Making faster, more informed decisions about how to spend your day and what to prioritize can often be as valuable as how to make a decision on company direction, for example. Such a workshop would likely be a mix of decision making exercises, advice on how to make good decisions and moments for participants to discuss and practice as a group. 

Explore possible exercises and decision making workshop ideas with our collection of decision making techniques. 

Running a workshop where you want to actually make an important decision as a group? This is an excellent idea!

Read more in our guide on how to run a group decision making process. You’ll find heaps of tips and structures that will help your group discuss and finalize even the most complex decisions.

The decision making workshop template is also an excellent example of how you might structure such a process.  

Effective communication skills

How we communicate and share information can have a profound effect on our relationships and the work we get done. Whether it’s for customer facing teams or for improving internal processes, an effective communication workshop can be a powerful way to solve issues and improve efficiency in your organization. 

An effective communication workshop should include a combination of activities designed to improve self awareness and clarity, as well as tools for giving productive feedback and practicing active listening. It’s common for workshop participants to also spend time exploring why misunderstandings and miscommunications might occur and discussing how things might be done differently in the future.

This collection of communication games and techniques is a great starting point for running a communication workshop with your team.

Simply adding an active listening exercise or feedback technique like What I Need From You to a team building activity is a great way of developing this skillset and improving team collaboration in your group. 

Storytelling workshop

Humans love stories. Learning how to tell great stories is helpful to everyone from marketers and customer support staff, all the way through to leaders and folks delivering presentations and pitching to clients. 

Storytelling workshops will typically combine group discussions, some expert theory and plenty of opportunity to practice telling our own stories. Personally, I find that starting with examples of stories that have stayed with us is a great leaping-off point that helps keep attendees engaged before leaping into deeper workshop content.

A storytelling workshop typically includes techniques for grabbing the attention of an audience, storytelling devices that help create a compelling narrative and some practice on how to use visual elements, sound and memetic tools to help your stories stick. 

For a taste, you might find this story building activity useful when kickstarting your workshop. Alternatively, this creative writing exercise encouraging folks to write from the perspective of an alien is a good example of how creative explorations can inform how we tell stories.

Facilitation skills

Facilitation is a vital workplace skill that can improve how we hold space and collaborate. Key facilitation skills like process design, group management and consensus-building aren’t just for professional facilitators. Anyone who runs meetings, workshops or collaborates can benefit from these skills, especially if they’re also in a leadership role. 

Running a workshop on how to facilitate effectively can get a bit meta, but it can be an invaluable sandbox for learning how to lead better meetings, training sessions and workshops. It can help folks collaborate better internally and also make client-facing meetings run more smoothly and effectively.

Explore this facilitation skills workshop template to start imparting these valuable skills and begin building a culture of facilitation in your organization.

Effective feedback

The way we give and receive feedback can have a profound impact on our personal and working lives. It’s quite common for people to be afraid of feedback and to avoid giving or receiving feedback altogether. The result can be missed growth opportunities, recurring mistakes and an inability to express how something has made us feel. 

Feedback workshops can help participants understand how important feedback is to personal growth and development while also developing techniques to help make the process easy and productive. 

This art of effective feedback workshop is a simple template that will help teams explore the concept and develop practical feedback techniques they can put into practice immediately.  

Looking for a self-contained activity you can add to your next retreat or team workshop? Check this collection of feedback activities for practical, effective exercises your team can use in a pinch.

Creative thinking and innovation workshops

Creative thinking is a powerful skill to encourage in both our personal and professional lives. In a corporate setting, creativity can be important to everyone from CEO to frontline support. It can help everyone see opportunities for innovation and give them the tools to solve problems.

When people tell me they’re not creative, I’ve often found that they mean “I can’t paint or draw” or “I’m worried about being judged for being creative.” Workshops designed to awaken latent creativity or help people realize how to apply their creative impulses without fear of judgment can be transformative.

Whether it’s in the form of brainstorming activities or creative workshops, remember that creativity is often generative, joyful and gratifying for those involved. That’s even before you begin to think about the impact of those innovative solutions to your business. Take the time to encourage employees to think innovatively and solve problems creatively and you’ll see results both micro and macro.

Check out this collection of creative thinking activities for inspiration that can enliven any session.

Looking for a deeper session? This ideation workshop template provides an effective framework for creating new ideas and creative solutions.

Workshop ideas for business events

Workshops can add immense value to business events, whether you’re running a conference or networking session. Some of my most engaging and memorable experiences at these kinds of events have been when I’ve joined a workshop with people I’ve just met and created something as a group.

Remember that workshops can be effective in many different formats. Putting virtual participants in an online workshop where they get to do deeper work and connect more meaningfully can be more impactful than any number of icebreaker activities.

As with all of the session formats here, it’s important for the event organizer to consider the needs and expectations of the target audience when choosing a topic. If in doubt, ask attendees what they want as part of the event planning process and maybe even invite them to lead a session.

Open Space Technology 

When you bring large groups of people together in a shared goal or area of interest, something special happens. Topics emerge, ideas are shared and its possible to create lots of momentum for change. It’s also possible that the session descends into chaos. So how do you create space for emergence while also maintaining enough structure to ensure action and outcomes?

Open Space Technology was originally created by Harrison Owen and perfected in decades of collaborative work by the Open Space Technology world-wide community. It is an event format when participants of a session co-create an agenda together. To begin, a general topic or theme is decided upon for the open space. Next, participants are invited to propose topics for discussion and host breakout groups who will come together to discuss and work on that topic.

Sessions will then be run in parallel, with a mix of people hosting, contributing and coming and going freely from different sessions. Open space is designed to be emergent, though it has enough structure to allow for sessions to be organized, opened and closed with ease. 

If you have a group of people who all care about a certain topic or who have a giant problem to solve and you’re struggling to know what to focus on, Open Space is a great workshop idea. What emerges organically from a group of passionate people united in purpose is exactly what needs to come up, and it encourages folks to take responsibility, be creative and collaborate in an incredibly powerful way.  

Check out the Open Space Technology template to kickstart your event planning process and create a structured yet dynamic event.

Hackathon

Hackathons can be an extremely powerful way to create momentum and explore tasks in a safe, self-contained way that makes it easy to experiment. At business events, an impromptu or arranged hackathon can mobilize folks with a shared goal and deliver concrete outputs quickly. 

As with any other creative session, hackathons benefit from a careful balance of structure and free space to create innovative ideas. Hackathons typically have a focus area, topic or problem space and a strict timeframe in which teams work together to create a solution or innovation in that space.

Hackathons can be a wonderful addition to an event as they are often multi-disciplinary in nature, inviting participants with different skillsets to work together to create something in a short timeframe. I’d only urge that you take the time to add some structure to proceedings so that things can run smoothly can avoid potential descending into chaos!

Mastermind group 

Sometimes, the best way to learn is from our peers. A mastermind is where a group of skilled and like-minded people come together on a recurring basis for peer coaching and problem solving.

Masterminds work best with a consistent group that allows for accountability and vulnerability, though I’ve seen them create impact even when run as one-off sessions.

I once attended a cybersecurity conference when a mastermind format emerged organically in response to various professionals experiencing similar problems. We ran out first session on the spot and then followed up with online sessions as a group over the next few months. It was a great container for us all to share experiences and help one another solve tough problems. 

It’s also worth noting that Masterminds greatly benefit when there are people with significant experience taking part. Not everyone needs to be an expert, but if you have five people who are all newbies, it can be harder for any advice to be backed up by concrete learnings and practical experience. 

To experience the benefits of the peer-coaching Mastermind experience in a short timespan, you might want to try a Liberating Structure activity called Troika Consulting. This works by putting participants in small huddles of three people, in which one presents their current issue or challenge and the other two act as consultants. You’ll be surprised how much insight can emerge in the span of fifteen minutes!

What are the key characteristics of workshops?

Workshops come in many shapes and sizes and will differ in content and design based on the goal of the session. That said, workshops tend of feature some defining characteristics that collectively ensure that the session will be successful and engaging.

If you’re just getting started or need help understanding how a workshop is different than a meeting or a typical training session, this list will help make the distinction clear while also hopefully selling you on the prospect of running a workshop!

Workshops are an interactive environment

In comparison to lectures and webinars, workshops are interactive by nature. Workshops typically include a mix of practical exercises, group discussions, and real-time problem-solving where everyone is encouraged to participate and learn experientially.

The result is a session that emphazies full engagement and makes the process of working together a joy, rather than a dull, passive experience.

You’ll find a workshop format using interactive elements also encourages ownership and action: ensuring things actually get done after the session. If you find your meetings and events rarely result in decisive action and lack momentum, consider trying an interactive workshop instead!

Workshops have a clear goal and purpose

Workshops should always have a clear goal, such as developing skills, exploring a problem or building connections between team members. This purpose guides everything from the structure of the agenda to specific exercises and outcomes.

When running a workshop, it’s helpful to remember that a clear goal doesn’t always mean concrete, deliverable output.

In soft skills training sessions for example, the goal may be for participants to share previous experiences and practice new techniques as a team. There may not be a test at the end to give a pass/fail, but the goal of improving interpersonal dynamics has still been pursued.

On the other hand, the goal of a strategic planning workshop may include a completed strategy document, ready for the next steps of discovery or implementation.

All these goals are important and facilitators and event organizers should always measure whether they achieved the goal. Just remember that workshops are often very much worth running, even if the output isn’t a physical document: who doesn’t want to improve team cohesion or employee happiness?

Workshops are structured and time-bound

Workshops typically run for a specific amount of time, anything from an hour to multiple sessions over many days. To achieve the goals of the workshop in the allocated timeframe, the facilitator will create structure in the form of an agenda while also time-boxing and guiding the group through activities effectively.

Ever had issues with brainstorming going on for so long that you never get around to make a decision? Workshops can help with that.

Whether its a virtual or in-person workshop, the time-bound format is especially effective for helping attendees focus and leave other concerns at the door. When everyone in the room is gathered for a specific purpose for a specific amount of time, you’ll be surprised by what you can achieve together.

Workshops are facilitated

Workshops typically have a facilitator onboard to help guide the flow of the session, orient the group and provide structure. Teams might bring in an expert facilitator who also happens to be a subject matter expert or a manager or team leader might also take on the facilitator role. In addition to designing the session, the facilitator will also help manage group dynamics, run activities and report back.

The value add of a facilitator cannot be underestimated. Not only are they well positioned to encourage participation and ownership, but they’ll also ensure that the goal of the session is always in mind, whatever dynamically happens during the workshop.

Unsure about what else a facilitator actually does? Find a practical definition of facilitator and explore what they can bring to your session in this guide.

Workshops are dynamic

While workshops always have a concrete goal in mind, the way the best workshops achieve that goal is often dynamic and emergent in nature.

For example, let’s say you’re running a workshop to teach participants conflict resolution skills. The facilitator will have prepared an agenda in advance, but what happens if world events bring a unique energy into the room and some of the activities no longer seem fit for purpose?

Great facilitators will adjust the flow of the workshop in the moment to speak to the needs of the group and facilitate the best route towards the original goal. It takes practice, trust and a strong design foundation, but when it happens, the results can be especially impactful.

What’s next?

A great workshop is probably the best format for bringing people together to get things done. With effective design, good facilitation and the right workshop format, you can encourage participants to take part and create impact as a group. Truly, an engaging workshop can create memorable experiences that leave an indelible and lasting impression on all in attendance. So what are you waiting for?

I hope this list of interactive workshop ideas gives you some inspiration for running your next session and helps get the creative juices flowing!

For next steps, our post on how to plan and organize a workshop offers a practical, step-by-step process that can help you make your ideas a reality.

Check out the accompanying workshop planning template in SessionLab to kickstart your process with an easy to follow agenda that will help you design your next workshop too!

Have any questions or suggestions for other workshop ideas for keeping participants engaged? Get in touch in the comments below!

In this quick starter guide we will go through all the essential information you need to confidently run your first workshop. Taking it step-by-step, we will look into how to craft an invitation, what to include in the opening section of your event, how to guide the group through activities, and what to do in closing. 

To get you started designing your first workshop, we’ve also included a free Workshop Design Canvas you can fill out to kick-start crafting your agenda.

Many occasions might call for planning a workshop. You might be a new team lead aiming to design the best working practices for your group, or perhaps you need to run a quarterly meeting to explore ideas and set goals. Maybe you are working with your local community to prepare a great calendar of events, or aligning with key stakeholders around how to run a project. 

Whatever the motivation, a workshop is a great way to get people together, focus on a specific topic, generate new ideas, build new skills, problem-solve and make real progress. For more information on what a workshop is, and why to run one, here is our dedicated article.

This is what we will be looking at in the next pages:

We hope this will provide you with all you need to feel prepared for your first workshop. If you are more experienced, you might want to take a look and see if our tips correspond with your practice. Is there anything we mention here that you have not been giving much attention to lately? Or have we forgotten something important? Let us know in the comments! 

How to prepare for a successful workshop

Experienced facilitators have a rule of thumb: time spent preparing a workshop will be about double the actual time spent in the workshop. That means if you are planning for a two-hour session, you can estimate about four hours spent in workshop preparation. For a one-day event, at least two days will go into prep work. For a full run-through of all that you might want to consider for proper planning, check out our complete guide.

If that feels like a lot, stop and consider how much work you can save by hosting a well-designed workshop. A good workshop experience may save you hours of busywork, or improve return on investment by diminishing waste of energy and funds that might go into decisions that hadn’t been well thought out.

So, what are the absolute essentials of workshop preparation? Let’s say you are getting ready for something fairly basic, like a one-hour working session for your team. People know one another and know more or less what to expect. What do you need to do to prepare?

There are three key items you’ll need to set up to prepare your workshop, each answering some essential questions:

1. Space setup. Where, and when, will the workshop take place? This is about preparing a space, whether in person or online, and deciding on a time and date.
2. Agenda design. What will we do at the workshop? This concerns preparing a well-thought-out agenda, as well as materials.
3. Invite preparations. Who will be there? This is about sending out a compelling invite and making sure you know who should attend.

We will now look into these three points in turn, adding some tips on how to best manage them and avoid common pitfalls along the way. 

1. Timing and location

To start workshop preparation, you will need to pick a location and make sure the physical environment fits your needs. Go through your workshop agenda in your mind and check out materials and technical requirements. Do you need a projector and screen? What about whiteboards? Will participants require access to good wifi, and do you have the password? SessionLab’s agenda planner has a dedicated section that will help you create a checklist of materials, making the process of getting ready for the big day easier!

It is practically a running joke in the facilitation world that workshop facilitators are the ones who show up early and start moving tables around. This is due to the fact that most meeting or conference rooms are organized with lectures and presentations in mind, while for a participatory, engaging workshop you’ll probably want small huddles of tables, or chairs arranged in circles. If you want some ideas on which room setup to choose for your next workshop, here is our complete guide on how to use room setup styles to maximise engagement! 

Besides a location you will, of course, have to decide on a time. Give some thought to what time and day of the week will make attendance most likely. I have recently been leading a series of workshops with tour guides: to find out what time would work for them we had to keep up to date on local festivals, as well as avoid weekends, which are peak working times for this stakeholder category.  

If, on the other hand, your workshop will take place online, you’ll need to choose a meeting tool, create and share a link, and make sure you are familiar with all settings. While in a webinar it is common to simply present slides, in a virtual workshop there will be a lot of interactivity.

Using breakout rooms is a common way to kick off discussions in small groups: ensure you are confident in setting them up. Think of other needs you may have, such as sharing a whiteboard or quizzes. Running workshops online has its own challenges and may be worth a practice run-through! Here are some more ideas on how to pick online tools and handle virtual workshops with ease.

When preparing a virtual workshop, you also might be thinking of having participants join from different timezones. Make sure you schedule your workshop at a time that suits most perspective attendees. Giving for granted that everyone is in the same timezone, when they are not, is probably the most common scheduling error of all. Double check your timezone and write it clearly in the invitation! 

2. Crafting a workshop agenda

Creating a clear agenda is an essential step in running any successful workshop. A good agenda helps you make the most of your time together and ensures that every topic gets the attention it deserves. For a full guide to agenda design, look no further than our 101 introduction here. 

The basics of agenda design start with setting clear objectives. What do participants hope to achieve by the end of the workshop? Start with your goals and work backwards, mapping out activities that help the group reach those outcomes. It’s a good idea to include a mix of different types of activities, from presentations and discussions to interactive exercises and reflection time. This variety helps keep everyone engaged and caters to different learning styles.

Download and use our essential agenda design canvas (for free!)

At SessionLab, we specialize in supporting team leaders and facilitators in designing agendas for meetings that matter. Using SessionLab’s planner you can quickly put together a flow for your next workshop: a flexible drag-and-drop tool allows you to shift activities around and automatically calculates the timing, and by colour-coding each section you can see in an instant whether you’ve achieved a good mix of activities. 

Here are three ways SessionLab can help you design your next agenda with ease:

• Download and fill out the agenda design canvas. This is a simple tool to help you collect your thoughts and start the design process. Each section can help you focus on an essential part of the design, starting with the workshop’s purpose (and title), all the way to learnings and feedback you’ll want to remember to improve future workshops.
• Start from a ready-made template. SessionLab has a library of workshop templates you can take inspiration from. Each is prepared by expert facilitators who have provided their tips and tricks for how to run it. At the end of this article you’ll find a selection of beginner-friendly workshop templates to start from!
• Try out SessionLab’s planner. Its functions are made to help you design effective workshops, and you can pick activities from a vast library of over 1400 methods! 

3. The art of the invite

Now that you have your agenda, a time, and a place sorted, it’s time to gather the people. Sounds simple, right? Yet, if there’s one challenge I often face when organizing workshops, it’s ensuring that invitations are sent out on time and contain everything participants need to show up prepared. Here’s what you need to consider to craft a clear, motivating invite that gets the right people in the room.

Who should be at your workshop?

When deciding who to invite, focus on identifying potential workshop participants who can contribute the most to your workshop goals. It’s tempting to include everyone, but inviting too many can lead to confusion or make it harder to get things done. Instead, ask yourself: who has key information to share, and who needs to be involved for the decisions made in the session to be implemented effectively? It’s better to have a smaller, engaged group than a larger crowd that feels disconnected.

How many people should be there? 

Choosing the right group size is about finding a balance. Keep it small enough to ensure workshop attendees can participate actively, but large enough to bring in diverse perspectives. For most workshops, aim for 5-12 participants — this range allows for meaningful dialogue without becoming chaotic. Remember, quality over quantity is key; a focused, engaged group will always be more effective.

Handling no-shows gracefully

Even with the best planning, there will be times when people don’t show up. Instead of stressing, embrace the mindset of “whoever comes are the right people.” This principle, which comes from Open Space Technology, a brilliant method of working without a set agenda (intrigued? Read up here and check out our dedicated template and materials here), reminds us to focus on what can be done in the moment, with the people who are there, instead of stressing over who “should” be here but is not. 

To keep everyone in the loop, make sure you take thorough notes and share them afterward. At SessionLab, we use Notion to document our meetings so anyone who missed out can easily catch up and stay informed.

Crafting a clear and motivating invitation

Your invitation sets the tone for the entire workshop, so make it count. Start by clearly stating the purpose of the session and why it matters. Encourage potential attendees to join by explaining the impact of the future workshop: what will be done with results? Set expectations about the level of participation needed, especially if it’s an interactive workshop rather than a passive webinar. 

Example invitation:
“Hi team, we’re gathering next Wednesday from 10 to 11 AM CET, to brainstorm ways to improve our onboarding process. The session will take place on Zoom at this link [include link]. 

This is a valuable opportunity for us to address key challenges together, and your insights will help shape how we create a smoother onboarding experience for new team members.

It will be a collaborative, interactive session. If possible, please join from a computer rather than a phone, and from somewhere where you have a good connection and can keep your camera on.”

This way, your invite is clear, sets the right tone, and gives people motivation to join. Happy inviting!

Anyone can be a great workshop leader. If you have prepared well, you will be confident in your workshop delivery.

Pamela Hamilton, The Workshop Book

How to start a workshop

You can really tell an experienced workshopper from the way they open their sessions. An attentive host will make sure people are settled in and have all the information they need before actually kicking off activities. Starting a workshop by going straight into the topic, perhaps with a lengthy technical presentation, is exactly the kind of pitfall you want to avoid. 

A well-facilitated workshop will therefore have an opening section where the facilitator will:

1. Welcome participants
2. Present the agenda
3. Frame the purpose

Let’s look at these in turn.

1. Welcome participants to the workshop

Welcome workshop participants warmly and set the stage for a productive discussion by introducing a quick check-in activity. Icebreakers or check-ins fulfill a need to understand our role in the room and settle in. A common pitfall in workshops is to consider icebreakers (and feel free to rebrand them as ‘icemelters’) as futile exercises, while actually they can be powerful tools to create a good flow.

Pick a question that makes sense to your audience. Aim to help people know one another better, establish trust, and settle in the workshop space, not to make people uncomfortable! 

Online you can read many bad examples of using checkins, icebreakers or energizers in a way that makes people cringe. The worst I’ve ever heard implied asking team members to move around chairs and sit on one another’s laps based on the questions that were asked. This resulted in a very uncomfortable intern having to sit on her boss’ lap: a really awful case of facilitation gone bad!

Here’s a better example: a few days ago I was facilitating a workshop with citizens and local administrators of small villages. Most people knew one another by sight, but not very well. I started the day by asking participants to turn to another person and share something they love about their village. This lifted their mood, allowed them to share more or less personal things as they felt comfortable, and set the stage for a good discussion about needed improvements in local policy. 

A key reason to include an icebreaker or check-in question is to encourage participants to speak up as early as possible. The earlier people make their voices heard, the more likely they will be to intervene in group discussions later. Here are three simple ways to do it:

• If workshop attendees do not know one another, you may want to invite a tour de table, asking everyone for brief personal introductions. It’s up to the workshop facilitator to set clear boundaries for this, or introductions can take a very long time. I’ll typically ask for name, organization, and “what brings you here today?”. Model how long this should take by starting yourself.
• Ask a check-in question and have people share in turns. If you are short on inspiration, here is a list of over 200 ideas of what to ask.
• Online, start meetings and webinars with a chat waterfall. Simply ask everyone to use the chat as a check-in, and read out some answers as they arrive.

2. Present the agenda and set expectations

Now that the group is ready to get to work, it’s time to share the agenda with participants. Your agenda is more than a list of topics — it’s the roadmap for the day, helping attendees understand what’s coming and how to engage.

Start by providing a brief overview of the workshop’s structure, highlighting the key sections and activities. This helps everyone see the bigger picture and know what to expect, reducing any anxiety about what might come next. Be clear about the timing of breaks, interactive elements, and when there will be opportunities for discussion. When people know there will be dedicated moments for their input, they’re more likely to stay engaged.

A common mistake here is to launch into a detailed explanation of every single agenda item. Instead, keep it concise and focus on giving a high-level view. You can go into more detail once each activity begins. 

If you’re running an online workshop, it’s especially important to outline the agenda clearly. Use visual aids like a slide or a shared document that participants can refer back to throughout the session. This helps keep everyone on track and minimizes confusion, especially if participants join late or lose connection briefly.

In summary, give an overview, highlight key points, and share the plan visually if possible. If you are using SessionLab’s agenda planner, you’ll find it particularly easy to share a high-level agenda with participants: you can choose whether to download and share a PDF or Word file, or simply share a QR code to show everyone the flow of the day. 

A disclaimer is also in order here: experienced folk might want to keep their agenda to themselves, to encourage surprise and wonder, and to allow themselves more leeway in adapting to the group. This can be a good tactic in certain circumstances, but is not something for beginners to launch into straight away! 

3. Frame the purpose of the workshop

Besides welcoming people and sharing your roadmap, the other thing you need to do in the opening section is give a brief context of why the workshop is happening. Do not assume that people know: we have busy lives and not everyone may have had time to prepare before joining. 

Explain why the topic is important and how it connects to broader objectives (e.g., company strategy, project goals, or community needs). Avoid assuming that workshop participants are already on the same page — even if they’ve seen the invite, a reminder can make all the difference in helping participants shift their focus from their day-to-day tasks to the workshop’s topic.

A common pitfall here is to make this part too long or abstract. Keep it clear and straightforward, using language that resonates with the group. You might say something like, “Today, we’re here to brainstorm ways to streamline our onboarding process. We’ve seen some challenges with our current approach, and this is our chance to work together on real solutions that can make a difference.”

You may have already noticed that, with just a bit of facilitation skill, you can easily connect the workshop topic to the check-in question to make everything feel coherent. 

9 tips for running a workshop

Framing your workshop well will enable you to kick-off activities, conversations and discussions with momentum. Having concluded the opening, it is now time to introduce the core discussion topics and activities on your agenda. Here are 9 things to keep in mind when going through the items in your workshop agenda:

1. Mix different activities and exercises. You can combine different activities around the same question. A typical way to start is to introduce a question or topic, maybe with the help of an expert presentation, then call for initial individual responses written on sticky notes, cluster, and discuss them. 
   
   A great activity to learn is 1-2-4-all, from Liberating Structures. If you have a question for participants to engage with, you can start by asking them to reflect on it individually, then share in pairs, in small groups, and finally in plenary. This is a way of varying activities that enables everyone to contribute, and can ensure participants remain engaged throughout.
2. Be a guide on the side, not a sage on the stage. The facilitator’s position in a workshop is not to tell people what to think or do, but to gently yet confidently guide participants towards desired outcomes, and to create a collaborative environment. For more reflections on the role of a group facilitator, read about 6 facilitation roles, here. 
   
   Asking for permission is part of holding this role well. You are working with adults, in a professional or community setting, and nobody should feel like they are being forced to do or reveal anything. Frame activities as invitations, and give options to observe, opt-out or pass (for example, when leading a round of reflection, you might say something like “take your time to respond and please remember you can always just pass to the next person”). 
3. Make room for a break (or two). One of the most common mistakes a workshop facilitator can make is doing away with the breaks “because we are short on time”. You do not just want decisions to be made at the workshop: you want good decisions, and an increased sense of belonging and trust to boot.
   
   Making sure everyone’s energy levels enable them to work well together, including by taking refreshing, nourishing breaks, will do a lot to prevent excessive noise, confusion, and conflict.
4. Give clear instructions. Getting good at giving clear instructions is really key to effectively facilitating workshops. Try to put yourself in the participants’ shoes: what information will they need in order to participate in group activities? Introduce each section by briefly stating its purpose (why are we doing this?) and give step-by-step instructions as to how it will work.
   
   Online, it’s good practice to have instructions written out in a slide or in the chat box. When working in person, I like to write up instructions on posters or on a projected slide as well, as I feel it makes it easier for participants to follow along. Asking “Do you have enough information to start?” is a good way to get the group moving; if there is some confusion, you can usually trust other participants to help each other along.
5. Create a parking lot. Conversations can go in unexpected directions. What do you do if the discussion veers wildly off-topic? One useful facilitation tool is having a “parking lot” space (I’ve also heard it referred to as “port” or “fridge”) where you might ask participants to park any ideas that are interesting, or relevant, but outside of the scope for the day.
   
   Having a parking lot can really help alleviate the tension between wanting to cut a conversation short but realizing it’s still important, just not for now!
6. Beware of “Let’s hear back from the tables”. If you have divided participants in small groups and asked them to collaborate on a task, it’s common to want to have a round to hear back from every group. While this urge makes sense, it is often conducive to lengthy presentations that nobody is really paying attention to. Can you feel the energy drop when the fifth group repeats things everyone’s already heard?
   
   Counteract this by asking very specific questions (“Please share one tip you have for the other groups” has worked well for me), timeboxing strictly (3 minutes per table, tops) or moving to a different activity to collect insights, such as using a Mentimeter question and projecting results on a screen for all to see.
7. Silence (and music) are your friends. Good workshop facilitation is a lot about balancing spaces that enable both extroverts and introverts to work well together. Make room in your agenda for individual work and reflection, and do not panic if people stay quiet after a question: they may just be thinking!
   
   If silence while doing individual work is uncomfortable for you, consider bringing audio equipment and playing some soft music in the background. 
8. Throw it back to the group. It’s common for beginners at leading workshops to get the impression that every decision and choice is uniquely up to you. This can feel very overwhelming, and might lead you to double-guess every choice you make. Instead, you should always remember that you are in a room full of smart, experienced people. Your role is to guide them, not to take their place in every decision about what should happen at the workshop.
   
   In practice, this can translate to the commonly used facilitation tactic of “throwing it back to the group”. You might ask, for example: “What do you think, is it time for a short break or shall we continue for another 45 minutes before going to lunch?” Instead of deciding in place of participants, you can use your position to clarify what decisions need to be made and ask attendees for input. Collect a few ideas, then propose a way forward.
9. Design a flow that goes from ideation to decision-making. Facilitated workshops often begin with a brainstorming phase, called divergence, where new ideas are welcome and the aim is to stimulate creativity and innovation. Then comes a discussion phase, known as emergence, in which ideas are mulled over and refined.
   
   Last comes convergence, which is about selecting ideas based on realistic criteria such as available time, resources, or KPIs and finally making a decision (or deferring a decision to a group leader, who now will be able to make better-informed choices). 

5 foolproof activities for running workshops

Having come to this point you may be wondering what kinds of activities you should be familiar with in order to prepare and host a great workshop. The truth is, although you may explore many activities, and create your own, there are a handful of tried-and-true methods that will generally serve you well, whatever the topic, situation, or number of participants.

So let’s look at 5 foolproof activities you can guide, even if you need to jump into them because of last minute surprises! Here they are, in the likely order you’d use them in a typical workshop:

Break the ice with Impromptu Networking

Impromptu Networking is a quick and energizing way to kick off a workshop by helping participants connect and share ideas right from the start. Through a series of short, structured one-on-one conversations, attendees exchange thoughts on the workshop topic, setting a collaborative tone. This method is perfect for creating an atmosphere of trust and openness in any workshop setting. I like to use Impromptu Networking especially when facilitating large numbers of participants, as it doubles as a getting-to-know-you exercise.

Collect a flurry of ideas with the Walking Brainstorm

The Walking Brainstorm method gets participants moving while generating ideas, combining physical activity with collaborative thinking. By walking around the room and commenting on ideas in writing, and in silence, participants can spark creativity and fresh perspectives.

Debrief and reflect in a Paired Walk

Once a lot of ideas are on the table, certain topics or tensions might emerge that benefit from some time to discuss and debrief. You might, for example, discover that half the team wants to focus on AI use, while the other half views it with extreme skepticism. In workshop settings it is often not necessary to resolve such tensions definitively, but it is important to acknowledge them, air them, and see what emerges that might direct later choices.

A good way to enable moments of reflection and deeper understanding is to send people on a paired walk. Speaking in twos is generally less intimidating, and more conducive to understanding, than keeping every discussion in a large group. And a bit of fresh air can do wonders!

Organize ideas in an Impact/Effort Matrix

It’s been often commented that facilitators tend to have more methods for brainstorming and ideating than for making decisions. While that is true, it might be because convergence, that is, choosing a path among many, is a more structured, less creative process. As such, the convergent phase of any workshop will benefit from matrixes and canvases upon which ideas can be mapped and evaluated. A classic, all-purpose way of doing it is the impact/effort matrix. We use it here at SessionLab as well to evaluate what projects and activities to pursue!

Close the day with 3 Action Steps

The 3 Action Steps method is a strategic planning exercise designed to help groups and individuals take actionable steps toward a desired change. Typically used at the conclusion of a workshop or program, it involves participants discussing and agreeing on a vision, then creating specific action steps to achieve that vision. The process also includes defining the scope of the challenge by discussing factors that may help or hinder progress.

Here at SessionLab we host a library of over 1400 activities and methods that can form the key elements of your next workshop. Taking time to explore them will provide you with plenty of ideas and inspiration for successful workshops. You can also subscribe to our newsletter, to receive a curated list of our favorite facilitation methods in your inbox twice a month!

Timekeeping tips for smooth workshop flow

Staying on schedule is one of the most crucial aspects of running a successful workshop. It’s easy for discussions to run long, especially if participants are engaged and enthusiastic, but this can derail the rest of your carefully planned agenda. 

One effective technique is timeboxing, where you allocate a specific amount of time for each activity or discussion point. Clearly communicate these time limits to the group, and use a timer or a visible clock to help keep everyone on track. SessionLab’s planner helps with this by allowing you to clearly allocate time to each activity.

However, timekeeping isn’t just about sticking rigidly to your schedule. A skilled facilitator knows when to be flexible and adjust the timing based on the energy and needs of the group. If a discussion is particularly fruitful, consider extending it by shortening a later activity — just be sure to get the group’s agreement first. If energy is low, you might want to add a quick break.

Remember, your agenda is a guide, not a rulebook. Flexibility shows that you are responsive to the group’s needs and can help keep momentum without sacrificing the quality of discussions.

Effective notetaking and documentation

Capturing the key insights and ideas from a workshop is vital, not only for immediate follow-up but also to maintain momentum beyond the session. Designate a notetaker at the start of the workshop — ideally someone other than the facilitator, so you can focus on guiding the discussion. For in-person workshops, using a large whiteboard or sticky notes can help make the notes visible to all participants as they’re captured. In an virtual setting, collaborative online tools like Google Docs or Miro can be used so everyone can contribute in real-time.

Encourage the notetaker to highlight key points and group them by theme or topic. This makes it easier to review and synthesize the information later. If you’re using sticky notes for brainstorming, consider snapping photos or transcribing them digitally right after the session to avoid losing valuable input.

At the end of the workshop, it is good practice to share the notes promptly with all participants. This follow-up step reinforces what was discussed and decided, and it gives everyone a shared reference point for next steps. A clear and organized summary can make the difference between a workshop that fades from memory and one that leads to real, actionable change.

How to close a workshop effectively 

You made it! The time for your workshop is almost over and you have some happy, if possibly tired, participants in the room. What do you need to do to effectively close the workshop? You’ll be aiming to create an atmosphere conducive to feelings of accomplishment, progress and closure. Probably not every topic will have been successfully and completely closed, but that is not the point: the point is that progress has been made. 

Workshops are always at risk of running late. It is good practice to hold closing time as inviolable: people will have other engagements, personal or professional, afterward, and it is quite unfair to keep them seated with the (generally unspoken) threat that something important might happen in the room after they leave. 

Even if your activities are running late, you should start wrapping up about 15 minutes before the scheduled end. Remind participants of other opportunities they will have to pursue whatever topic or discussion is going on, and invite them to reach closing remarks. 

Once you have concluded the last activity, there are a couple more things you’ll need to do in the final phase of your workshop:

• Recap what happened, and provide some next steps. Briefly remind participants of the journey you’ve gone through together and inform them of any next steps: where will they find documentation about the workshop? What will be done with the output? Assign tasks if appropriate. 
• Ask for a checkout. Giving participants some space to reflect on how the workshop was, and how they feel now, provides a nice sense of closure and achievement. Techniques such as One Breath Feedback are ideal for this step. 

• Gather feedback and reflect. You can do this directly at the end of the workshop, or as part of the follow-up. Feedback is fundamental for your own reflection and improvement.
  
  A classic way of asking for feedback at the end of the workshop is to ask everyone to write at least one thing they appreciated and one thing they might improve on posters at the exit or, if the group is small enough, have a closing round of feedback.

Asking for feedback at a later time might imply more back-and-forth communication, but is also likely to get you more honest answers, as people tend to give very good report cards when asked directly at the end of a session. You can collect opinions at a later date by, for example, having a Mentimeter questionnaire ready asking for reflections on the workshop: this has the added value of giving you materials that are ready to collate into a report if you are planning to prepare one.

Reflecting and debriefing on your experience as a facilitator is the best way to learn and improve new skills. Make sure you keep some time in your agenda (hopefully, after getting a good night’s sleep – facilitating workshops can be tiring!) to look back on how things went and what you can learn from your own experiences at the workshop, as well as from participant feedback. Having a learning process in place will make all the difference for your future skills development. 

Templates and resources to help you get started as a workshop facilitator

We hope this guide helps you feel confident enough to feel you can now run workshops wherever you are. Whatever your personal style, whoever your target audience, we believe the world needs more collaboration, and well-run workshops can help achieve this. 

If at this stage you’d like more detailed information on planning a workshop, we have a dedicated guide that takes you through every step of the process in detail. You can read it here.

If you feel ready to step into designing your next workshop, you might find the process easier by starting from a ready-to-use template. Here are three suggested ones from our collection: simply duplicate them in SessionLab’s planner and adapt them to your needs! 

The Essential Workshop Structure template provides a foundational framework for participatory workshops. It includes an opening phase to set the learning environment, slots for activities and debriefs, and a closing section for reflections and next steps, adaptable to various workshop topics.

The Workshop Design Canvas Template, designed by experienced facilitators and trainers at Voltage Control, facilitates learner-centered workshop designs by applying backward design principles. Participants create detailed learner personas, manage cognitive load effectively, and align activities with assessments, resulting in engaging and impactful learning experiences

This Workshop Planning Template offers a structured approach to designing workshops through a series of five 1-hour meetings between clients and facilitators. It guides you from sharing a vision to refining the agenda, briefing the team, and collecting learnings, ensuring a comprehensive planning process.

Workshop facilitators as a whole are a collaborative and generous bunch. Check out more free resources on how to run successful workshop at this link, or join our friendly SessionLab Community and ask your questions there! 

Here at SessionLab, we’ve surveyed over a thousand facilitators, trainers, and leaders to uncover their top go-to facilitation books. Read on to find the 11 recommendations not to be missed!

Reading facilitation books will help you understand the deeper roots of the role, give you a bedrock of activities and tools and of course, if you are purchasing these as actual books and putting them on a shelf, will also provide you with a lovely and appropriate background for all your video calls. 

Why facilitation books matter

Facilitation is an ever-evolving profession, quick to react and adapt to changes in society. A generous, global network of practitioners offers constant opportunities to refresh knowledge and build new skills through online resources, training courses, and community events. If free downloadable guides are what you are looking for, we’ve compiled a blog post with online resources for you to peruse. 

All those free resources should have you covered when it comes to learning new tools and adapting to change. At the same time, there are certain truths about group dynamics and how to harness collective intelligence and lead effective collaboration that are not likely to change anytime soon. To learn about the foundations of facilitation and the frameworks and theories of group dynamics, there is some essential reading any group facilitator should do.

Experienced authors have labored years to collect these hard-learned lessons about what makes or breaks effective workshops and how to create meaningful experiences. Reading their practical tips and theoretical frameworks sooner rather than later will save you a lot of pain. It will also help you answer key questions about how and why facilitated activities work and, ultimately, make your practice better. 

Recommended books for learning about facilitation and group dynamics

When it comes to becoming a skilled facilitator, learning from the best books in the field is a great way to deepen your knowledge. The following books are recommended by facilitators around the world. Each of them offers insights on how to craft life changing workshops, deliver great meetings, and unleash your group’s creative potential.

Here are our top 11 tips for learning about facilitation and group dynamics:

To select these top books we’ve trusted not one, not two, but over a thousand facilitators who responded to the State of Facilitation survey recommending their favorite reads. For more tips on top resources, check out the latest edition of the State of Facilitation report! 

Inspiring reads on hosting meaningful connections

Facilitation isn’t just about managing a meeting—it’s about creating conditions favorable to connection and purpose. The following books will inspire you to host gatherings that leave a lasting impact, whether in personal or professional settings.

The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker

Hosting meaningful gatherings feels ever more important, as a means to counteract isolation in our personal lives and polarisation in society. Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering teaches that hosting events is all about creating an experience conducive to genuine connection. From family reunions to corporate meetings, Priya Parker emphasizes the importance of intentional design and thoughtful planning.

I recently joined a facilitation case study class in which the speaker told us about a challenging multistakeholder workshop he had hosted. Inspired by this book, he actually started activities the evening before the formal start of the event. Attendees were invited to a dinner, in which they were called to share personal stories about their professional experience in the field. This led to an increased sense of trust, respect and mutual understanding which made all later negotiations much easier. 

One of the standout lessons from this book is how to create a sense of belonging in your events. Through case studies and personal stories, Priya Parker illustrates that gatherings, even in everyday life, have the power to create transformative experiences for all participants.

As someone who finds it much easier to say “yes” than “no”, I found the chapter on how to craft an invitation that is clear about who should be, and who should not be, included, particularly challenging (and enlightening). 

This book is a must-read for anyone who hosts groups and wants to bring more purpose and meaning into the mix.

Facilitating Breakthrough by Adam Kahane

Do you foresee upcoming high stakes situations in your practice? Would you appreciate some guidance on what to do when tensions are thick? In that case, Adam Kahane’s Facilitating Breakthrough is the book you want on your bedside table. This book shares real-world stories about navigating the most challenging of group dynamics—situations where success feels far from guaranteed.

From boardroom conflicts to international peace negotiations, Kahane draws from his extensive experience to demonstrate how a facilitator can help groups move forward when they’re blocked.

The very first chapter of the book is the one that sticks in my mind the most. Kahane tells the story of a once-in-a-generation meeting of parties in conflict in Colombia, where he learns that the job of a facilitator can be described as “removing obstacles to collaboration”. This idea of being a “remover of obstacles” has stayed with me since. 

If you enjoy this book, you should know that Kahane has a lot of other great titles in his back catalogue, and his new work on Everyday Habits for Transforming Systems is scheduled for publication in 2025. 

Most people want to connect, but there are structures that separate or exclude them. The consequences of these obstacles are estrangement and weakened communication, linkages, and relationships. Transformative facilitation focuses on dismantling these structures and thereby enabling connection. 
Adam Kahane, Facilitating Breakthrough

Treasure troves of practical techniques

The two texts above are inspiring, non-fiction narratives, and while you can gather a lot of great ideas from them, you’ll also want to check out a few books that can help you with practical advice and methodologies. The following texts are packed with hands-on activities and techniques that can be applied immediately to your facilitation practice, helping you boost creativity, participation, and problem-solving within groups.

The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless

If there is one toolkit to rule them all, it’s Liberating Structures. This is a set of 33 micro-structures or activities you can use in isolation or string together to guide, and change, the way dialogue and engagement flow. Although you can read all available documentation concerning Liberating Structures on their website, you’ll probably want the book on your shelf to thumb through. 

The Liberating Structures toolkit is versatile enough to be used in any context, from small teams to large conferences. These activities help groups tap into their collective intelligence and allow everyone to contribute. Whether you’re new to facilitation or a seasoned professional, this book is a practical guide and can be immediately applied to any group setting.

Pro tip: when creating your next session in SessionLab’s planner, you can go to the Library and directly drag-and-drop your favorite Liberating Structures method straight into your sessions, complete with notes and lists of materials. Give it a try!  

Gamestorming by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo

Serious does not have to be the opposite of fun, as anyone involved in serious games well knows. Fun is, actually, one of the best ways to learn. Gamestorming by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo is a must-have for any facilitator looking to boost creativity and collaboration within a group. This highly visual book is a treasure trove of 80 activities and games designed to break down barriers and get people out of their comfort zones, sparking fresh ideas and solutions.

The subtitle says it all: Gamestorming is A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers and Changemakers. Each activity is carefully detailed (and whimsically illustrated) with a lot of guidance to help practitioners understand how and when to use games to encourage participants’ creativity, sense of adventure and open-mindness. Whether you’re facilitating agile teams or creative brainstorming sessions, this book will help bring energy and engagement to the room.

To enter into a game is to enter another kind of space, where the rules of ordinary life are temporarily suspended and replaced with the rules of the game. In effect, a game creates an alternative world, a model world. 

Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo, Gamestorming

Essential manuals to have all the basics of facilitation crystal-clear

Understanding group dynamics and learning how to guide groups toward productive collaboration are key to becoming a master facilitator. The following books offer a comprehensive resource for facilitators who want to build strong foundations in their practice and create better meetings and workshops as a consequence.

A Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making by Sam Kaner 

Can I just say I love this book? If you are considering buying one single text on facilitation, I’m going to say get your hands on a copy of this big, well-illustrated, practical and thorough workshop survival guide. Sam Kaner and co-authors Lenny Lind, Catering Toldi, Sarah Fisk and Duane Berger: if you are reading this, top of the hat and thank you.

A Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making provides a robust framework for all your future designs. A common principle in workshop planning is “start with the end in mind”. In this book, the end is “agreeing upon a decision”, and the rest is a detailed, thoughtful step-by-step overview of how to get there. 

When I teach facilitation, I often use handouts from Kaner’s book (which is full of illustrations and exceptionally handout-ready) to support discussions on decision making processes, on the divergence-emergence-convergence model, and more. 

The Art of Facilitation by Dale Hunter

The updated edition of Dale Hunter’s classic The Art of Facilitation includes a study guide that works as a self-study “training program” and can be used by a group of aspiring facilitators as a peer learning framework. The Art of Facilitation moves from an in-depth look into group dynamics to covering applications in practice, including describing how facilitation works in organizations, sustainability, therapeutic group work, and a new section on the key elements of online meetings. 

Clear, thorough and accessible, Dale Hunter’s book moves from definitions of what a facilitator is, and isn’t, all the way to giving practical cases of facilitation work in various fields. Dale Hunter also makes a strong case for why collaboration skills are growing in importance in our complex, interconnected world, and draws on the best available scientific research on leadership, group dynamics, and adult education.

This book is essential reading for facilitators who want to deepen their understanding of group processes and learn all about creating group synergy and managing group dynamics.

The Secrets of Facilitation by Michael Wilkinson

Here is another revised classic. The second edition of Wilkinson’s manual on Getting results with groups the SMART way (in this case, standing for “Structured Meeting and Relating Techniques”) is also expanded to include online facilitation. Michael Wilkinson also added sections on leading great meetings for cross-cultural teams, as well as designing for large groups and conferences. 

Of all the texts listed here, The Secrets of Facilitation is probably the best bet for team leaders wanting to add some facilitation magic to their toolkit. The chapter on how to create an in-house community of practice in your company provides actionable advice that can really help create a company-wide culture of facilitation wherever you are. 

Crafting excellent learning experiences

While there is a difference between facilitation and training, it’s nevertheless true that many facilitators are also trainers, and that methods and activities drawn from facilitation can make learning experiences more engaging. 

Furthermore, it’s possible to make the argument that all facilitated sessions are learning sessions, since in order to bring change and increase collaboration, some form of learning must happen. The borders between learning design, experience design, and facilitation are blurred! With that in mind, here are two of facilitators’ favorite texts on how to design for learning. 

Training from the Back of the Room by Sharon L. Bowman

Learning that is boring will never stick. Sharon Bowman’s Training from the Back of the Room is a field manual for how to design learning sessions that work. This book introduces brain-based techniques that help facilitators and trainers, as well as teachers, support participants in mastering new concepts and materials.

Bowman’s approach is designed to ensure that participants not only absorb the material but also retain it long after the session ends. The book includes 65 ways to step aside and support participants in taking ownership of their learning process, and includes ideas on how to make online learning interactive as well. For anyone who leads workshops or training sessions, this book offers a fresh perspective on how to teach more effectively.

When learners talk and teach, they learn.

Sharon Bowman, Training from the Back of the Room

Facilitating Group Learning by George Lakey

Whenever I am asked to design a new training, Facilitating Group Learning – Strategies for Success with Diverse Adult Learners is the book I pick out of the shelf to keep at hand. The first chapters, in particular, serve me as a practical reminder of things that should always be included in learning design. I love this book because it combines very practical tips with theoretical frameworks drawing from psychology, sociology and pedagogy.

Lakey reminds readers of the importance of creating a container and fulfilling some practical needs in learners before they can fully absorb information. His book is full of very concrete examples and even direct quotes from real-world workshops that, if you’ve ever tried your hand at participatory training, you’ll probably recognize. 

In order to learn, people need to feel safe. In a course or workshop or service learning project, they find safety by creating a social order of some kind. 

George Lakey, Facilitating Group Learning

The book is a how-to manual for experiential learning, where learners are actively engaged in the process, rather than passively receiving information. Lakey’s methods are therefor particularly effective in workshops or educational settings where collaboration and dialogue are key.

Facilitation skills for social change

Facilitation goes beyond the meeting room. It plays a vital role in social movements and transformative change. The following books explore how facilitators can drive social change, lead with empathy, and guide groups to face, and even transform, complex societal issues. 

A word of caution: all facilitation requires personal growth and self-awareness as a prerequisite, but social change work will put your belief systems to the test more than most! Expect rough waters, and a lot of growth and change! 

Theory U by Otto Scharmer

In Theory U, Otto Scharmer presents a framework for leading profound social and organizational change. The book’s approach is centered around deep listening and co-creation, where facilitators help groups connect with their highest potential. Scharmer’s model is a great resource for facilitators working in change-driven environments or organizations undergoing transformation.

Facilitators who want to explore the deeper, transformative aspects of their work will find Theory U to be an essential resource. Drawing on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) tradition of action research and learning by doing, Theory U has evolved over two decades of experimentation and refinement by a global community of practitioners. Going way beyond the book are the ULab courses, online yet experiential 6-week programs teaching systems thinking, innovation, and how to be a leader in change. 

Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown

In Emergent Strategy – Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, adrienne maree brown explores how social movements can be facilitated through adaptive, flexible leadership. This book is a true original, unique in the landscape of facilitation books in the way it weaves together poetry, science-fiction, critical theory and personal stories to compose an inspiring call to action. 

Emergent Strategy is deep, radical, and ends in a whole section of self-reflection journal, which is very much the kind of thing facilitators enjoy. An inspiring read for anyone involved in social justice movements.

Change happens. Change is definitely going to happen, no matter what we plan or expect or hope for or set in place. We will adapt to that change, or we will become irrelevant.

adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy

FAQs

What are the best books on facilitation?

We can’t really tell you the best, as it depends on your focus and interest. However, based on a global survey of facilitators, these are the top books not to be missed!

How can facilitation books help improve group dynamics and collaboration?

Facilitation books provide frameworks, techniques, and strategies to help facilitators lead groups effectively. Whether it’s navigating difficult conversations, building consensus, or fostering creativity, there’s a wealth of knowledge that can transform your group dynamics. To learn more about facilitation skills, you can also start by checking out our article here.

What facilitation techniques are covered in these books?

From participatory decision-making to using games and Liberating Structures, these books cover a wide range of facilitation techniques.

There are also certain methodologies that have deserved their own individual books. You may want to remix and customize methods to suit the needs of particular client, group or moment (as well as your own preferences) but it good professional practice to always acknowledge the people who created a method in the first place, and to know how it’s originally supposed to work.

Here are some study recommendations if you want to learn more about some specific methods:

• The World Café Book: Shaping our future through conversations that matter by Juanita Brown and David Isaacs with the World Café Community of Practice. This is a thorough manual for anyone interested in guiding World Café conversations, a powerful yet simple method designed to facilitate the emergence of collective intelligence.
• Open Space Technology: A user’s guide. The deceptively simple instructions for leading Open Space meetings and events can be found in many places throughout the web (including our own template in SessionLab, complete with printable posters!), but if you want to fully understand the rationale behind Harrison Owen’s wonderful contribution to the field, pick up this guide.
• Cynefin. Weaving sense-making into the fabric of our world. How can you tell if a problem is simple, complicated, complex, chaotic? And what do you do when faced with complexity? Dave Snowden’s work on Cynefin is a must-read for anyone working in uncertainty.
• The Change Handbook. This is the book of books, a 400+ page long encyclopedia of methods. If you want a comprehensive list of resources to thumb through and bookmark, repeatedly, throughout your career, give yourself a copy next holiday season!

Conclusion: your go-to facilitation reading list

These books are more than just recommendations—they’re tools you can use to transform how you think about facilitation, leadership strategies, and learning design. Whether you’re looking to improve group productivity, find practical tips for delivering workshops, or explore how facilitation can push for a more innovative culture, there’s something in this list for everyone.

So, which book will you pick up first? Whether you’re new to facilitation or a seasoned practitioner, each of these books offers valuable insights that can help take your skills to the next level. 

For more ways to sharpen your facilitation skills, check out our facilitation courses and our step-by-step guide to planning workshops. Happy reading!

But when should you consider bringing in a professional facilitator to host a workshop or event? How can you ensure it’s a worthwhile investment of your time and money?

In this guide, we’ll explore what to keep in mind when choosing to hire a facilitator, what to expect from them, and give you some idea of the cost of a facilitator’s services too!

Understanding the role of a facilitator

Before diving into the specifics of hiring, it’s essential to have a clear understanding of what a facilitator does and how they’ll be able to help you and your team meet your goals.

Unlike a leader or content expert, a facilitator isn’t called in to provide training content or push a particular agenda. Instead, their primary role is to co-design and guide the process, ensure everyone is heard and help surface valuable insights while the group moves towards their shared goal.

Responsibilities of a facilitator:

• Creating a structured process for group work.
• Managing time and keep the session on track.
• Encouraging active participation and ensure everyone is heard.
• Helping the group navigate conflict and manage group dynamics.
• Engaging participation in a safe, open, and inclusive environment.

A facilitator is, above all, an expert in collaboration. They focus on how the discussion happens rather than what is discussed, using their extensive experience to guide the group smoothly.

Facilitators do not have a stake in what decisions will be taken: their focus is on making sure the group progresses towards its goals. This creates space for teams to explore a variety of ideas and perspectives and make decisions without getting bogged down in politics or stuck in endless back and forth.

Read this post on the role of a facilitator to go deeper and explore the various roles a facilitator will occupy during a session.

When should you hire a facilitator? 

Effective facilitation can help a group use its resources better (and that includes time, money, and personal energy), by:

• making meetings more impactful;
• improving interpersonal dynamics;
• mitigating risks;
• running innovation and creativity workshops (such as design sprints);
• creating processes to improve business outcomes;
• increasing buy-in and participation;
• managing conflict constructively. 

It’s safe to say that ordinary, day-to-day meetings can be facilitated internally by the team itself (using tips and structures such as the ones you can find in this post on facilitating meetings). 

That said, there are times when you may need the expertise of a professional facilitator who can also serve as an impartial guide to help you solve tough problems and create change.

Some of the most common reasons (and there are many more) I’ve witnessed for hiring an external facilitator includes:

• the need to work with diverse stakeholders, such as public bodies who wish to develop participatory processes with industry leaders and citizens;
• helping to align partners toward a common aim, such as project kick-offs;
• supporting a new group to draft its vision, mission, aims, value statements and group agreements;
• boosting creativity and ideation, for example through design thinking workshops that encourage new perspectives; 
• helping guide a group to solve tough problems when the solution is not immediately apparent or is complex in nature;
• when the need emerges for a neutral third-party to guide a group through a difficult process, such as change management.

While facilitators are not necessarily trainers, they may also support you in providing workshops for continuous learning, particularly on topics such as effective meetings, giving/receiving feedback, or training part of your staff in basic facilitation skills, so they can manage those daily meetings better on their own.

External facilitators should be called in if some of these conditions are met:

• a large or very large meeting, with over 20 participants (up to hundreds! Huge meetings are not an obstacle, as long as you have enough space, resources and people to cover different facilitation roles);
• diverse participants, in terms of origin, language, culture, background, expertise;
• the potential for conflict;
• situations of ambiguity and complexity where there is no “one given simple solution” to be found.

We’ve made a handy summary of factors that could lead you to decide to get some extra support. Use it to self-assess if your next session, conference or event might benefit from the participation of external facilitators.

You may also find our guide explaining exactly what a facilitator is and what they do helpful in determining whether you need to hire one or not.

Examples of when you might hire a facilitator

To help clarify when a facilitator can be helpful, here are some specific examples of the kinds of workshops and events you might bring in an external facilitator for.

Strategic planning

Facilitators are great at leading processes that get results and create business growth. For complex projects like strategic planning, an external facilitator can help teams step back, identify clear, measurable goals and create a plan of action in an inclusive manner.

In our experience, it can be incredibly useful to get someone outside of your core team to help challenge assumptions and provide a fresh perspective.

When looking for a facilitator to help with corporate strategy, it’s often helpful to look for someone with a proven track record and who has relevant experience. They don’t need to have been a marketer or CEO, but if they’ve helped other companies navigate organizational change, that’ll be helpful context for your team.

Expect to provide facilitators with some background about your organization, business objectives and current strategy. All this information is helpful context when the facilitator begins to design a series of workshops for your strategy sessions.

Leadership development workshops

Leadership development workshops and learning programs can have a massive impact on the companies that deploy them.

Facilitators can help with leadership development by creating structured, experiential processes that impart vital leadership skills while also encouraging participants to share and learn from one another.

There’s a large crossover with leadership training here, though depending on your needs, a facilitator with a background and interest in leadership and consulting can be well-positioned to deliver leadership workshops and provide support.

In many cases, facilitators are also able to provide fresh perspectives and outside expertise and experiences that can enliven managers who might have a set way of thinking defined by existing internal politics.

Team building, values and alignment workshops

Hiring an external facilitator to help with team building can be an effective way to ensure everyone in your team can take part and focus on the activity at hand. If your leaders also have to facilitate, they will be taking on a different role and lose the opportunity to bond and learn more about their team members.

When it comes to values workshops or team training sessions, a facilitator can also serve as an excellent team coach, helping participants focus on the skills they wish to improve and giving instant feedback as needed.

Conferences and events

Large-scale events are one area where facilitators shine. Facilitators sometimes call themselves experience designers, and these two skillsets can help turn a humdrum conference into a highly participatory and inclusive experience for all.

Facilitators are also great at adapting to unique circumstances and designing inclusive processes based on your needs. If you’re running a hybrid event, for example, the complexity of managing participation in person and online at the same time is best left in the expert hands of a professional.

What to keep in mind when hiring a facilitator

Once you have decided you do want to hire an external facilitator, here are some things you should keep in mind.

(1) Facilitators are specialists in process design. Draw them in early, before your agenda is set: that is how we can be most useful. I was recently hired for a one-day event in which the agenda had already been set to the minute, with lots of presentations and speeches, yet the hosts were, and I quote “putting our faith in you to make it participatory.” I did my best, but interactions when you have to carve out five minutes here and there are inevitably limited! 

(2) A good facilitator will help you define your requirements and desired outcomes, but the clearer your needs are from the beginning, the easier everyone’s job will be. Expect facilitators to ask you: when is the event (freelancers have crazy schedules), where is it (including online, in-person, or hybrid), who will attend, and what outcomes are you looking for?

(3) If a facilitator recommends co-facilitating or investing in another role such as a graphic recorder to capture conversations, or a tech host online, don’t discount the suggestion offhandedly. Yes, it could cost you more, but there could also be real benefits to it. For more on co-facilitation and why it works, read here.

(4) Facilitators have opinions regarding locations and those opinions have reasons! We are flexible and will work with anything (we have shared some fun stories in this community thread, including facilitating in a church and in a parking lot) but settings are important and have an influence on a workshop’s success.

The way lecture halls are typically built in Western Universities, for example, tell a story about where the power lies, who has the right to speak, and what is the best attitude for learning (seated, quietly taking notes). Workshop rooms designed to be flexible, with tables you can move about, space to hang up posters, chairs that can be arranged in many different ways tell a different story, about collaboration and creativity. 

A facilitator might also have ideas around how to arrange a room in a way that is unexpected, and novel to participants. This is in itself a strong statement and sets the mood for the day: expect something unusual! With that in mind, it should come as no surprise if facilitators ask you to access rooms an hour (or more) before an event starts, if only to quickly rearrange the chairs!

Questions to ask a facilitator before you hire them

Selecting the right facilitator requires more than just reviewing a résumé or website. A key part of the hiring process is having an in-depth conversation to assess whether the facilitator’s style, experience, and approach align with your needs.

Asking the right questions will not only help you gauge their capabilities but also give you insights into how they might handle the unique challenges of your session. Below are some essential questions to consider asking before making your final decision.

1. What is your approach to facilitation?

This question helps you understand the facilitator’s overall philosophy and style. Do they take a more directive role, or do they prefer a hands-off, participant-driven approach? This will give you a sense of how they manage sessions and if their methods align with your organization’s culture and session goals.

2. Can you describe a session you’ve facilitated that was similar to ours?

Experience in your specific type of session or industry can make a big difference. Ask for examples that are closely related to the challenges you face, whether it’s a strategic planning workshop, a conflict resolution session, or a creative brainstorm. This allows you to assess their relevant expertise and how well they understand the context of your session.

3. Can you provide examples of how you’ve adapted when things didn’t go as planned?

Flexibility is key in facilitation. A session might veer off course, or unexpected issues may arise, such as conflict or a sudden shift in participant energy. A skilled facilitator will be able to pivot and adapt. Ask for examples where they had to think on their feet and what adjustments they made to ensure the session’s success.

4. How do you handle virtual or hybrid facilitation, if needed?

In today’s work environment, many sessions are conducted remotely or in a hybrid format. If this applies to your situation, ask about their experience with virtual facilitation tools like Miro, Zoom, or Microsoft Teams. Understanding their comfort with digital platforms ensures they can create an engaging experience, even for remote participants.

5. What is your approach to follow-up or post-session work?

A well-facilitated session doesn’t always end with the last conversation. Ask whether the facilitator provides any follow-up services, such as session summaries, action plans, or debriefs. This can be helpful in ensuring that the decisions and insights generated during the session are implemented effectively.

6. What are your rates, and what does your fee include?

Understanding the facilitator’s pricing structure is crucial to ensure it fits within your budget. Ask if their rates cover preparation, materials, travel, and follow-up work. Some facilitators may offer day rates, while others work on an hourly basis or provide package deals. Clarifying this upfront helps prevent any misunderstandings later on.

7. Can you provide references from past clients?

References can offer valuable insights into the facilitator’s professionalism, effectiveness, and ability to handle various challenges. Reach out to former clients to ask about their experience working with the facilitator, the outcomes of the sessions, and how they handled difficult situations.

8. What do you need from us?

A great facilitation session is a collaborative effort, and the facilitator will likely need input, resources, or support from your team to ensure success.

Ask what they require from you, whether it’s background information on the group, access to specific tools or materials, or help with logistical arrangements. Understanding their needs ensures that you can provide the support necessary for a smooth, productive process.

9. How will we collaborate?

For the duration of your contract, it’s a bit as if a new person were joining your team. Make the most of your time together by working out any specific needs in terms of how you will meet, how often, and what tools you’ll be using to share feedback, notes, and make progress in planning your workshop, training or event.

Because they interact with many different organizations, facilitators can often bring innovation also in the form of new tools or approaches to working together. It’s another opportunity to learn!

While you may be used to doing everything in meetings, for example, your newly found consultant may introduce tools to work asynchronously, such as Slack or Notion. Thousands of professional facilitators use SessionLab to design their sessions and share them with clients: is this where you’ll be giving them feedback?

How much does facilitation cost? 

Given the variety of facilitation services out there, there is really no definitive way of answering this question. To get a general sense, you can check out the State of Facilitation report section on pricing for your geographical location and/or sector. A more detailed look at the topic, from a couple of years ago, comes from the NeverDoneBefore community’s pricing survey.

In both cases, the median price for a full-day workshop was given at about €3000. This is a good indication to start with, but as many respondents pointed out, there are many variables involved. Is the request to accompany a group in time, or a one-off event? How much preparation is required, how many meetings with staff? How large is the event? Are travel and accommodation covered?

If you are a facilitator working on how to price your services, I highly recommend this podcast episode on How to Price your Facilitation and Coaching services, hosted by Myriam Hadnes on Workshops Work, in which pricing expert Jenny Millar offers her reflections and top tips. After listening to it, I began to offer three-tier pricing options to potential clients, which is one of the tools recommended in the podcast.

I have found experimenting with this approach very helpful also because it forces me to articulate clearly what services I can offer extra (such as 1:1 interviews, or follow-up questionnaires), and should be paid extra for, versus what the bare minimum would cost. Negotiations on pricing, especially when a client is new and not familiar with facilitation yet, are also an opportunity to go deeper into explaining a facilitator’s role and value. Expect some back-and-forth negotiation!

How do I find a good facilitator?

So now you know you want to bring in an external facilitator to run a session with your team. Where do you find them?

In my experience, the most common avenue for finding a good facilitator is through a referral or recommendation. Check with your professional networks and ask around!

Facilitator networks are also a great source of professional facilitators. For example, the International Association of Facilitators provides a directory of certified facilitators who are grouped by location, so you can easily find a facilitator that is right for you.

Most facilitators have a specialization or special interest area that can make them the ideal fit for your project.

Good facilitators can apply their skills to any group process, but finding someone who has a lot of experience in Agile processes, for example, might benefit you if your team is already familiar with the methodology.

Similarly, some facilitators are specialists in community engagement, design thinking, games, creativity or anything else you can think of. Finding a good match for the aims of your project can help ensure a successful facilitation process later.

We’d also recommend being clear with any potential hires about the goals and expected outcomes for the project. Good facilitators will quickly be able to tell if they are the right fit, and any potential collaboration will be better with this clarity in place.

When are facilitators useful besides professional facilitation? 

Requests for professional facilitation and facilitation skills are definitely on the rise. Changes in the workplace accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, in particular, made it painfully clear when meetings and workplace habits were functional or dysfunctional to making progress. In between the lines of commentary to the State of Facilitation 2023 report two parallel trends emerge:

• more requests for professional facilitators (and a need for more training and certification in general facilitation skills) and, at the same time
• a more diffuse appreciation of basic facilitation skills, such as meeting management. To quote IAF Vice-chair Gerardo De Luzenberger, “facilitation [is] becoming widespread as a transversal competence among leaders as well as in the general workforce. “

As facilitation skills become widespread, in fact, so does the ability to detect when a situation can be facilitated internally and when some extra help is needed.

A more facilitative approach is also diffused in certain education environments, as teamwork abilities and communication skills are more and more recognized as a crucial part of pedagogy. This is detailed, for example, in numerous publications on the future of education such as this policy paper on Skills for a Modern Europe. 

In conclusion

Hiring the right facilitator can be a game-changer for your organization. By keeping these key factors in mind, you’ll be well on your way to choosing a facilitator who is not only skilled and experienced but also a great fit for your team and organizational goals.

Whether you’re hosting a strategic planning meeting or a creative brainstorming session, the right facilitator can help you get the most out of your time together and drive meaningful outcomes.

Want to learn more? Check out the latest state of facilitation report for more insight into the profession or explore what a facilitator does in greater depth.

Want to find a suitable facilitator for hire? Ask our facilitation community for help or post a request. Facilitators are a friendly, helpful bunch by nature!

When a meeting or event flows well, it can feel like magic. But it actually isn’t: you can easily improve your day-to-day meetings or stakeholder events by applying some simple group management tips.

In this article, we’ll explore what makes group facilitation effective and share 12 tips to help you bring out the best in any group you’re working with.

What is group facilitation?

Whenever a group of people assembles to get something done, there is a need for guidance and organization.

Group facilitation refers to the craft of helping a group achieve a common goal. The goal might be realizing a project, creating a shared strategy document, or learning something new together. 

Accompanying a group to define and achieve their goals is the job of group facilitators. One aspect of this role is project management, which may include familiar tasks such as defining steps and setting deadlines. Another aspect has to do with creating conditions conducive to good collaboration, which is typically the goal of a process-oriented facilitator.

To understand more about what facilitation is and how it can help your team or organization achieve its objectives, we’ve compiled a guide to what is facilitation. 

What is a group and what is a team? 

A group and a team might seem like the same thing, but there’s an important difference. A group is a collection of individuals who share a common interest or purpose but work mostly independently. A team, however, is a group that has become a unit, collaborating closely and working toward shared goals. In a team, a successful outcome does not only depend on individual efforts, but also on how those efforts come together.

A facilitator helps turn a group into a cohesive team by creating alignment and clarity. They guide the group in defining a common purpose, ensuring everyone understands the shared goals. The resulting work can last a long time, but can also be a temporary team, lasting only the duration of a 3-hour training session. 

When does a group process need facilitation?

My first answer to this is going to be “always”. As long as the group has a purpose it wants to achieve, facilitation will help.

Suppose you are just hanging out with your friends. In that case, facilitation might be optional—although I’ll still make an argument that some facilitation skills might help improve even an unstructured evening with friends (for example, by removing unnecessary friction about which restaurant to pick for dinner).

Note that I am talking about a group needing facilitation, not necessarily needing a facilitator. A facilitator is a person dedicated to the task of facilitation, usually someone appointed externally. 

You should also consider hiring an external professional if your session or gathering has elements of complexity, such as:

• a numerous group (over 20 people);
• participants with different, even conflicting interests;
• members of the group do not know one another (yet) and/or come from very different backgrounds;
• the timeframe for decisions is tight, decisions are risky and complex.

For general day-to-day business, on the other hand, a group still needs facilitation, but this can be interpreted as a role to be distributed among group members and taken on by the collective. You might, for example, have someone time-keep and another person take notes on the meeting. 

By including facilitation in your day-to-day workflow you can ensure productivity, a better agenda, and better relations all around. Let’s look at 12 facilitation tips that will help you become a better group member or leader.

12 group facilitation tips

Facilitation is an endlessly creative process, where there is always something new to learn and experiment. Creating activities and agendas to fit the particular needs of a specific group at a certain time is part of what keeps our work fresh and innovative at every turn. 

Having said that, certain rock-solid processes or tips can apply to any group facilitation, anywhere. Here are 12 group facilitation tips you should always keep in mind, whether you are just starting out or a seasoned pro. Next time you need to lead a session, try out these methods and mindsets to improve the levels of collaboration in your team.

We’ve included 5 practical tips to get you started, as well as 7 tips that have more to do with the mindset of a great group facilitator.

5 practical group facilitation tips to get started

Before getting into the skills and mindset of facilitation, let’s see what can be achieved in practice by adding just a few activities and processes to a standard meeting. Here are 5 beginner-friendly group facilitation tips you can easily apply with any group

These tips are guaranteed to improve the flow of a meeting process whether you are in the room with an established team, online at a webinar, or in any other situation a group gathers!

Create ground rules

Any time a group gathers to get something done, it will create its own culture. This is simply a fact of how we work together as social beings (and a good reason for facilitators to be interested in anthropology). You can pick up signs of this micro-culture everywhere: what do people in this group wear? What kinds of jokes do they make? What is acceptable and what is not?

As group facilitators, we leverage the culture-creation aspect of a group gathering by making it more explicit and intentional. We do this by asking the group members to reflect on what kind of a culture they hope to create together. What is conducive to their best work? 

Ground rules, also known as group compacts or group agreements, are a written document in which the group, aided by a facilitator, spells out behaviors it wishes its members to adhere to for the time they are together. 

No matter how short the session you are facilitating, creating ground rules is a guaranteed way to make it flow better. If you are short on time, prepare a generic draft and submit it to the group for approval. “Respect”, “confidentiality”, “punctuality”, “phones silent (if in person)”, “video on if possible (if online)” are some classic examples of what you’ll want to see there. If you have more time, or you’ll be working with a team for a series of sessions, craft those agreements together. 

All collaborations require connection. Harnessing diversity requires inclusion and belonging.

Adam Kahane, Facilitating Breakthrough – How to Remove Obstacles, Bridge Differences, and Move Forward Together

Have (and share) an agenda

To write down these tips, I’ve been thinking about the session I’ve most recently facilitated, a networking and upskilling day for high school teachers. What elements did I introduce to the agenda in order to create an atmosphere conducive to learning, positive interactions and, ultimately, change? 

Many things I did were quite simple. As participants arrived, I had a coffee break set up to welcome them (see below “Never underestimate the power of breaks”). Once we were gathered, I and my cofacilitator Rossella had planned a 30-minute slot for introductions and opening activities. I went through some simple group agreements, then pointed to a whiteboard where I had written out the agenda for the day.

Having an agenda is essential to the facilitation process. Facilitators are famously improvisers, but still need a structured plan to improvise upon. Agenda design is a key skill of group facilitation; to read more about this you might want to check out SessionLab’s complete guide to planning a workshop.

Sharing your agenda with participants early in the process fulfills a basic need for clarity and safety in the group. Now, every participant knows what will be expected of them in terms of style of participation, thanks to your group agreements, and in terms of time to dedicate to the event, thanks to the agenda. Keeping the agenda visible throughout the session keeps you, and the entire group, accountable for time management. 

In SessionLab’s agenda planner, you’ll find a great ally for agenda design and sharing. This is the go-to place for group facilitators to craft sessions, and includes a variety of customizable options for how to share your plans with clients and participants. To start a group facilitation session, you can share a QR code, or share your screen, pointing attendees to the key elements of the agenda (such as the timing and title of each activity block). 

Encourage group members to participate as early as possible

The earlier people are encouraged to make their voices heard, the more likely they will be to intervene later. This is a key tenet of online facilitation, in which a good guide will encourage participants to check in using the chat as soon as they join the call, and holds just as true for in-person facilitation. 

There are numerous ways you can encourage participation as early as possible. Which to choose depends greatly on the amount of participants, the location (online, offline, hybrid) and the style of your gathering. Here are some classic examples:

• Invite a tour de table, asking everyone to introduce themselves briefly. Do set clear boundaries for this, or introductions can take a very long time. I’ll typically ask for name, organization, and “what brings you here today?”. Model how long this should take by starting yourself, and if you are worried about a round taking too long, have everyone stand up!

• Ask a check-in question and have people share in turns. If you are short on inspiration, here is a list of over 200 ideas of what to ask.

• Online, start meetings and webinars with a chat waterfall. Simply ask everyone to use the chat as a check-in, and read out some answers as they arrive.

• Impromptu networking is a wonderful method from Liberating Structures, taking the form of an invitation to quickly chat with a couple of attendees and start making those precious connections.

Never underestimate the power of breaks

The apparently trivial matter of a coffee break can be a group facilitator’s ally in many ways. Wondering how to best welcome participants and set the tone? Make sure they find refreshments upon arrival. Getting a sense that the group is overtired, with conversations going around in circles? Take a break.

Breaks should be included in your agenda about every hour and a half, but a good group facilitator knows that it’s best to anticipate the break, or call for a quick 5-minute breather, whenever it feels appropriate. 

A break can be an amazingly effective way to defuse tensions and allow everyone to return to the session refreshed and ready for a change of perspective. Seemingly intractable problems sometimes dissolve with a breath of fresh air.

Mix different types of activities

A major challenge when facilitating a group is figuring out how to create space for contributions coming from many different kinds of people. Some of us enjoy quiet thinking time, others get their best ideas from conversation. For some people, speaking in front of the whole group is second nature, while for quieter participants it may be much preferable to express thoughts in writing. How do you, as facilitator, cater to all these different needs? 

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be complicated: all you need to do is make sure, when designing your agenda, that you have made space for many different ways to contribute.

A classic, evergreen way of doing this is by using the Liberating Structure 1-2-4-all. This means asking a question of the group then giving first some time for individual reflection, then for conversation in pairs, discussion in small groups and, finally, sharing insights in a plenary. 1-2-4-all is a perfect example of how group facilitation activities can create space for different types of personalities to contribute. 

Giving people some time to write ideas on sticky notes before reading them out loud and clustering them on a board is another classic facilitation technique. This allows both those who appreciate quietly writing out ideas and those who prefer an animated discussion to bring their voice to the table. 

You can find a ready-to-use flow for a workshop that integrates these top tips among SessionLab’s collection of templates. This essential workshop session includes all the building blocks you need to start off with group facilitation on the right foot, with space for check-ins, group agreements, debrief activities, discussions in small groups and, of course, breaks! 

7 ideas to keep in mind for great group facilitation

The five tips above should give you enough to go with to start designing and leading your first facilitated sessions. Besides practical tips though, there are also some more general concepts that it’s good to keep in mind to make sure your sessions are engaging, meaningful, and help drive the group forward.

Here are 7 ideas I find important when designing and leading group sessions. If you have others to add, use the comments or join the conversation in SessionLab’s friendly community! 

Connection before content

Trainers and learning facilitators will always tell you to put connection before content. People need to feel comfortable enough in their surroundings, and clear about their reason for being there, before they can effectively absorb new information or contribute new ideas. 

In practice, putting connection before content is often as simple as having a round of check-ins before starting a meeting, or asking for expectations before a workshop. Impromptu networking is a great method to create connections, including in large groups and/or online. 

Make the process explicit to the whole group

When it comes to group facilitation, transparency is key. Making the process explicit means letting participants know what to expect at each stage of a session. This clarity helps people feel more comfortable and confident, knowing what’s coming next and why. It also demystifies the facilitator’s role, turning what might feel like an unfamiliar process into something the group can engage with fully.

Sharing your plan at the start is part of this mission, and so is explaining the purpose (the “why”) behind each activity, as well as clarifying to participants which part of the workshop process you are currently in.
It’s a simple shift that builds trust and invites everyone to be active participants in the process, rather than passive observers.

A skilled facilitator will occasionally narrate the day back to participants as the hours pass: “This morning we started with brainstorming, and collected so many different ideas; now we are going to change gears and prioritize those ideas, as we want to reach a shortlist of three before the break”.

Balance attention to each group member and to the whole

The facilitator role includes balancing the needs of the whole group with those of each individual. The group’s goals and progress matter, but so does making sure that every participant feels seen, heard, and valued. This balance can be tricky, but it’s essential for maintaining both momentum and morale.

In practice, this might look like managing time so that everyone has a chance to share their thoughts, while also keeping the group focused on the collective goal. Having someone assist with co-facilitating a session is particularly useful in case any one person needs some extra attention or just a side conversation during a break. 

Reframe troublemakers as message-bringers

In group facilitation, what some might label as “troublemakers” can actually be seen as valuable contributors. Often, those who challenge the process or raise difficult questions are highlighting issues or needs that others in the group might also be feeling. Thinking of these individuals as message-bringers can shift the dynamic from conflict to curiosity.

Reframing a person who strikes me as “difficult” as a messenger was a key learning for me early in my career. Is the session not responding to their needs in some way, are they pointing to something that would benefit the whole group, and how can I adapt to this? Sometimes, finding out what message they are carrying might require a separate, 1:1 conversation. In many cases, assigning a clear role to those apparent troublemakers, such as helping out with facilitation, can give their energy a more constructive outlet.

Be aware of the local culture

Group facilitation isn’t one-size-fits-all, and being aware of local culture is crucial to guiding a group effectively. Cultural norms influence body language and personal expression, from how people communicate, to who gets to speak (and for how long), to how participants respond to authority. Therefore, facilitators need to be sensitive to these dynamics. What works well in one setting might not work at all in another.

To adapt to local culture, it’s important to observe how the group interacts and adjust your approach accordingly. Group agreements definitely help make assumptions explicit; I once ran a series of workshops in Sicily where we agreed to spell out on a poster at the entrance that “This is what we mean by punctuality: we will start 20 minutes later than the agreed starting time” (yes).  

Being aware of local culture could mean changing how you frame questions or make eye contact, adjusting the pace of activities, or being mindful of when silence means contemplation versus discomfort. If you find yourself misunderstanding body language, for example, you might need to ask what people intend to communicate or check in on how they are feeling. A little cultural awareness goes a long way toward creating a space where everyone feels comfortable participating.

If you are working in a culture different from your own, the best tip I can give is to cofacilitate with somebody local: the combination of an outsider and an insider perspective can make for truly great insights! 

Pay attention to power imbalances

It is not necessarily the facilitator’s job to redress or change power dynamics, but it’s certainly part of the job to be aware of them. In a hierarchical context, such as a business setting, it’s perfectly fine to give more time to the leader or CEO, and in decision-making workshops it’s common for a team leader to have the final word over assignments.

Keeping that in mind, it can be beneficial for the group’s development to have the facilitator champion quieter voices and make sure they are heard. Do people dare express their own ideas? An effective facilitator will find a way to encourage people to contribute without compromising their sense of safety.

In more horizontal settings, such as a volunteer group, good group facilitation might imply making hidden power structures visible and checking if they are serving a purpose (e.g. seniority in the group will often implicitly give people more of a say, which can be a good or bad thing depending on the needs of the moment). 

Paying attention to power imbalances in practice often translates into noticing things that are happening and mirroring them back to the group, then asking if this is something that works well for them or something they might want to address and change. 

Time is on your side

My “facilitation mantra”, a sentence I repeat to myself when group work gets tough, is something like “This is exactly the right time for this group”. Getting time on your side can be a struggle in group facilitation, but it doesn’t have to be. Having a clear (and visible) agenda helps with this. 

Transparency is also a great aid: when I ask for a round of comments, for example, I’ll generally bring the group’s attention to the number of people involved and the time we have, saying something like “We have 10 minutes for this debrief and there are 15 people here, so if we each speak for a minute, that will be too long, right? Please do feel free to take the time you need to make your point, but also aim to be concise”. 

I personally really dislike ending workshops in a rush: my antidote to that is to have a timer set to ring in my pocket about 10 minutes before the established ending time. At that point, even if we have not completed all activities, I know I have to start leading the group towards closing.

“Although we have not fully completed this plan, we probably have enough to go with for now: what will our next steps be? What are we taking away from our time together?”. Having time to debrief and share thank-yous and goodbyes leaves people in a much better mental state than rushing through a conclusion. 

What are group facilitation skills?

As you have seen above, there is a lot to keep in mind when dealing with group facilitation. Leading a bunch of people through a process and all the way to an outcome is exhilarating (if tiring) and important work.

As you practice this craft, you will come to understand and hone a series of facilitation skills that include:

• nailing the planning process, so that you arrive with a clear agenda to share;
• knowing how and when to improvise, throwing the plan away to better serve the needs of that particular group and that particular time;
• leaning into trust and curiosity, rather than trying to condition the outcomes;
• reading and understanding group dynamics, and how to shift a group’s energy around (insider’s tip: it’s much easier to shift the mood of a group than it is to shift the mood of an individual).

For more ideas on what facilitation skills are and how to develop them, read SessionLab’s guide to the head, hands and hearts of facilitation skills. 

6 group facilitation techniques you’ll want to know

As you find more opportunities to facilitate meetings, you’ll soon discover a need to diversify your toolkit and make sure you have an idea for an activity always at hand.

In SessionLab’s extensive library of facilitation techniques, you will find all the inspiration you need to keep your sessions fresh. 

Having said that, there are a few tried and tested group activities that are basic enough, and flexible enough, to warrant recommending them as a go-to essential toolkit for group facilitation. 

The aforementioned 1-2-4-all is a versatile Liberating Structure (to learn more about Liberating Structures, read up here) applicable to any situation where you want to encourage group members to reflect and share. It simply means inviting people to jot down their answers to a question first individually, then discussing in pairs, then in a small group, and ultimately reporting back to the plenary.

Becoming better group members often has to do with practicing listening skills, and learning the ability to momentarily quiet the voice in our minds that is preparing to respond. Paired activities are a great way to stretch our listening muscles. I’ll often invite an active listening exercise early in a session, even on something as basic as “what are your expectations for today?”.

We’ve mentioned ground rules quite a lot in this post, but you may be wondering what is an effective way to co-create them. Here you go! The activity takes about 45 minutes and will get you a set of tailored group agreements for a team to adhere to. 

If the group you are hosting is meeting in person, it’s good to remember to leverage the possibilities of using physical space as a facilitation asset. Sending participants on a paired walk functions as an energizer and, at the same time, a practical way to deepen conversations and handle difficult questions. Creative ideas are much more likely to be sparked during a walk than sitting down at a table!

When it comes to prioritizing options and starting to converge towards a decision, a solid way to work with a group is using some variation of dot-voting. At a recent workshop with academics, for example, I asked everyone to mark with a green dot those sections of the whitepaper under discussion that were ready to go, and in red those that needed revisions. In just a few minutes, the group produced a clear “heat map” of the necessary next steps.

There are many tricks a group facilitator can use to get time on their side. Quick rounds such as one-breath feedback, are a good idea if you need to reach a sense of closure but have very little time left! 

You can find more activity ideas in SessionLab’s library; download our Essential Meeting Facilitation Toolkit to have these and other basic tools of group facilitation always at your fingertips.

How to learn more about group facilitation 

With a bunch of methods at your disposal and some key tips to keep in mind, you should be more than ready to start practicing facilitation. You’ll be joining a growing number of facilitation enthusiasts!

Facilitation is practiced by a network of incredibly generous people, who often offer workshops, materials and resources for free. To look into more resources, including facilitation training courses and where they can take you, check out our blog post on how to learn facilitation.

Another essential resource to orient yourself in the world of group facilitation is the yearly State of Facilitation report, where you can read up on trends, challenges, and top 10 lists of books, podcasts and more, as voted by the worldwide facilitation community. 

How SessionLab can help with group facilitation

SessionLab is the go-to platform for session design. We strongly believe in creating a culture of facilitation in workplaces and groups everywhere and, as such, have set out to provide anyone interested in facilitation with as many practical and applicable resources as possible.

Here are some of the ways SessionLab can help you with group facilitation:

Build a session in SessionLab’s planner. SessionLab’s agenda planner is an intuitive tool that enables great session design, made easy. Simply drag-and-drop different activities to create an agenda. By automatically calculating time, showing you lists of materials, and enabling you to color-code different sections, the planner simplifies your work and makes designing for engagement an intuitive process. Try it out! 

Use ready-made templates. To start your first session, visit the Template collection and pick a ready-made agenda created by top professionals in facilitation and learning design. Duplicate a session, especially the ones marked #essential, to get started, or browse the collection for learning and inspiration.

Learn from SessionLab’s library. SessionLab hosts the world’s largest collection of facilitation activities. Get familiar with how to use it, and how to drop activities inside your new sessions, to make sure you never run out of ideas for things to do with your group!

Subscribe to our free courses and newsletter. The most-read newsletter in the facilitation space is delivered straight to your inbox once every two weeks, packed with resources and tips for your next sessions. We’ve also set up some email courses you can check out here to learn more about how facilitation works, and how to overcome its challenges. 

Keep us posted about your journey in group facilitation by joining our vibrant, friendly community, where you’ll find free events and plenty of support to answer all your facilitation questions. 

In this post, I’ll explore the six roles of a facilitator and how to use them in your practice. Each one highlights a unique set of skills that facilitators use to help groups stay focused, energized, and productive — much more than simply handing out sticky notes.

6 roles of a facilitator

Facilitation is a relatively new field of interest and, as such, we don’t really have a neat box to categorize it in. Is it a form of training? Is it business consultancy? It can be those things and more, but it also has its own, distinguishing features. 

One way of defining facilitation is to say it’s the craft of leading groups towards a desired outcome. While that is true, saying it out loud is likely to be received with crickets and blank stares. To clarify what facilitation means, when holding training programs for newcomers to facilitation I have found it useful to use metaphors. A facilitator is like a guide. Like a compass. Like a mirror. Like a bridge.

In the next few pages, we will go through a series of roles that characterize what a facilitator does and how. Each, on its own, says something about the craft of facilitation. The most effective facilitation combines all these roles (and more) to create inclusive learning environments and meaningful group discussions.

You’ll probably find some of these roles more familiar, or more natural to your facilitation style, than others. It’s important to remember that they all serve a purpose to drive the group forward, so you should consider developing those in which you feel weakest or, if you can co-facilitate, leaning into your strongest suit and pairing up with someone who favors different roles.

Here is how we will describe the role of a facilitator in the next few pages:

Facilitator as Guide

The role of a facilitator can be likened to that of a guide, leading a group through unfamiliar or complex terrain. Like a hiking guide helps travelers navigate trails, a facilitator provides direction and support without imposing personal judgments or solutions. Your role as a guide is to set the course for discussion, ensuring participants stay on track while also encouraging the exploration of different perspectives. 

Just as a guide doesn’t walk the path for the hikers but helps them find the best route, a facilitator helps a group uncover solutions and make decisions that are their own.

Your role as facilitator is akin to being a guide every time you:

• Go through the session agenda before the actual workshop, using experience and foresight to craft a good itinerary for your group, and prevent potential pitfalls;
• Present participants with a sense of the journey you’ll take together and the destination (outcome) you are aiming for;
• Remind everyone of what part of the process they are currently in, such as divergence (ideation, brainstorming) or convergence (decision-making, narrowing down options).

The guiding role of a facilitator is essential for a group to achieve its aims because it provides structure without dominating the discussion. A facilitator enables the group to remain productive by steering the conversation away from distractions or unproductive tangents while encouraging participation from everyone. By guiding rather than directing, the facilitator empowers the group to take ownership of its decisions and progress.

What are the skills of a facilitator as guide? 

To be an effective guide, you’ll need to hone and practice several key skills, including:

• Clear communication: strong verbal and non-verbal communication skills help facilitators provide clear instructions and ensure everyone understands the process, keeping the group on track.
• Neutrality and impartiality: the ability to remain unattached to any particular outcome is critical, as it allows the facilitator to guide discussions without favoring certain viewpoints.
• Adaptability: a facilitator learns how to sense the room, picking up group dynamics and patterns and adapting their route according to what is really going on for the group at the moment, rather than sticking to a pre-established plan. 

Facilitator as Community Builder  

A facilitator’s role can be compared to that of a community builder, someone who fosters connections and encourages collaboration among a group. Like a community builder, the facilitator creates a welcoming, inclusive environment where all participants feel valued and heard. The goal is to establish trust and create a sense of shared ownership over the group’s outcomes.

For example, in a workshop aimed at team collaboration, you may start by organizing icebreaking activities that allow participants to get to know each other better, breaking down barriers and encouraging open communication. With your community builder hat on, you’ll be inviting group members to share ideas and perspectives, fostering a sense of belonging. When everyone feels comfortable, the group becomes more open and productive in their discussions.

Of all the roles of a facilitator, this is the one closest to my heart and to my personal style as a group leader. When I worked as a tutor for summer school students, for example, I generally dedicated most of the first day in our programs to activities aimed to help participants learn about one another, from name games to deeper questions around motivation and purpose. 

“Sit together with one other person and share something about your ancestors, or the places you come from” I remember telling a group of young engineers, much to their surprise. At the end of their week together, more than one of them came to me to share variations of this feedback: “At first, I was annoyed that we could not go straight into talking about engineering. But now I realize we worked better together because of personal conversations we had”. 

Ground rules are a useful tool for the facilitator as community builder. This refers to having a section of the workshop dedicated to sharing and agreeing upon how participants intend to behave with each other during the time they share. 

This community-building approach helps the group achieve its goals by establishing a foundation of trust and respect, which is crucial for collaboration. People are more likely to engage and share their best ideas when they feel they are part of a supportive community.  

What are the skills of a facilitator as community builder? 

To be an effective community builder, you’ll need to cultivate several key skills, including:

• Empathy and emotional intelligence: building a sense of community starts with understanding and connecting with others. Facilitators need to recognize the emotions and needs of the group, showing genuine care and concern for how people are feeling. This helps create a space where participants feel valued and heard.
• Group dynamics awareness: every group has its unique energy, and a facilitator who is tuned into the dynamics can encourage positive interactions while addressing any tensions before they escalate. Being able to read the room and understand the relationships at play helps create an inclusive, supportive environment.
• Conflict literacy: no community is without conflict, but a skilled facilitator can help navigate disagreements in a way that brings people closer rather than driving them apart. By guiding the group through challenges with fairness and calm, facilitators help solidify trust and maintain harmony, ensuring everyone remains engaged in the collective effort.

Facilitator as Team Coach  

A facilitator can also be seen as a team coach, guiding and motivating the group to perform at its best. Like a sports coach, the facilitator doesn’t dictate solutions but helps the group identify its strengths, set goals, and work through challenges. The focus is on empowering the group to improve and make progress.

Facilitation and coaching share a lot of terrain, and the words are often used interchangeably, which can create some confusion. In the sense I am using here, coaching is the ability to identify potential and explore ways to work towards the realization of that potential. As such, it can be seen as a possible component of facilitation. We are not talking here about 1:1 coaching which, while sharing some DNA with facilitation, is a different application of similar skills. 

You are taking on the mantle of a team coach when driving a group to realize its aims and objectives. Many facilitation methods help increase motivation. In a problem-solving session, for instance, you might encourage team members to reflect on past successes and challenges, helping them identify what strategies worked well and what could be improved.

Another aspect of this role has to do with asking powerful questions. If it feels like participants are getting too comfortable, and you have a sense that they may be falling into groupthink, you’ll need to push the group to use critical thinking skills.

If the group easily agrees on everything, which might, at first glance, feel like a good thing, it’s your job as a facilitator to challenge participants and dig a bit deeper. Are we sure this approach is the best? Is someone perhaps sitting with criticism they are not airing?

The six thinking hats method crafted by Edward De Bono is a useful tool for the facilitator as team coach. Asking everyone to temporarily wear the “black hat” of critical thinking is great way to draw out disagreements safely and playfully. “Yellow hat” thinking invites the group to reach for its highest potential.  

I’ve sometimes found that the role of facilitator as team coach and that of facilitator as community builder can feels at odds with one another. Should we be aiming to make everyone cozy and comfortable, or challenge them to rise to higher standards? As with all things facilitation, the answers are “it depends”, and “both”.

Creating safer spaces and pushing people beyond their comfort zones serve different purposes. You can think of these tasks sequentially, as something appropriate to different parts of the process: community building comes first, making it possible to push the team later. If you are working with a co-facilitator who’s skilled at a different style, it can be useful to separate roles a bit: as a person who loves to create an inclusive, comfortable community, I often like to work with someone more likely to challenge the group.

Learning happens right at the edge between risk and comfort, so getting this interplay right can really make the difference for your participants, especially in a training course or learning environment.

Key skills for a facilitator as a team coach

• Motivation and encouragement: a team coach knows how to uplift the group, keeping energy levels high and helping participants stay focused on their shared goals. By offering positive reinforcement and celebrating progress, a facilitator can boost feelings of accomplishment and momentum that push the group to keep moving forward.
• Asking powerful questions: effective coaching is about guiding people to their own insights. When coaching the group, a facilitator uses powerful, thought-provoking questions to challenge assumptions, encourage deeper thinking, and help the team explore alternative solutions without providing the answers themselves.
• Goal setting and progress monitoring: as a coach, a facilitator helps the group clarify its objectives and create a roadmap for success. You can keep the group accountable by regularly checking in on progress, helping everyone stay aligned, keeping an eye on task management and adjusting the course when necessary to ensure goals are met.

Facilitator as MC/Host  

The role of a facilitator can also be likened to that of an MC (master of ceremonies) or host at an event, who sets the tone, keeps things moving, and ensures that everything runs smoothly. The MC introduces the speakers, keeps the audience engaged, and makes sure the schedule is followed—all while being the face of the event, ensuring the energy remains positive.

In your role as host, you’ll be expected to set the stage at the beginning. This not only means explaining the agenda and goals (which is more of a guiding role) but also inspiring the group through, for example, reading a quote, telling a story, or inviting a moment of grounding and reflection.

Given how busy people’s lives are, they are likely to arrive to any session, especially online, with scattered thoughts and attention. As host, you can ask to focus on the other people in the room, including in a videocall, thanking everyone for being in the space and appealing to their desire to focus, learn, and achieve something together.

Throughout the session, it is also your role as host to transition smoothly between activities, and maintain the group’s energy level with energizers, breaks, or even music if it fits the mood!

Gatherings crackle and flourish when real thought goes into them, when (often invisible) structure is baked into them, and when a host has the curiosity, willingness, and generosity of spirit to try.

Priya Parker, The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters

This role helps the group meet its objectives by keeping the session organized and dynamic, maintaining a flow that keeps participants energized and on schedule. In large events, conferences or panels, this is the role of the moderator: facilitators sometimes act as moderators, especially when events include an element of active participation from the audience.

Time management is a key function for the facilitator in their role as host. While the actual agenda for the day may be open and flexible based on emergent needs, it’s important that starting and end times, as well as breaks, are respected, and that work gets done in the time allotted.

When designing a tool to support facilitators, that’s the first thing we helped solve with SessionLab’s planner, which allows facilitators to design sessions that fit the allotted time, and easily drag-and-drop activities to change the plan as required.

Key skills for a facilitator as an MC/host

• Time management: as an MC, a facilitator ensures the event runs smoothly and on schedule. This includes juggling transitions between activities and speakers, keeping everything on track to make sure participants time is used in the best possible way, without them having to worry about logistics or overrunning.
• Public speaking: confidence in front of an audience is key to fulfill this role of a facilitator. Your presence sets the tone for the event; you’ll need to think about how to clearly and succinctly engage the audience and communicate with the group, making sure that everyone is informed and ready for what’s coming next.
• Energy management and pacing: a skilled host knows how to read the room and adjust the flow of the session to maintain energy. Use your instincts to either pick up the pace or slow things down when the group needs a moment to reflect or recharge.

Facilitator as Peacebuilder

A facilitator’s role can also be compared to that of a peacebuilder, someone who helps resolve tensions, fosters understanding, and encourages collaboration among differing viewpoints. Much like a peacebuilder works to manage conflict and find common ground, a facilitator ensures that discussions remain respectful and that any disagreements are handled constructively, allowing the group to move forward together.

For instance, in a meeting where team members have conflicting opinions about the direction of a project, you might find yourself stepping in to mediate by allowing each participant to express their concerns in a calm and structured way.

Active listening is your best friend in such situations. Listen carefully, then help the group identify shared interests or goals that can serve as a foundation for moving forward. This peacebuilding role is essential for helping the group achieve its goals because it allows the team to navigate through conflicts and disagreements without stalling progress. Although this role can feel difficult at first, with some practice you will learn how to leverage differences as a source of growth rather than an obstacle.

The relationship between facilitation and mediation is another complicated one. While many facilitators are trained in mediation, not all are, nor is it a requirement for the job. Mediation has its own highly specialized set of methodologies and tools, usually focussing on mediating between two positions, rather than dealing with whole-group tensions. 

I believe it is essential for professional facilitators to become literate in the language and concepts of conflict mediation, but it is equally important to know when to step back and recommend professional mediation as a pathway to building peace.

Once a workshop is over, it’s also the facilitator’s job to document outcomes and draft reports. You can think of this as part of a peacebuilding role because it enables parties to continue their journey of mutual understanding together. Writing up reports is an underappreciated source of power: make them clear and actionable and you’ll have boosted collaboration for longer than just the timespan of single workshop!

Key skills for a facilitator as a peacebuilder

• Conflict literacy: when taking on a peacebuilding role, a facilitator must understand the nature of conflict and be able to identify its root causes. When you catch frightened gazes looking your way for help (conflict is scary!) you might need to step in and help everyone navigate differences without escalating tension.
• Active listening and empathy: to cultivate peace, a facilitator needs to listen deeply to all sides, ensuring that everyone feels heard and respected. By showing empathy and validating different perspectives, you can create an environment where participants are more open to understanding each other. Being an active listener will also make it easier to write clear, actionable reports after each event.
• Emotional regulation: remaining calm and composed in the face of conflict is essential. A key skill for a good facilitator is self-awareness, knowing how to manage one’s own emotions while helping the group manage theirs.

Facilitator as Experience Designer  

A facilitator can also be seen as an experience designer, someone who crafts an intentional and engaging process for participants to move through. As experience designer, the facilitator carefully plans the flow of activities, ensuring that each part of the session builds toward the group’s overall goal.

This behind-the-scenes work ensures the session is both structured and purposeful, using foresight to anticipate potential challenges and making sure the agenda is adaptable to any changes that may arise. 

This experience-design approach helps the group achieve its goals by providing a structured yet flexible pathway that maximizes creativity and collaboration. By thinking ahead and planning a well-balanced session, you can ensure that the entire group moves efficiently toward its desired outcomes.  

At SessionLab, we support facilitators and workshop designers to streamline the work of agenda design. Using SessionLab’s agenda builder, you can easily drag-and-drop activities you’ve ideated or selected from a library of over 1300 methods, and arrange them into a coherent flow. To learn more about the skill of agenda designing, read our guide to designing and planning a workshop here. 

Key skills for a facilitator as experience designer

• Session planning: a well-designed agenda is the backbone of a successful session. As experience designer, you are carefully crafting a flow of activities and discussions that align with the group’s goals. 
• Creativity and innovation: designing engaging and meaningful experiences requires creativity. A facilitator needs to think outside the box, choosing or creating activities that capture the group’s attention and encourage participation, all while keeping the core purpose in focus.
• Flexibility: no matter how well-planned a session is, group dynamics can shift. A skilled experience designer stays flexible, adapting the agenda in real-time to meet the emerging needs of the participants. This ensures that the session remains relevant and impactful, regardless of any unforeseen developments.

3 things a facilitator is (probably) not

Another way of looking at facilitation to understand it better is to compare it to similar tasks that are alike, but not quite there. This can help clarify the role of a facilitator with respect to some other tasks that sometimes cause confusion.

With this in mind, here are three things a facilitator is (probably) not. Having the skills of teachers, event planners and tech wizards can certainly make our life easier, but should not be seen as basic requirements for the job.

Is a facilitator a teacher?

A facilitator is not a teacher or a subject matter expert because your role is not to provide instruction or share specialized knowledge with the group. Unlike a lecturer, who imparts knowledge or skills, a facilitator believes that the knowledge is within the group, and their role is to draw it out, not impart it.

This is what distinguishes facilitation from training: while training involves delivering information and teaching specific skills, facilitation is about leading group discussions, and arriving at collective outcomes through guided interaction. The facilitator’s role is to create a conducive environment for the learning process, not to be the source of knowledge.

While that might sound straightforward in principle, it’s worth noting that reality is a lot more nuanced. The role of training facilitator includes elements of both facilitation and education.

When leading training sessions, facilitators create inclusive learning environments; a good training facilitator might design a training program and help lead it, even if they are not subject matter experts themselves. 

Yet another source of confusion is what happens when running programs and workshops to train facilitators. If you want to learn more about how wearing all those hats at the same time might work, I’ve written about my experience training facilitators in this article. 

Is a facilitator a wedding planner? 

Not quite! While a facilitator is certainly there to ensure a smooth process, you should not be expected to hire the catering or figure out how to get everyone to the venue on time. 

Sure, we might show up early to rearrange the tables for better group interaction, but when it comes to logistics—like organizing coffee breaks or setting up AV equipment—that’s best left to a dedicated logistics team. In larger conferences or events, facilitators work alongside those managing the venue, not in place of them. The facilitator’s job is to guide the conversation and help the group collaborate effectively, not to worry about whether there’s enough almond milk for the coffee.

Is a facilitator a studio technician? 

A facilitator is not a studio technician, and should not be expected to expertly rig up microphones, troubleshoot the projector, or make sure the Zoom call has flawless audio! While a studio technician’s job is to handle the technical aspects—wiring up sound systems, adjusting lighting, and ensuring the technology runs smoothly—a facilitator’s role is quite different.

Although some facilitators, especially those working mainly online, have acquired great abilities as tech hosts, it is not always a part of the skillset. It’s important to remember that facilitation is part of a broader team effort. While the facilitator creates a space for productive collaboration and problem-solving, they rely on other team members to handle logistics like technology, organizing a learning management system (if online), catering or room setup (in person). 

When negotiating with clients, it’s important to clarify expectations in terms of technical setup and make sure someone is taking care of these important matters. 

3 FAQs from facilitation training programs

Having looked at all these facets of facilitation in turn, there are three more things I’d like to share from my experience in training facilitators. When I host training programs sharing facilitation skills, we generally dedicate a good chunk of time to discussing what a facilitator is, and what makes an effective facilitator. Here are three questions I get a lot when training facilitators, and my answers.

Q: Is the facilitator inside or outside the group?

Facilitators often find themselves balancing between being inside and outside the group. While you are a part of the group process, you also need to maintain a certain level of detachment. This distance allows to manage the flow without getting caught up in the content, and help the group see the bigger picture. 

Think of the facilitator as someone who stands both on the balcony, observing the group from above, and on the dancefloor, jiving with everyone else. The key is to be involved enough to guide the group but distant enough to help them reflect and make their own decisions.

Q: What is the relation between facilitating a group and leading a group?

Facilitating and leading may seem similar, but they serve different purposes. A leader often takes charge of decision-making and drives the group toward a specific goal. A facilitator, on the other hand, doesn’t lead the group in a directional sense but instead guides the process. 

The facilitator’s role is to create the conditions for the group to find its own way to the outcome, rather than making decisions for them. It’s more about nurturing collaboration, drawing out ideas, and ensuring every voice is heard. In this way, facilitation supports leadership, but doesn’t replace it. Team leaders can certainly benefit from gaining facilitation skills, although with more complicated meetings it’s generally easier to separate the two roles. 

Q: Do I have to do it all myself?

Not at all! Facilitation is a role, but it doesn’t mean you have to wear all the hats at once. In fact, facilitation is often more effective when responsibilities are shared. You might designate someone as a timekeeper to ensure the meeting runs smoothly, or assign another person to take notes and capture key insights. 

Spreading out these tasks allows you to stay in the main facilitator role, guiding the process and keeping everyone engaged. By delegating certain other aspects, you can make the session more efficient and ensure that each aspect of the facilitation process is handled with care.

What’s next

How do you feel about facilitation after reading this? If you have the sense it might be a good career choice for you, you might want to check out our article on how to become a professional facilitator.

To get a sense of what facilitators do in practice, you can use SessionLab’s template collection, particularly templates marked as #essential, to begin! And if you’d like to know more about what makes great facilitation, read our guide to general facilitation skills.

Certain tools are closely associated with the facilitator’s role. Sticky notes and markers, as well as online whiteboards like Miro and Mural make up the toolkit that enables facilitators to deliver great experiences, on and offline. For the preparation phase of designing workshops and events, the go-to software is SessionLab’s agenda planner.

Try it out and discover how it can help you quickly grasp the basics of facilitation, making it easier to craft engaging sessions, pick out new activities from an extensive library of facilitation techniques, deliver professional printouts to your clients, and more.

To get to the bottom of these matters I’ll be using my own experience, that of colleagues from my networks and, in particular, data drawn from the State of Facilitation in 2023 report, which is based on over 1100 responses to a global survey.

If you are considering starting a career as a facilitator or want to brush up on your skills, read on to be prepared for all these questions that will soon be coming your way.

In this article, we will look at:

Facilitator definition & meaning

In its simplest definition, a facilitator is someone who makes things easier. In this context, a facilitator is a person who helps to guide a group through a structured process in order to achieve specific goals or outcomes.

Facilitators typically occupy a neutral, impartial position while using facilitation techniques to encourage engagement and collaboration where participants are heard and their contributions are valued.

A facilitator typically does not take an active role in the conversation or provide solutions, but instead helps guide the group to find their own ideas and solutions. Facilitators do this with a combination of effective facilitation techniques, carefully designed agendas and by creating the ideal conditions for effective collaboration.

Here are some other key elements to highlight:

• Facilitators work 1-to-many rather than 1-to-1: although we will talk one-to-one for interviews with participants, or when negotiating with a client, most of our work is with a group of people. This is helpful, for example, to distinguish the role of facilitator from that of leadership coach;
• The facilitator’s role is to support a group’s process, steering it by, for example, designing activities, opening an important discussion and offering key questions. Content in a facilitation process comes from participants themselves (as opposed to what might happen with public speaking or training);
• A facilitator’s position is neutral with regards to the content (but not with regards to the process). It is part of the facilitator’s job to make sure different voices are heard in the room, but not to choose among those voices or suggest solutions (as opposed to more “traditional” consultancy roles). Facilitators have opinions, of course, but staying neutral and setting them aside to focus on allowing the group’s opinions to surface is important.

We can summarise the above by saying that a facilitator designs and runs group processes with the aim of making it easy for everyone to contribute and achieve a shared goal. 

Facilitators often also have coaching, mediation or teaching/training skills; these are all different roles, different hats that can be worn by the same person. Remember that in its simplest form, a facilitator makes things easier and are there to support group members as needed.

As a tutor for students in a summer school program, for example, I am sometimes acting as a coach (in individual conversations with participants), sometimes as a trainer (providing short classes on communication skills), occasionally as a mediator (stepping in to offer support in a conflict) and mostly as a facilitator (designing a learning process and setting up activities to support individual participants to come together as an effective learning group). 

Want to explore the topic of facilitation more specifically? See our guide with a definition of facilitation and exploration of its benefits and principles.

What are the core responsibilities of a facilitator?

Facilitators can be called on to facilitate everything from events and meetings to training courses and workshops. While every project and group has different needs, facilitators often have core responsibilities which are required in order to be effective.

If you’re hiring a facilitator, here’s some of what you can expect from a good facilitator. If you’re a facilitator yourself, here’s a refresher on some things you will likely need to do.

• Design and organize an effective group process that help create a desired outcome or goal. The plan for this group process is most often in the form of an agenda.
• Solicit input from stakeholders, team members and subject matter experts in order to create an effective process that is fit-for-purpose.
• Guide discussions, encouraging participation and using active listening to ensure everyone in the group is head.
• Manage group dynamics, creating a sense of psychological safety and facilitating effective, inclusive collaboration among the group.
• Encourage the group in generating their own ideas, coming up with solutions and taking shared responsibility for a common goal.
• Report back to the client or stakeholders after a session to support further action and create momentum.
• Maintain neutrality and impartiality throughout.

Depending on the project, additional responsibilities might be expected of the facilitator. We’ll outline these in the practice section below. You might also find our collection of facilitation skills helpful in understanding what might be expected and how to improve your core facilitator skill set.

What is the purpose of facilitation?

A facilitator’s attention goes to encouraging balance between the three pillars of group work: objectives, relationship, and process.

Objectives answer the question: what is the aim of our work together? What do we want to achieve? This is the realm of KPIs, targets, and concrete outputs. What does a successful future look like for the team? What is the groups’ desired outcome? What values would we like to embody on the way?

Process is about how we work together. What are our group processes? Who takes decisions? How do we keep one another accountable? How do we learn (from success as well as failure)? Here, an effective facilitator will help groups take control of their process, and may touch on elements of collaborative task management and collaboration and team problem solving.

Taking care of relationships is about raising mutual trust inside the group. Who are we working with? How well do we know one another and communicate? Helping people learn how to participate effectively and with mutual respect is a vital element of effective facilitation.

Depending on the needs of the specific team and job, a skilled facilitator will design activities that help the group reflect on its current situation and steer towards change in one, two, or all of these dimensions. Let’s see a couple of examples. 

In business scenarios, facilitators often encounter teams that have dedicated their time almost exclusively to objectives, to the detriment of process and relationships. Trust might be eroded or there may be a lack of clarity on how to work together effectively. New conditions such as online work make it especially clear when process is badly defined: lots of energy and time can get wasted by duplicating efforts or leaving projects stalled in a bottleneck!

In such cases, an effective facilitator will suggest ways of working on the team’s cohesion, encouraging participation and setting agreements as to how to work together, co-creating processes that fit that particular context.

Facilitation is sometimes misconstrued as a tool for “feeling good”, but the actual aim of getting-to-know-you games and playful energizers is to create a good environment in order to get things done! A few hours dedicated to diagnosing how the team is managing its own internal dynamics and learning new skills, such as in this team Self-Management workshop, can radically improve group effectiveness.

In non-profit contexts, such as citizen groups, I’ve sometimes diagnosed the opposite illness: the group is so focused on feeling good and creating internal cohesion that it’s not really advancing towards its objectives, or has never set clear objectives at all!

A facilitated workshop might then be devoted to creating or refreshing a shared vision and mission for the group. An ideation workshop, such as the one detailed in this template, might be just the thing. Taking a look through our template collection will give you more ideas of what a facilitated event or workshop can achieve!

What do facilitators do in practice? 

Facilitators are experts in group process and group management. Malia Josephine, founder of the start-up Facilitation Jobs, has put together a comprehensive list of over 30 job titles that refer to facilitation, from Organizational Development Specialist and training facilitator to Retreat Designer and more.

As Voltage Control’s Douglas Ferguson put it in his commentary to the State of Facilitation 2023 report, “Facilitation is Everywhere”. Facilitators are present in private and public sectors, in NGOs and big corporates, facilitating board meetings and outdoor team building. What are all these facilitators up to?

Depending on the context and needs, here are some actions facilitators might typically take.

Facilitators will work behind the stage to design appropriate processes based on the task at hand. Some of a facilitator’s routine activities in this stage include:

Preparation & design

• interviewing key stakeholders, having meetings with the client (and other relevant roles such as, for example, someone in HR or in a communications role) aiming to understand current needs, past history and future hopes;
• designing meetings, events, workshops or retreats around the overall topic and purpose, including preparing lists of intended outcomes and a detailed agenda;
• reviewing, revising and amending that agenda with the client;
• suggesting needs for a location (such as how to organize seating spaces, how many tables are needed and so on) or, if the workshop is online, recommending what software to use;
• drafting information to include in the invitation and/or communicating directly with participants before the event to share expectations, inform them on what types of activities will be run, what technology will be used, considerations around accessibility and so on (for more about how to set up your facilitation events for accessibility, read Marie Dubost’s top tips) 
• doing some research on the topic, e.g. by studying project documents, to get a grasp of the technical jargon or specialised knowledge participants will refer to.

Leading activities

An event agenda typically includes sections with speakers: parts of the day where information is presented by, for example the host/client, a department manager, the team presenting a challenge. Other points of the agenda will be participatory activities: here is where facilitators take the stage to introduce, give instructions, lead debrief sessions, clarify any questions. In such moments, facilitators will:

• Welcome participants, introduce the process;
• Propose activities that help co-create psychological safety, build a healthy group dynamic and set up a good environment for the day. These could be, for example, ice-breakers, energizers, creating ground rules, exploring personal motivations, and so on;
• Lead activities to encourage ideation, new ideas, creativity, brainstorming (divergence);
• Guide activities designed to reach a conclusion, such as consensus building, defining action plans, next steps, and finalizing outputs (convergence).

Moderating conversations

During conversations and discussions, facilitators use their moderation and meeting management skills to:

• Direct the traffic of conversation, for example using rounds, talking pieces, active listening, activities in pairs and small groups, setting time limits for people to speak, and so on. Facilitation does not necessarily mean “everyone will have exactly the same amount of time to speak in” (though sometimes it might) but it should mean everyone gets the opportunity to express their opinion, whether it’s in written form with sticky notes, in turns, or in a myriad other ways. Facilitators will encourage everyone’s participation (but should not enforce it! Some people prefer to be quiet and that is also ok);
• Step in to suggest ways of working through conflict. Not all facilitators have mediation skills, but expert professionals will have an understanding of how to handle conflict creatively and constructively;
• Summarise the conversation, ask clarifying questions, or suggest topics that push the group to go further in its thinking;
• Time management and taking meeting notes, or setting in place mechanisms to do that collaboratively (here is an example of how to do that).

Following up & debriefing

A facilitator’s work does not end when the meeting or event ends. Some typical tasks get done in follow-up, such as:

• Drafting reports. Often clients will request reports of how the project went. Make sure you have an agreement about what to highlight! I’ve had clients reveal to me only after an event was over that they needed specific data collected on participants, or surveys filled in. It would clearly have been much easier to collect such data points if we had had an agreement before! 
• Sharing resources and materials. After a workshop it’s typical to send participants materials, resources, pictures, or reminders of any follow-up work to be done;
• Take part in debrief meetings and help collect learnings. A facilitator might in fact be the one insisting that the team meet again after the event or series of workshops to discuss learnings: what went well? What would we change next time? This is part of how we build a lasting, productive relationship with clients.

What do facilitators not do? 

Here are 5 things facilitators typically should not be expected to do. Scouting locations, registering participants, setting up audio and video equipment are things facilitators might be able to do (I have found myself doing these myself upon occasion) but are not normally part of our role. If you are organizing an event or workshop, making sure you have a dedicated person to take care of logistics, enrollment and equipment will save you awkward misunderstandings. Most importantly, someone specialized in such tasks will surely do a better job of it!

The other two points on this list (providing content and offering solutions) are what really separates the facilitator’s role from the trainer, teacher, lecturer, or “traditional” business consultant.

1. A facilitator will not scout and book the location for you. Generally, the client takes care of finding the right location as well as of logistics such as catering or accommodation. That said, the setting of the room is a key element that influences the design of activities, as we shall see in more detail in the “What should I keep in mind when hiring a facilitator?” section below.
   
   Often facilitators will know places they might recommend and/or have specific requests the client should keep into consideration. If the workshop is online, on the other hand, it is more likely that facilitators will suggest the software(s) they are most familiar with.
   
2. A facilitator’s job is not to enlist participants. I have occasionally been mistaken for a communication or a graphic design expert, which I’m certainly not! While some people might have skills in such areas, particularly those facilitators who organize their own workshops, preparing flyers and invites falls outside of a facilitator’s expertise.
   
   Giving facilitators a say on what is written in the invite can certainly help set expectations, but the hosting team is more likely to do the actual work of creating visual assets and finalizing a participants’ list.
   
3. Facilitators should not be expected to set up the tech. While it is extremely common for facilitators to walk into the workshop space early in the morning and start rearranging tables and chairs, they should not be expected to set up audio-video equipment, microphones, cameras, and the like.
   
   In online environments, facilitators are likely to be working with a dedicated “producer” or “tech host” to take care of all the backstage technical details. To learn more about the different roles that support facilitation, read our blog post on co-facilitation.
   
4. A facilitator is not a content expert. Hiring a facilitator who has expert knowledge of a certain topic may be a benefit, because it lowers the communication barrier if, for example, jargon and specialized terms are used. On the other hand, our “naive” questions can sometimes be a hidden gift, by creating a safe opportunity for participants to reveal that they do not fully understand something either.
   
   Lately, this happened to me when facilitating a workshop on micromobility: during a pre-event briefing, I asked a question about what exactly the different categories of vehicles being discussed were. This led to discovering there were various interpretations of those categories and no clear consensus (yet). Result: my “stupid question” ended up becoming the first activity of a multi-stakeholder event, which in turn informed the first section of the resulting position paper (and possibly, a step toward clear consensus).
   
5. Lastly, of course, facilitators will not provide ready-made recipes to solve a team’s problems! One of the core tenets of facilitation is that the resources needed to create change and make steps forward lie within the team itself. If more resources are needed (such as, for example, an executive decision, more time, more funding) it’s still up to the team to find ways of moving towards its objectives. Facilitation can offer a safe space to design those pathways, and helpful tools to focus attention, but ultimately, results are determined by the participants!

How to become a facilitator?

Are you someone who loves helping groups solve problems and become active agents in their own learning and development? Facilitation might be for you!

You have a few different paths available when choosing to become a facilitator. Typically, facilitators learn their trade with a mix of practice and training.

Many organizations and professional bodies exist for training facilitators. See more in our guide to the best facilitation training. If you want to become accredited and pursue a career as a freelance facilitator, this is a great next step.

Learning facilitation skills and applying them in your workplace or volunteering organization is also a common place to start what may become a facilitation career.

Read this article for an overview of general facilitation skills. And if you feel ready to try out facilitating daily meetings, you can use SessionLab’s template library, particularly templates marked as #essential, to begin!

Check out our post on how to be a great workshop facilitator for a practical guide you can deploy during your next session.

Want to learn at your own pace? This collection of facilitation resources is a trove of insight and learning material!

What does a facilitation career look like?

Based on results of the State of Facilitation 2023 survey, 54.9% of facilitators are freelancers, working with multiple clients at a time, on many different projects. This is part of what I love about freelancing as a facilitator: as a perpetually curious person, this enables me to observe and partake in the efforts of many different teams on different fronts.

Not all facilitators work in this way though: another possibility is to be part of a team of facilitators in what effectively amounts to being small consultancy businesses. That’s the case of my friends Melania Bigi and Ilaria Magagna over at Tara facilitation: they’ve put together a group of facilitators, all with slightly different expertise (such as graphic facilitation, small-team leadership and development, decision-making, communication) with a focus on supporting small and medium enterprises.

Last but not least, there is the case of in-house facilitators. The rise of agile, design thinking, and design sprints has created a need for specialized roles available to offer facilitation services continuously and combine this with a deep understanding of the context. In-house facilitators mostly work in large companies, corporates, and foundations. They might be tasked, for example, with creating inter-departmental sessions for strategic planning, involving stakeholders in consultation processes, and designing customized trainings for staff. 

Whatever the position, facilitators’ daily life is likely to be divided into two main groups of tasks:

1. Designing interventions. Whether it’s events, workshops, one-off or long-term, much of our time is spent at the desk and in preparatory meetings to define the objectives of our work, negotiate agreements with clients, interview stakeholders, design a learning process and set up agendas. I am going to include follow-up work here, despite the fact that it happens later, as it has a similar character of being backstage desk work. SessionLab’s Planner is a helpful tool at this stage, saving you time in designing, keeping all your sessions and methods neatly organized, and enabling you to share professional agendas with clients. To follow all the steps of how designing workshops works, here is an in-depth guide.
   
2. Hosting/leading events, workshops, meetings. This is the most visible part of our work, when we are actually delivering to participants whatever design we’ve agreed on. This is when we step up, moderate conversations, interact, steer the flow of activities and so on.

The International Association of Facilitators, IAF, describes professional facilitators’ core competencies in this document. The list shows a balance between design and delivery: three Competency areas—Creating Collaborative Client Relationships, Plan Appropriate Group Processes, and Build and Maintain Professional Knowledge—revolve around preparation. 

The other three are more focused on delivery: Create and Sustain a Participatory Environment, Guide Group to Appropriate and Useful Outcomes and Model Positive Professional Attitude. Reading through the details and the Code of Ethics will give you a very clear idea of what is important to know about professional facilitation. 

When do you need a facilitator? 

This is another version of the question “What do facilitators do”, this time slanted towards results and achievements. What impact does a facilitator’s work have? Where is the value?

Having a facilitator involved in a group process will improve the effectiveness of your work, saving you time, energy and, ultimately, money. The prime example of this is probably meetings: if your meetings leave everyone tired, confused and frustrated, a facilitator can help give them direction, organize the agenda, ensure the group stays on track to reach desired outcomes.

I have often had the opportunity of facilitating one or two-day kick-offs for large, multi-stakeholder projects: participants gathering from different Countries, using different jargons and working in different areas of expertise. By the end of the event, they should have clarity about their project, each individual team and person’s role in it, next steps, how communication will flow, timelines, and feel motivated about doing the project at all! A facilitator (or more likely in this case, a facilitation team) can help with all that. 

If nobody is in charge of the process, there will be a lot of confusion, resulting in many more meetings and emails to be exchanged later. If the event is an unimaginative series of lecture-style presentations (I am quoting from a real-life situation here) people will say things like “the speeches took too long, and breaks were the only time when we could actually talk to one another and figure out how we will work together.”

Facilitation helps set up effective collaboration and maintains it in time. It also supports engagement and buy-in by ensuring everyone’s voice is heard early in the process. This can mitigate a lot of risks!

A colleague of mine recently facilitated public participation dialogues between a train company wanting to run a new line close to a mid-sized town and the local citizens. At the very first meeting, a group of citizens proposed a slight variation to the proposed track which would mitigate their concerns about car traffic changes: this was quickly accepted by the company.

One of the locals told the facilitator “If they had started building based on the original proposal we would have picketed the site for months! Thanks for saving us a lot of time and effort.” I also imagine it was a great return on investment for the train company, which had paid a few thousand Euros for the facilitation process.

Other facilitated activities such as using case studies or simulations help save time and money in the long run by “acting out” possibilities in safe environments, hearing out many different opinions, and different ways of thinking, before a decision is taken.

In closing

In this piece, we’ve gone through an overview of what facilitators are, what they do on a daily basis and what a facilitation career looks like. We’ve seen what actions facilitators take to design and lead processes that make it easier for groups to get together and achieve lasting results.

I leave you now with a question: how would you explain facilitation to a 5-year old?

I might say something along the lines of “Facilitators help adults play and learn together”. Facilitator and trainer Mirna Smidt added this contribution: “It’s like your kindergarten teacher, who creates order when you all want the same toys, just with adults at their work.” Others have likened the facilitator’s position to a tour guide, an architect, or a pilot.

What would you say? And what more would you like to know about the world of facilitation? Join the conversation in our community!

In this post, we’ll share a definition of facilitation before exploring the key principles of facilitation you can use to embody the approach successfully, whether you’re looking to have more effective meetings, handle conflict and do more productive group work.

Below, we’ll explore the meaning of facilitation in simple terms while also giving you a better sense of the core principles that separate a facilitative approach from other ways of thinking. Think of these as the pillars around which you can build your facilitation practice.

While many of us know good facilitation when we see it, what’s going on behind the scenes can be complex and mysterious for those new to the practice. Here, we’ll demystify facilitation while also giving you some advice on how to bring a facilitative approach to your work.

What is the meaning of facilitation?

Let’s start with a simple definition of facilitation: Facilitation is the craft of guiding a group through a participatory process that makes it easier to achieve their goals.

But let’s go further. What is the meaning of facilitation, really? Facilitation is an approach, mindset and set of skills that a facilitator or leader employs in order to support a group during collaborative work.

• Facilitation means creating space for everyone in the group to contribute and encouraging participation and ownership from everyone involved. It means having a shared goal and designing a process to help the group meet that goal.
• Facilitation is also defined by its approach to process and content: a facilitative approach means designing a process which supports a group in discovering, ideating and creating their own content. It’s not about having one person get on stage and tell a group how to solve a problem: it’s about supporting group members to discuss that problem together and co-create a solution.
• Facilitated processes are participatory and interactive by design. A workshop is one of the most common examples of a process where facilitation is used, though an effective facilitator can bring their skills to the table any time a group comes together to get things done.
• At its simplest level, facilitation is facilitation is a set of skills and techniques that everyone – not just facilitators – can use to create shared understanding, supercharge group work and enable teams to do incredible things.

Designing a meeting process, holding community discussions, mediating conflict, working as a leader… there’s no shortage of scenarios where facilitation is a vital and transformative skill.

Read on to discover a deeper meaning of facilitation, see examples of facilitation in action and explore how to learn facilitation and improve your practice.

Examples of facilitation

Facilitation is not the sole preserve of professional facilitators. Anyone working in groups can benefit from bringing a facilitative mindset to their process.

But what does facilitation look like in action? What kinds of gatherings benefit from facilitation. Let’s explore a few facilitation examples to help paint a picture.

Facilitating a team meeting

Facilitation can turn an unengaging and time-wasting team meeting into a productive discussion that energizes the group and encourages action.

Though the process might appear simple, even a 15-minute team meeting and discussion can benefit from facilitation.

Some facilitators refer to facilitation as “directing traffic” and this is very apparent during an in person meeting where they will help discussions to flow, ensure heavy vehicles give way and that the system is ultimately pulling in the same direction.

Facilitation during a team meeting looks like:

• Keeping time and using time-boxing techniques to ensure the meeting is efficient and ends on schedule.
• Creating and distributing a meeting agenda to ensure alignment and ensure a structured process.
• Using facilitation techniques to solicit input and engagement from all participants.
• Using active listening techniques to ensure participants are seen and heard.
• Managing group dynamics and responding to the needs of the group.
• Documenting action items and creating follow-through.

Facilitating a brainstorming workshop

Brainstorming is an exciting process for many teams, but without facilitation, it can be difficult to turn ideation into action.

In these kinds of workshops, a facilitator is on hand to help everyone in a group contribute and find their own solutions while moving efficiently towards action. In most cases, this means creating a safe, inclusive space and asking the right questions at the right time.

Facilitation during a brainstorming workshop looks like:

• Designing an inclusive and efficient process that guides participants from initial ideation and refinement, through to solution design and implementation steps.
• Using proven brainstorming techniques to help participants effectively generate, organize and refine their ideas.
• Asking key questions that will enable a group to surface the root cause of problems, refine ideas and create momentum for follow-up action.
• Paying attention to group energy levels and using breaks, energizers and active facilitation techniques to keep everyone energized.
• Guiding the group to contribute their own ideas and solutions, rather than telling them what solution they should implement.
• Creating a sense of psychological safety and managing group dynamics so that everyone feels able to contribute and so loud voices do not dominate.

Facilitating leadership training

Are your training sessions dry, boring and entirely one-direction? Presentations will always have their place, but training has been proven to be more effective when it incorporates experiential elements that serve to give participants opportunities to recall, practice and share knowledge.

Leadership training is one example of a traditional session that can be transformed with effective facilitation.

Facilitation during leadership training looks like:

• Participatory exercises where leaders and managers share their experiences and learn from one another.
• Flexible and adaptive leadership activities where the instructor responds to the group while still achieving training goals.
• Engaging experiential learning that aids in knowledge transfer and retention.
• Personalized learning, immediate feedback and a responsive instructor.

What are the principles of facilitation?

So we know that a facilitative approach is a means of creating participatory processes that make it easier for groups achieve their desired outcomes. But what does facilitation look like in practice? How should one go about using facilitation at work and what principles should you follow when trying to be a good facilitator?

While many facilitators have different styles and ideas about exactly how to facilitate and engage group members, there are some unifying principles that underline the profession and useful methods of embodying the right mindset and improving your facilitator skills.

Some of the key principles of facilitation are:

Neutrality and impartiality

Neutrality in facilitation is all about enabling group members to have discussions and explore possible solutions while not providing the answers or becoming invested in a particular option yourself. A facilitator is not present to prescribe a solution or favour certain voices or ideas.

Holding this neutral, impartial position also means creating space for all voices to be heard and given equal weight and consideration. Think about how some people dominate during small meetings and certain viewpoints are favoured because they are held by managers. A facilitator designs their sessions to manage group dynamics and set ground rules that can hopefully avoid this possibility.

Effective facilitation also means helping the group be more objective and neutral during a discussion or while attempting to reach consensus. This is difficult, but with the right tools and techniques, having these kinds of conversations is made much easier!

See our post on group facilitation tips for more on this subject and how to work with a group in general.

Have a plan but be prepared to change it

Facilitated processes are carefully crafted experiences designed to guide a group through a flow of activities that helps them achieve a specific goal.

Workshop plans, for example, often include icebreakers to introduce the session, activities to help a group generate ideas and stay focused, and then techniques to create shared understanding, and converge on a solution.

Designing and planning a workshop agenda is a skill in itself, and it absolutely one you’ll want to cultivate on your path to being a skilled facilitator.

All that said, one of the key things I’ve learned as a facilitator is that plans are also made to be changed or even broken. I’ve run many in person workshops where I realized the needs of the group had changed and so had to mix up my agenda.

Planning is important, but using your facilitation skills to identify when things need to change in order to help the group achieve their goals is a hallmark of good facilitation.

But how do you know when you should make such a change? One of the best ways is to simply ask the group!

Finding that sweet spot between preparation and flexibility takes practice, but it’s an important job that you can prepare for by following the other principles of facilitation featured in this section.

Know your goal

Having a very clearly defined goal before you begin a session is essential for all facilitators. Ask key questions about what outcomes need to be achieved with stakeholders and your team before the session. This allows you to build an effective workshop plan that delivers the desired outcome in an effective and engaging way. It also means you know where your agenda can bend and flex during delivery.

If things begin to go off the rails or a change feels necessary, take another look at your goal and consider how you might best achieve your chosen outcome.

I often find that changing the meeting agenda during a session is less about tearing up the entire agenda but rather, adjusting to what is happening in the moment and being flexible to the needs of the group while still pursuing our goal.

Remember that success is defined by whether your group achieved the goal of the session, not by whether you stuck rigidly to your original agenda.

Everything is in service of the group

Facilitation is all about guidance, rather than prescription. Facilitators create a structure that encourages the group to participate in the process to such an extent that they create solutions collaboratively. The facilitator’s job then, is simply to help the group do their best work together!

Remember that distinction between process and content? This is a key aspect of embodying this group service mindset. You are responsible for the process—the design of the meeting, the flow of activities—that will help the group achieve their goals, but you are not responsible for the actual content. Content should come from the group.

Early in the process, supporting the group means designing a process with your specific workshop participants in mind. This includes basic tasks such as considering ideal room setup and when to take breaks.

Once you are actually in the room (virtual or otherwise) with participants, this focus on being in service to the group translates into paying closing attention to group dynamics and how people are feeling.

It’s also about being aware of body language and realizing that the group is in need of an energizer. It’s letting go of your favorite activity because you realize participants would find something else more effective. It’s giving adequate time for everyone in the room to have their voice heard.

Facilitators act on behalf of a group and not themselves, knowing that what’s best for the group transcends the idea of what the meeting should look like on paper.

Friction is where things happen

Lively discussions, differences of opinion and new ideas are common occurrences in a well-facilitated workshop. Helping groups explore tricky problem spaces collaboratively can be emotionally charged, but it’s the facilitator’s job to guide a group through this process while maintaining psychological safety and mutual respect.

One important aspect of facilitation is learning to be comfortable standing in this storm and to not be afraid of conflict or passionate discussion. This is often where the magic happens and real change can occur.

Creating a space where difference and creativity can emerge is vital for creating true innovation, solving tough problems and really connecting as a group. This often means creating space for people to be vulnerable, asking key questions and opening things up, rather than closing them down.

Use facilitation techniques designed to support the process and carefully develop your facilitation skills in order to learn how to hold this space. This takes practice, great communication skills and a knowledge of group dynamics, but it can also be one of the most rewarding things about facilitation!

Participation and inclusivity

One of the most impactful mental shifts you can make as a facilitator is to put participation first. Moving from “I do this” to “we do this together” is one of the best ways to start putting facilitation into action, whether you’re working with students, employees or peers.

Facilitators design sessions and activities that encourage every member of a group to participate and feel good while doing so. This can be as simple as using a method such as 1-2-4 All to give everyone chance to contribute or as far ranging as creating a culture of idea generation and group decision making.

Facilitators also consider how to make spaces, discussions and settings inclusive: encouraging diversity in voices, ideas and teams. Good facilitators think about how to get the right people in the room, and how they might include important voices in the conversation.

Inclusivity can also look like setting ground rules at the beginning of a session to create safety, address power dynamics and move forward with an agreement of how people should treat one another in the space.

With established groups, this will become second nature, but when starting out with facilitation, it can be helpful to make these things explicit.

What are the benefits of facilitation?

The value of facilitation ranges from immediate to long term. Not only can a facilitative approach help improve a specific meeting or workshop, but it can also help bring about positive culture change and improve how an organization collaborates and creates innovation.

Here are some of the key benefits of facilitation:

More effective sessions

Workshops and meetings run with a facilitative approach are often more effective and engaging than those run without. If you’ve been the victim of a meeting that goes over time or feels unproductive, you’ve felt the sting of poor or nonexistent facilitation!

Bring facilitation skills to your meetings and workshops and you’ll stay on time, make efficient progress and involve every person in the room in a more productive manner.

Over time, you’ll also find that your team’s ability to get things done efficiently, focus and stay on topic improves. Facilitation is habit building. When you and your team build good habits around your meetings and workshop, great things happen.

Get results

Remember how knowing your goal was one of the key principles of facilitation? By being outcome oriented, facilitation helps teams deliver results and do meaningful work. In practice, facilitators help groups focus on what is important and reach the goal of a session efficiently and on-time.

Facilitation is also proven method of getting groups to take ownership and accountability of the work they do. When a group co-creates their outcomes, buy-in is higher and the desire of the group to follow through is increased.

When you need to solve a complex problem, facilitate a team workshop designed to explore that problem and move forward together. With a facilitator on board, I promise you the results will be better than trying to solve the issue on your own. Facilitation is all about using specific tools and resources in order to create an environment where stuff gets done!

Creative thinking and innovation

Facilitation is all about unleashing the creative potential of a group. Sometimes this means running sessions explicitly designed to support ideation and innovation or using brainstorming techniques to generate creative ideas.

Beyond this, facilitation’s general ethos helps support a group to think creatively. Encouraging participation from all participants, putting in place good conditions for a psychologically safe environment, and giving space to think about things from a fresh perspective are all ways in which a facilitator can encourage innovation.

Improved group dynamics and connections

Paying attention to how people interact and taking steps to remove friction, build connections and help members get to know each other better are all things a facilitator does in service of the team.

This ability to enable members of an organization to form better connections through careful design, team building activities and facilitated discussions has long lasting effects on how teams interrelate and communicate.

Spending time deepening connections in a team building workshop and seeing your colleagues as much more than the job they do or simply learning better ways to help other people feel seen and heard in a meeting can be transformative. In my experience, teams that regularly facilitate sessions or use facilitation in their work are also happier and more connected.

Improved collaboration

Helping a team work together more effectively is one of the guiding stars of facilitation. By design, workshops are collaborative spaces where teams are encouraged to work together towards a common goal.

What’s wonderful about facilitation is that the techniques, connections and working patterns you establish in such sessions also translate to future collaborations.

Whether it’s learning to focus on one problem at a time, better explore ideas in depth or have more productive, effective discussions, the skills we learn in facilitated sessions have lasting effects on how we collaborate with others.

These changes can be dramatic, such as better organization and ideation when working on complex projects. They can also be small, with team members adjusting how they communicate with others on Slack or over email. All these things add up to a more collaborative working environment in which people often feel more empowered to do great things.

When to use a facilitative approach?

Approaching a situation with a facilitation mindset can be transformative and impactful, even if you’re not squarely occupying the role of facilitator.

As a manager or consultant, you may be more directly involved in the content of a session and making things happen than during traditional facilitation. Even then, following facilitation principles such as encouraging participation or having a clear plan and goal leads to better outcomes and more engaged teams.

Read on for some examples of specific sessions and scenarios where you might use facilitation for impact.

Meetings

A meeting can be a great place to start practicing your facilitation skills. Many managers start by making some small changes such as time-boxing discussions, using check-ins or other facilitation techniques. Less unproductive discussions and more lightbulb moments while also finishing on time? Yes, please!

As a small, manageable microcosm of team dynamics, a meeting is also an ideal place for newbies to practice and apply knowledge of facilitation. If you’re just getting started, try bringing some of the facilitation principles to your next workplace meeting and set what happens.

With a facilitative approach, you can begin to positively change your meeting culture, start finishing on time and having clear action points. Read more in this post on how to facilitate a meeting!

Workshops

Workshops are a facilitator’s bread and butter. They’re a place where groups come together to collaboratively ideate, discuss, problem solve and hopefully reach consensus on an incredible solution everyone is excited to achieve. Bringing a facilitation mindset or better yet, a professional facilitator, and your workshops can become more memorable, effective and productive too!

Trying to plan and run a workshop without a working knowledge of facilitation can end up being unproductive or even chaotic.

If you’ve been at a workshop where the goal is unclear, activities seem picked at random or you don’t feel your contribution is valued, that’s a sign that the person leading the session needed to brush up on their facilitation skills or simply hire a professional facilitator.

Facilitative leadership

Leaders who use facilitation skills as part of how they run their team are often more effective managers. Whether it’s making every meeting productive or knowing how to handle conflict and empower your group, facilitation is a skill every leader should be developing.

Leadership activities that have a facilitation element are becoming increasingly common parts of leadership training. As a leader, it’s likely that you already use some facilitation skills and tools every day. By becoming more aware of the practice and deploying these techniques thoughtfully, you’ll help build the foundation for high performing teams.

Consulting and coaching

Coaches and consultants share a lot of DNA with facilitators. All these individuals work in the service of a group or an individual and hope to help them solve problems, often empowering people to make changes themselves.

While consultants and coaches often have a more direct role in suggesting solutions, many principles of facilitation also form the basis of good coaching. Enabling a group or individual to act in their own interest while feeling seen, heard and valued are ideas that unite these professions.

Bringing facilitation methods into a meeting with a client or inviting stakeholders into a discovery workshop are just some of the ways in which facilitation can help you be a more effective consultant.

Training

While training courses and sessions are much more prescriptive in nature, facilitation skills and tools can still be used to impactful effect. Training is often more effective when it includes experiential elements and has opportunities for trainees to talk and learn from each other.

Complex training also requires a great deal of organization and process design. Our 7-day train the trainer template is a great testament to this! The overlap between trainer skills and facilitator skills is large and you’ll often find professional facilitators called on to lead training and improve participation and engagement from trainees.

Looking to quickly bring facilitation activities into your sessions? Check out our post on training games and activities to bring experiential elements to your next training.

Education

Whether it’s teaching students in school or working with adult learners, facilitation is a helpful skillset for lecturers and educators. Workshops, group-lead discussions and collaborative work are all formats a skilled teacher will employ when engaging students, and they all benefit from using a facilitative approach.

See our post on exploring the concept of teacher as a facilitator for more insights and tips on bringing facilitation into the classroom. Traditional seminars and lessons will always have their places, but there’s plenty of benefits to bringing facilitation into your teaching practice.

Whenever you collaborate!

In essence, all of the items listed above are formats for group collaboration. Whether it’s a compact team of three or four or a workshop with dozens of people, the format exists in order to help people get things done as a collective.

Facilitation can be used whenever you collaborate with others. Sometimes this is in a specific format, such as running a kickoff workshop at work. Other times, its an ad-hoc process of enabling better collaboration by simply thinking like a facilitator.

Are you running online sessions? Virtual workshops and meetings always benefit from skills and techniques you’ll find outlined in this guide to online facilitation.

You might facilitate a meeting in the day and then moderate a conversation between your disputing neighbours in the evening! I’ve even heard of facilitators using dot voting to decide on what to have for dinner or idea generation methods to help their family choose where to go on holiday.

However you choose to employ facilitation, remember that the methods, tools and approaches are designed to help people collaborate more effectively, and in a way that makes them feel heard and valued. There are few limits to what effective facilitation can achieve with the right people in the room. Try using these principles in your interactions inside and outside of traditional formats and you’ll see what I mean!

How to improve your facilitation practice

Facilitation is rapidly becoming the must-have workplace superskill. Learning how to facilitate and deepening your practice can seem intimidating, but you’re not alone.

Check out the collection of facilitation resources below to sharpen your knowledge and facilitate your next session effectively.

• Whether you’re a manager, trainer of facilitator, the core facilitation skills outlined in this guide will help you develop the core competencies needed to facilitate well.
• Facilitation podcasts, books and toolkits are a great way to learn from the experiences of others. Explore this post on free facilitation resources to continue your learning journey.
• Facilitation courses and certifications are a great pathway for those wanting to become professional facilitators. Check out our guide on the best facilitation training for more.
• Facilitating with others can be a powerful learning tool that can also lead to better outcomes, especially when working with large groups. This guide to co-facilitation is a valuable resource for those wanting to facilitate with one or more other facilitators.
• Practice! Whether you’re running a meeting, a training session or a workshop, the best way to improve is to start facilitating. Even running a single activity in the company all-hands is a great way to improve. Explore the SessionLab library of facilitation techniques to find something to bring to your next session.

In conclusion

Depending on who you ask, what is facilitation is a question that can have various answers. But what unites those interpretations is an emphasis on enabling a group to do great things.

Whether that’s through incredible workshop design or skilled group moderation, facilitators use their skillset to empower collaboration and create change. We hope that with this article, you can start to do the same!

Want to keep learning about facilitation? Join our free email course facilitation is for everyone to get started. Or join our community of facilitators to learn from your peers, see events and opportunities, and connect with some of the best minds in facilitation!

A quick look at Google Trends told me that worldwide searches for the word “facilitation” have almost doubled from 2019 to today. A recent uptick in interest may be credited to the new needs of complex remote-first or hybrid workplaces. Whatever the reason, facilitation is on the rise. 

Do you want to improve the way you run meetings or manage teams in your current position, or to set up your own freelance business? In this article, we’ll look at all you need to know if you are interested in becoming a professional facilitator.

How did you get interested in facilitation? For me, it was seeing a facilitator in action. It was 2008 and I had joined a weekend course on citizen activism for environmental causes. I was drawn by the topic, but then I fell in love with the way things were run and presented.

I was instantly hooked by the trainer’s use of sticky notes, whiteboard paper, and skillful questions to get us participants active and involved in learning. She had set up what is commonly known as a “Parking Lot” board, a place where ideas, topics and questions could be “parked” for further discussion. I wrote a single question on that board: “How do I get a job like yours?” 

Perhaps something similar has happened to you. You may have seen someone facilitating and thought: “That looks like something I’d like to do”. Or maybe a colleague informed you that the way you were leading a meeting or team project was “like something professional facilitators would do”. You might have read somewhere that facilitation is a growing profession, and facilitation skillsets are increasingly required in workplaces, especially when work is remote-first. So, how does one become a facilitator? 

In the next paragraphs, we’ll cover some of the most frequently asked questions about how to become a facilitator, including how and why to join facilitation training courses, what to expect from a career as a professional facilitator, and tips on how to get started. 

What backgrounds do facilitators have?

What do you need to study to become a facilitator? There is no single valid answer to this question. Very rarely, if ever, do people decide to go into facilitation early in life. I’ve met exactly one teenager who told me he wants to be a facilitator when he grows up, but then again, that is what his dad does! 

Among facilitators I know and admire there are all sorts of backgrounds: a geologist, an urban designer, an environmental engineer, a programmer, an advertising agency head, a teacher, and more. As for myself, I’m a communications major with a past in theatre and event management. Is there anything at all these people have in common? 

In terms of background, I am going to say no. Most facilitators (81.5%, according to the 2024 edition of the State of Facilitation report) have a higher education degree, but even that is not always the case. One of the best facilitators I know started touring with an improvisational theatre company at 16 and never even finished high school. 

You can come to facilitation from any background at all. Most facilitators stumble into what, in this podcast episode, Jenny Theolin and her guest Marcus Crow appropriately call The Accidental Profession. 

If you asked the world’s careers councilors in schools […] I bet none of them ever go home and say: I had a kid come to me today, 16, 17 years old, asking me about being a facilitator. I don’t think that has ever happened, anywhere in the world. My thesis is that this is an accidental profession. Everyone in it had some sort of professional accident that dropped them into in somehow.

Marcus Crow, founder of facilitation and training business 10,000 hours.

Experience and studies in other sectors can help you may help you best serve professionals in that particular field. Think, for example, of a facilitator who trained as an architect; it will be easier for her to work with urbanists and policymakers to shape a new neighborhood design, thanks to shared specialized knowledge and jargon. 

The most common pathway to facilitation is to start a different career and then, at some point, get frustrated with the way meetings are run and projects are organized, and set off on a quest to find something better. Budding facilitators start by asking questions about organizational change, or wondering how learning happens, and sooner or later arrive at sticky notes, whiteboards, and markers (or their online equivalents).

That said, if you are picking a field of study and interested in facilitation, degrees related to sociology, psychology and education will certainly come in handy. 

How do I know if I can be a facilitator? 

How can you tell if you’ve got what it takes to become a good facilitator? That’s a great question, and not an easy one. 

First of all, let’s tackle a common misconception. You do not need to be an extrovert to become a facilitator! You need to be comfortable talking in front of a room (or a screen full of people Zooming in), but you also need excellent listening skills, and the ability to be a “guide on the side” and disappear into the background when the conditions are right. 

Different people have different facilitation styles: quiet and grounded, joking and fun, tending to the group like a gardener or challenging them like a sports coach. Whatever your style, you will find clients and projects for whom it works. 

Great facilitators can appear almost invisible, but are also there to show up when needed: this is a mix of introverted and extroverted traits that excludes nobody. Co-facilitating with someone with a different personality and style is the best way to combine strengths.  

So far we’ve established there is no common background, nor any common style, to facilitators. What do facilitators have in common and how can you tell if you might want to join the club? 

Here are some indicators:

• You are a good communicator. An effective facilitator knows how to give clear instructions and rationales for a certain way of doing things, without hogging the microphone for too long. Are you generally good at communicating clearly? Do you have a natural ability to put yourself in the shoes of a beginner and explain, in simple terms, what is going on? This, like all the skills below, can be honed and cultivated, but it sure will help if you have a good starting point.
• You find yourself saying “it depends” quite a lot. This is practically a running joke in the world of workshops. It’s quite rare for a facilitator to have a clear-cut, this-not-that, answer. It all depends. If you have a natural tendency to take different points of view and see the world in scales of gray, this will help you facilitate workshops. 
• You are attracted to non-directive styles of leadership, such as “servant leadership”. Without going into a treatise on leadership styles (we have a good article about it here), let’s just say that people who are comfortable with consulting others, taking the time to allow everyone to express their opinion before taking a decision, are good facilitator material.
• You find it easy to understand different positions. Facilitators cultivate curiosity and empathy. This doesn’t mean you must agree with any position, including those far from your own values. It means you are always interested in understanding those diverging ideas, and learning more about where differences in opinion and worldview are coming from. If you like anthropology, you might like facilitation (here is another podcast recommendation: Beth Cougler Blom discussing the connections between anthropology and facilitation with Dr. Monty Badami)
• You tend to observe yourself. Exercising self-awareness is an essential meta-skill for effective facilitation. Complex spaces for dialogue will inevitably challenge you. Expert, skilled facilitators may appear imperturbable, an island of calm in a storm, but that is rarely the truth of what is going on. A mora accurate description is that they have learnt to refocus on there present moment despite being temporarily knocked off-kilter by what we label “disruptive” behaviors, or by a fleeting emotion.
• You hate waste. If time and energy wasted in futile discussions or confusing meetings drive you up the walls, this is also a great indicator that you have the motivation to drive change through facilitation.
• You enjoy working with other people. This does not mean that you are a social butterfly or the life of the party, but certainly as a facilitator you will be working with people, their particular quirks and qualities, most of the time. I often say one of my favorite things about being a facilitator is that I love being constantly surprised by the unexpected things other people do.

If we can think like anthropologists, we will have access to the most valuable resource in understanding complex experiences and diverse groups, and that resource is our humanity.

Beth Cougler Blom, host of Facilitating on Purpose

There are a couple more things I’ve personally noticed among my colleagues that may be distinctive traits of people who are drawn to facilitation, although these are personal observations, so take them with a grain of salt:

• Neither at the center of the party nor outside. My absolute favorite place to be at a social gathering is somewhere at the periphery, perhaps on a terrace overlooking the scene. I love to listen to the sounds of people having a good time, observing the dancing, the dynamics, the social groups forming and dissolving, the body language. I was surprised when I learned that at some facilitation trainings this is actually codified as the facilitator’s position: “on the balcony”. Facilitators are both inside and outside groups at the same time, so if you find yourself resonating with that position, this may be the job for you!
• Mixed backgrounds anyone? I come from a family with mixed backgrounds and so do plenty of my colleagues. My personal theory: it may be easier to get into facilitation for those with mixed family backgrounds, and for bilingual/multilingual speakers. My assumption is it is easier to hold opposing positions and views as valid, which facilitators need to know how to do in order to maintain equidistance, aka “neutrality”, if you’ve been doing it since childhood. Naturally, this is not a hard rule, there are plenty of facilitators to whom it does not apply. Having diverse interests might help gain a similar perspective (like a facilitator I’ve worked with who has degrees in both psychology and mathematics). 

What are the benefits of becoming a facilitator?

Facilitation is a growing field and, at the same time, not a fully mature or established profession yet. This has its advantages and its drawbacks. If you like security and stability, being a freelance facilitator in an ever-shifting working landscape may not really be for you. Same can be arguably said if you have the highly technical and/or scientific mindset that is best suited for work in the STEMs where there might, in fact, very well be “a right and a wrong answer”. 

While the ground under your feet may not always be stable, here are some of the benefits of becoming a professional facilitator:

• Creative work that’s never boring
• The opportunity to support many different people and teams
• It’s a meaningful career where you’ll often feel you’re making a difference
• Continuous learning (of course this is also a con: the learning never ends, nor do the moments of failure!) 
• A supportive and generous community of peers
• Autonomy and independence (if you go the freelancer route) 

I second the point made in this blog post about how learning facilitation amounts to future-proofing your work: the core skills of facilitation are not something AI is likely to replace anytime soon. (That said, AI can certainly assist your facilitation career, and to learn more about that, look no further than the AI Tinkerers’ Club, hosted by Alex Eisenchteter.) 

Cognitive, Interpersonal and Self-leadership sections [in the McKinzey study on the future world of work] read like a checklist of the exact skills facilitators learn in training.

Simon Tratnik, Product Strategist and Founder of Human1st

How to learn facilitation

Now that we’ve established that facilitation is picked up rather than studied, and that professional facilitators come from all walks of life, it’s natural to ask: but how does one go about learning facilitation?

Here are some of the many ways you can learn more about how to guide a group.

Picking facilitation up on the go

Almost 70% of respondents to SessionLab’s 2024 State of Facilitation survey stated that they learned facilitation mostly “by doing”. 

This can mean a lot of different things. It may imply watching someone else doing it, or being hurled into hosting your own workshop by random chance, with little more than a session plan to support you. These is no single pathway here. 

To pick up facilitation on the go, start by making small interventions to improve how meetings are held in your workplace or volunteer association. Ask around: what is working well in how we hold our meetings? What would you like to improve? Let everyone know you’d like to propose something new, frame your experiments as such, and ask for feedback at the end. Some of your best lessons will come from failures! 

Reflecting on practices and behaviors

You can learn a lot of facilitation skills by training yourself to observe and notice patterns of behavior, in yourself and others. Keep notes about what happens in meetings and workshops. What works well? What doesn’t? Ask yourself why people behave the way they do, take note of body language and tone of voice. You might start to notice patterns repeat themselves: these are the basic blocks of group dynamics.

One of my favorite bits of facilitation wisdom is to consider any “trouble” or “disturbance” as if it were a message, telling you something important about the group and its needs. Did that small disagreement blow up because people were tired and frustrated that a meeting scheduled to last 30 minutes had gone on for over an hour? 

You’ll be surprised how much you can learn about how to facilitate group discussions by just observing behaviors (including yours) and sitting down with your notes to reflect afterward. 

Getting experience as a volunteer

As a beginner, it may not feel safe to start experimenting with facilitation methods in the workplace. On the other hand, volunteer groups, local associations, and neighborhood committees may be ideal places to practice facilitation in a low-stakes setting. 

Look for opportunities to join a local group and ask if you could help out organizing meetings. Volunteering is a wonderful way to start learning facilitation skills! Many facilitators started in youth groups, as scouts, or in theatre companies (there is definitely some overlap between theatre skills, particularly improv, and facilitation).

Another way of looking at the overlap of volunteering and facilitation concerns volunteering within facilitation communities. The IAF (International Association of Facilitators) local chapters are volunteer-led and always looking for some help organizing online workshops or offline festivals. This is a great opportunity to pick up skills while giving back to the community and networking at the same time! 

Free resources to help you learn facilitation skills

Facilitators as a whole tend to be a helpful and generous bunch. This includes often putting out free resources and guides to help newbies, and freely sharing tips and tricks about a certain tool or methodology. 

In this article we’ve collected many such resources, including 10 of our favorite free toolkits you can download and read at your leisure. To start your reading list, I suggest going through the list of core competencies compiled by the IAF; it will give you a clear orientation of what learning facilitation entails, and what skills you should practice. 

Joining a community and learning from experienced facilitators

Facilitation is best framed as a craft. As such, it’s learned by passing on knowledge from one person to another. But how can you get in the loop and find opportunities to learn from good facilitators? 

The rise of digital tools and remote communities has enabled the creation of numerous excellent professional networks you can join, often for free. They generally include online workshop sessions and the opportunity to join or lead discussions with other professionals, more or less experienced. 

SessionLab’s friendly community hosts a calendar of events you can join to explore specific topics related to facilitation and leadership skills. Sessions are always free, online, and interactive. This is also a great place to ask questions to fellow facilitators and share stories and experiences.

Why you should join facilitation training courses

Once you’ve learned a few basics about facilitation, perhaps joined some online workshops, listened to some podcast episodes, and tried your hand out at leading a few meetings, you’ll probably start feeling the need for a facilitation training course.

A facilitation training course will help you in your career in many ways, including:

• learning about group dynamics. Training sessions are often the only place where you can pull back the curtain and learn the theoretical foundations of practices and methodologies;
• practicing in a safe context. Well-rounded training courses all include opportunities to practice, whether it is with your peers or by including hours of required practice after the course. Practice and reflection will help you hone your skills;
• raising your confidence levels. A great reason to take facilitator training courses is to become more confident and assured in your own facilitation style;
• building your CV. Starting out in the profession, it is important to show that you are putting in the work and growing your skillset. 

Joining a facilitation training course is often quite the investment, in time, money, and/or travel, but it will pay back. Most courses include peer learning, and/or personalized coaching by an expert facilitator, and will prepare you to go out into the world and lead workshops in real-world settings. 

To learn more about what courses are available and what you should keep in mind when choosing one, check out our dedicated guide to facilitation training courses. 

Do you need certification to be a facilitator?

Facilitation as a profession does not have a central, universally recognized accreditation body. There is no university degree you need to practice facilitation, nor must you register anywhere. In other words: you do not need a certificate to be a facilitator. In fact, most facilitators around the world do not have any form of written documentation testifying to their skills besides their CVs. 

Is this a good, or a bad thing? You guessed it: it depends. 

Both perspectives were covered in this conversation hosted by Myriam Hadnes in her Workshops Work podcast, discussing the topic of certification among participants in SessionLab’s Community and the NeverDoneBefore Community. 

Those who speak in favor of certification and accreditation have arguments such as:

• Training is necessary in order to improve facilitation skills beyond knowledge of individual facilitation techniques;
• Certification and accreditation can help structure the field and make it clearer for people on the outside;
• It can harm the field if people join with good intentions but no formal training;
• Certification offers more clarity to prospective clients trying to navigate a very fragmented field;
• Certification is a boost to personal confidence.

On the other side of the debate, the claim that certification is not needed includes views such as:

• Many great facilitators have no certification at all;
• A certification is no guarantee of quality;
• Certification can be an expensive barrier to entry;
• There is no objective way of evaluating what makes a good facilitator. 

Maybe we learn best from community, and on the job. But what happens to the profession if none of us follow courses and everyone believes that we can just learn it on the job, without a certification or accreditation?

Myriam Hadnes, host of Workshops Work

When discussing this topic, it’s important to make a clear distinction between certification as proof that you’ve completed a training course, and accreditation, which is the process of testing and certifying your proficiency in a certain skillset. 

Various schools and training organizations offer certification at the end of your training process. Having a certificate of this kind can be a great way to boost your confidence and prove to yourself that you have achieved a professional development milestone. It is also a good asset to add to your CV, showing prospective clients what kind of skills you’ve been working on. 

Accreditation in facilitation, as far as I know, is currently provided by two bodies: the International Association of Facilitation (IAF) and the International Institute for Facilitation (INIFAC). For more information on their programs, you can check out our summary here. 

The idea with accreditation is that you submit your work to a rigorous process of examination, often including assessors overseeing you while you facilitate a session. This is not something for beginners: accreditation may come later in your career, once you’ve got a good number of hours of workshops under your belt and want to advance your skills further.

Knowing how the accreditation process works is a good reason to start creating your portfolio from day one (more on this later). 

What professional facilitation looks like

As a professional facilitator, you can expect your time to be divided between preparation and delivery of workshops, sessions and events. In this article we discuss what types of tasks facilitators do. 

What should you expect from a career in facilitation? A lot depends on whether you go in the direction of freelance work, or if you’ll be looking at working “inhouse”, within a larger company or organization. Let’s look at those different options in turn.

Working as a freelance facilitator 

Many facilitators work as individual freelancers. In the 2023 edition of the State of Facilitation report, 97% of respondents stated they sometimes or most of the time work alone. Of the total respondents, 38% were either independent freelancers or the only facilitation professional in their company. 

This led us to wonder whether facilitation can be a “lonely” profession. The answer from the global community came in the form of discussions, articles and podcasts. The conclusion? Facilitation often happens alone, but facilitators are never lonely, being surrounded by communities of practice, reflection buddies, mentors and peers.

As a freelance facilitator you can expect all the ups and downs or a solopreneur life. There will be times of abundance and of scarcity, and it may prove hard to establish a solid client base. On the other hand, you will have autonomy, independence and freedom to pursue varied interests in many fields. Kirsty Lewis’ podcast A Facilitator’s Journey has numerous episodes dedicated to the business aspect of having a freelance facilitation career. 

After the pandemic, it is now the norm for facilitators to work both in person and remotely. You might choose to specialize in one or the other mode, but truth be told, your clients will ask you to solve a problem: it will be up to you to advise whether this is better done in an intensive in-person setting, via shorter online interventions over a period of time or (more likely) a mix of both. This means you’ll need to be up for a decent amount of travel as well as spending time at your desk! 

Working in a facilitation agency 

If you know that you prefer to work in a team, you could consider banding up with others to create a facilitation agency. Facilitation agencies operate like small consultancies: you might start off with a staff of two or three facilitators and one or two marketing and sales people to create a boutique business. This is more of an upfront investment in time and work, but if it works out for you it can create a stable income and a situation in which you might even be able to take a holiday and let the work continue without you! 

When facilitation agencies get larger commissions and contracts, it’s quite common for them to hire “associates”: freelancers who are connected to the agency, might have received training on the same methods, and are assigned to handling certain workshops or events. 

Working with sessions designed and created by someone else can be tricky. A couple of years ago I was part of a team of no less than 50 facilitators around Europe contracted by an agency to deliver online and in-person “town hall” style sessions for citizens in preparation for the EU-wide elections.

To harmonize work across such a large number of people, it was essential for the NGO to hold a series of preparatory workshops, Q&A sessions, and share a detailed session plan, almost a script, for the event. The SessionLab planner was an essential tool in this process, enabling us share sessions, add comments, and check that our timings were harmonized. 

Working as an in-house facilitator

Having a facilitator in-house is a growing trend in large companies. Inhouse facilitators run workshops for various teams, organize programs for offsites and teambuilding events and might host workshops with external stakeholders as well (think for example of a design sprint involving clients). In some companies, this combines with training roles, upskilling managers and staff in such skills as active listening, giving and receiving feedback, effective meetings or communication. 

More frequently though, you may be using facilitation skills in roles that are not called explicitly “facilitation”. Examples of such positions include project managers, community managers, event planners, and training roles in learning and development. The border between facilitation and training is permeable, and you will find many of the same skills used in both. Malia Josephine wrote a handy write-up of possible areas of focus for facilitators looking for work in her blog. 

4 tips on how to become a facilitator

As we’ve seen, there are as many different ways to start a facilitation career as there are facilitators. From my experience in the field, here are 4 tips to keep in mind as you test the waters.

Build a network

There is a lot of discussion in the facilitation community about what can help fuel a consistent string of jobs in such a fragmented market. The industry is driven by referrals and word-of-mouth, so what can you do to establish a good reputation if you are just starting out? 

In my experience, many people’s first breaks come from more experienced facilitators either asking rookies to co-facilitate or passing their contact information to clients when more run-of-the-mill, simple jobs are on the table. Taking care of professional relationships is essential in the facilitation world. Ways to start building a network include joining events and communities, and keeping in regular touch with peers you’ve taken a course with.

Cofacilitate

The State of Facilitation report points out that experienced facilitators are more likely to co-facilitate. This may have to do with the higher price tag associated to hiring more than one person, as well as with the simple fact that the more tricky situations you’ve experienced, the more likely you’ll be aware of the power of cofacilitation! 

If you’ve met an experienced facilitator whose style you like, try asking if they ever need a co-pilot. They might ask you to cofacilitate online as a “tech host”, keeping an eye on the chat and making sure all participants feel seen, heard and comfortable with the tech. In doing so, you will get comfortable with the tech yourself! 

In a live workshop, I’ll often ask less experienced co-facilitators to help me with the logistics and, once activities begin, be available to support individual participants if they need anything. An extra assistant in the room can be extremely helpful to “huddle” in breaks and discuss any spur-of-the-moment changes needed, or sit at a particularly rowdy table to help steer the discussion. 

Cofacilitation is the best way to learn facilitation on the job, and is a great relief to experienced folk: if you are a professional facilitator reading this, I urge you to check whether there is some space in your calendar to foster new professionals this way.

Create a portfolio

Creating a portfolio means keeping an orderly record of each workshop, session, event or facilitation gig you’ve been assigned to. If you’ve created the invitations and posters, add those, and if you can, add pictures of the actual event. Creating a portfolio is an important part to becoming a professional facilitator. 

Don’t be one of those people who decide to get accreditation ten years down the line and suddenly discover they’ve never kept track of their projects! The exact way you compose your portfolio depends of course on your individual style. Graphic harvesters will naturally pay more attention to their portfolio than general process facilitators, adding all sorts of visual elements to really make their collection pop. 

Your portfolio should show, at a glance, how much experience you’ve accrued, and in what sorts of settings. I’ve also found a portfolio an invaluable tool to look back to my years of work and catch trends, such as what type of client did I serve, how they found their way to me, whose problem I solved. Using SessionLab’s planner to create a knowledge base from the beginning of your career can help you easily find all your old sessions, adapt them, reuse them, and create customized printouts to add to your facilitation portfolio. 

Find your niche

You may think “facilitation” is a niche profession in and of itself but, actually, as you discover more about it you’ll inevitably find it has niches within niches. Finding your niche in facilitation may have to do with:

• What types of clients you serve. 

Facilitation skills, tools and methods are extremely flexible. Once you know how to use them, you can easily host a session about batteries for electric bicycles one day and another on water scarcity in rural areas the next (true story).

At the same time, having specialized knowledge in a certain industry can definitely improve your understanding of what is going on in the room. Eventually, you are likely to get recommended to other people who work in the same industry you’ve already served. Having a specialization in a certain topic or industry makes it easier to market, and to explain what you do. It answers the question “Ok, you facilitate. But what do you facilitate?”

If you are starting from a background in a particular field or industry, consider approaching potential clients from the same niche, and start from there. 

• What methodologies you use. 

Getting certified in a well-known framework or methodology, such as Design Thinking or Lego Serious Play, can help you get a consistent stream of jobs. It will be clearer to potential clients what you offer, and someone else will be doing part of the marketing for you.

• Where in the world you are.

Location can also be a niche. If you live in a country where languages other than English are spoken, that will be part of your specialization. Facilitators tend to travel a lot, but sometimes clients will look for someone local to the area, e.g.  in order to follow a longer-term process. Being the best professional facilitator in a certain region can help bring clients your way.

What tools will you need to facilitate group discussions?

Here are some of the things you’ll want to budget for to start a facilitation career. Disclaimer: like with any other profession, personal toolkits and tech stacks might get extremely sophisticated, but here I’ve decided to point out a few things you’ll need to begin with.

What is in a facilitator’s (physical) toolbox?

I started facilitating in Italy and in the NGO sector and as such, my background is in low-key, low-tech facilitation. I still rely on hand-drawn posters, and I like to transmit to participants or trainees the sense that meaningful conversations don’t depend on fancy tools.

While this may vary based on the setting, industry and client, but the essential facilitation tools for in-person workshops are:

• Sticky notes of varying sizes and colors. Buy the good brands: the cheap ones tend to get unglued and start fluttering around at a key moment of your brainstorming session;
• Large sheets of paper and rolls of paper tape you’ll use to stick posters to the wall (without ruining the wall);
• Markers. Facilitators can get very specific about their markers, but starting with three or four different colors will get you there. Just check that they don’t bleed through the paper;
• Some way of displaying and communicating the passing of time, whether it’s a bell, an alarm on your phone, a large-sized clock, a gong, or whatever time management device you prefer. 

For remote facilitation, all you really need is a computer, a quiet space to work in, an earset and a good video camera, but your setup is likely to get more advanced as you learn more about what is possible. A second screen is particularly useful in order to view your session from participants’ point of view. 

What is a facilitator’s tech stack? 

Software tools are becoming more and more integrated into facilitation, both online and in real life. In the 2024 State of Facilitation report we’ve called this the era of digitally-assisted facilitation. You can go through the report’s sections on tools for plenty of inspiration in this sense, as well as check out our guide to online tools for workshops and meetings. 

It’s not as easy to define what is in a facilitator’s tech stack as it is to recommend buying stacks of Post-its and boxes of Sharpies. That said, you’ll probably need:

• to get familiar with more than one tool for remote meetings. Which tool to use does not always depend on you, but often on a client’s preference, so make sure you become an advanced user of Zoom, Microsoft Teams (not a facilitator’s favorite, but often a requirement for use in large companies and universities), and Google Meet.
• You can design your sessions on pen and paper, in Microsoft Excel or in a GoogleDoc, but the only tool for session design you’ll find that fits facilitation like a glove is SessionLab. It was designed with facilitators’ needs in mind and will allow you to create sessions in minutes, move activities around without having to recalculate timing, share notes with your collaborators and clients, and more;
• Online whiteboards are a wonderful boost to remote collaboration. Mural and Miro are the market leaders and you should get very comfortable using one, the other, or both!
• Last but not least, you’ll need a software tool to help you collect information from your participants. Mentimeter, Kahoot, or GoogleForms are all possibilities that enable you to show participants quizzes and surveys before, during and after a session.

Tips for facilitating your first session

If you’ve come so far, you are well equipped with information needed to look ahead to the next couple of years in your professional facilitation career. But what about tomorrow, or the day after, when your first session begins? What should you keep in mind then? 

Here are my top 4 tips for facilitating your very first session. And before that: congratulations! We need more facilitators in the world to help create meaningful dialogue that moves groups forward. And the only real way to learn is to jump in and try.

1. Be clear about your role

Calmly and clearly set participants’ expectations. Share that you are beginning along this path and trying new things. Say a few words about why you think facilitation will help them achieve their goals. Do what you can to clarify how you will support participants, and explain why you’ve chosen certain group processes. 

Facilitation is new to a lot of people, and they may project their ideas of “teacher” or “captain” upon you. Explain that your role is to offer them new ways of doing things, not tell them what to do.

2. Use a template

Designing fully realized sessions is a rather advanced skill. Start trying your hand at holding and directing a group by using an existing template. You may need to adapt it to your needs, but at least you’ll be starting with a solid base. We’ve got a rich collection of session templates in SessionLab to help you out, including a customizable flow for workshop sessions you can fill out with content based on the specifics of your situation. 

3. Keep it simple

There are many methods and processes you can learn and introduce to groups. Learning new methodologies is a never-ending process! Don’t get lost in the abundance: the right place to start is with basic, tried-and-true processes that will make a great difference despite their apparent simplicity. A meeting can be transformed by introducing a check-in, a checkout, and a focussed conversation method such as 1-2-4-all or World Café. 

Keeping your structure simple will allow you to fully focus on the participants, practicing active listening and helping them along by reformulating and timekeeping. Keep it simple! 

4. Ask for feedback (and celebrate!) 

We can only grow our skills if we adopt a learner’s mindset. Ask participants to give you feedback at the end of your session. Collecting written feedback after the workshop is over is probably the best way to get honest responses you can then reflect on. 

Don’t just ask what you could have changed: also ask what worked well, what they enjoyed. These are your best features, those you can work on to really define your own style, offering and “facilitation signature”. Reflecting, taking notes and making plans for improvement after every facilitation session should become part of your professional routine.

A final tip: facilitation is a rewarding and exciting profession, but it is by no means easy. Make relaxing, celebrating and recharging after a session part of your routine as well!

Where to go next

Would you like to know the steps required to fully plan a facilitated workshop? Read our guide on Workshop Planning, from the initial idea all the way to reflection and followup. 

Want to learn more about what a facilitator’s challenges and practices are? Go through the data and expert contributions of the 2024 State of Facilitation report. 

Got a question to pose to experienced facilitators? Would you like some advice on how to handle your first facilitation session, or to share ideas and stories from real world settings? Join SessionLab’s facilitation community and ask a question there! 

Ready to try your hand at session design? Sign up for a free account on SessionLab, duplicate a simple template such as the Essential Workshop structure, and customize it to fit your needs!