The Facilitation Studio

Improving your facilitation game

Are you looking to up your facilitation game? Look no further than the Facilitation Studio! This podcast provides the foundations for good facilitation, as well as tools, techniques, and templates to help you elevate the collaborative experiences you lead. I’m John Sunart, an experienced facilitator, and I’m drawing on years of experience to bring you the best tips and tricks for facilitating with all sorts of people and all scales of organisation. Whether you're new to facilitation or a seasoned pro, join me in the studio and let's take your facilitation skills to the next level. facilitationstudio.substack.com

  1. -4 ДН.

    #23 Mapping: the engine your workshop runs on

    Mapping is how you get all of your collaborators on the same page, speaking the same language and ready to work together productively. It's how you build the shared picture that the rest of the workshop runs on top of. This is the first of four deep-dives into the workshop activity types — Dream, Map, Distil, Prioritise — picking up from issue #7 (the four types) and issue #22 (the Butterfly that links them). I get into why mapping has to be an active thing the group does together rather than something presented at them, what the spectrum of mapping tools actually looks like (from immersive service safaris at one end to a quietly-handled empathy map template at the other), the three ways it most often goes sideways (rabbit-holing, treating an outlier as gospel, and pretending the gaps in the map don't exist), and how you know when you've done enough. There's a pre-mapping checklist at the end you can steal. We cover: [~00:00] Opening — what Map is actually for [~02:00] Why you do it together — cognition, memory, and the collective notebook [~04:30] What it looks like in practice — the spectrum from service safari to empathy map [~07:00] Three things to watch out for — rabbit-holing, mole-hills into mountains, missing gaps [~09:30] Doing just enough mapping — knowing when to stop, and the playback ritual [~11:30] A checklist to take into your next mapping phase Links Service safari — https://servicedesigntools.org/tools/service-safari Empathy mapping (Nielsen Norman Group) — https://www.nngroup.com/articles/empathy-mapping/ issue #7 — The four things you can do in a workshop issue #22 — The Butterfly Process [paste Substack URL at publish] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit facilitationstudio.substack.com

    12 мин.
  2. 2 АПР.

    #21 The whisk, the recipe and knowing how to cook

    Ever watched someone run a Design Sprint on a three-year strategy question? Every step executed perfectly. Entirely wrong outcome. That's not a facilitation problem — that's a vocabulary problem. In this episode I'm unpacking a distinction that I think sits at the heart of getting better at this work: the difference between a tool, a method, and a process. They're not the same thing, they don't do the same jobs, and mixing them up is one of the most common reasons workshops fail to deliver. We use a kitchen analogy to work it out. A whisk is a tool. A Victoria sponge recipe is a method. Knowing how to cook is a process. And — crucially — no amount of perfect recipe-following will get you an omelette. In this episode: Why tools are only powerful in combination, and in the right moment What makes a method brilliant — and when it becomes a liability The difference between following a process and understanding one Why two facilitators with identical tools and methods will still run completely different sessions (that's the seasoning) Whether you actually need to understand process at all — or whether mastering one good method is entirely the right ambition Resources mentioned: Hyper Island Toolbox Interaction Design Foundation FigJam Community Templates Liberating Structures Sprint by Jake Knapp Practical Facilitation by Dr Christine Hogan Gamestorming by Dave Gray Read the full article at facilitationstudio.substack.com What's in your toolkit? And is there a method you swear by, or one you've seen spectacularly misapplied? I'd love to hear — drop me a message or leave a comment on the Substack. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit facilitationstudio.substack.com

    8 мин.
  3. 19 МАР.

    #20 Moving from intent to activities

    Most people start planning a workshop by dropping activities onto a board. An icebreaker here, a brainstorm there, a How Might We and some dot-voting to tidy things up. Two hours, looks solid. The problem is, you've just picked the words before you know what you want to say. In this episode, I'm talking about the step that sits between your intent and your agenda — the one most facilitators skip entirely. Critical questions are the scaffolding that holds your activities in place, and without them, you're building on hope rather than structure. I'll walk you through the five steps I use to find, test, and sequence them so that by the time you're thinking about activities, every single one has a job to do. If you've ever stood in front of a room wondering whether the pieces are actually going to connect, this one's for you. In this episode: - Why choosing activities first gives you an agenda with very weak foundations - How to find the questions that only your collaborators can answer - Why not every question belongs in the room — and how to figure out which ones do - How to stress-test your questions against the people you've invited - Why the right sequence isn't always the tidy one Links and resources mentioned: Issue #9 — The road to a valuable workshop Find out more about facilitation coaching This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit facilitationstudio.substack.com

    13 мин.

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Are you looking to up your facilitation game? Look no further than the Facilitation Studio! This podcast provides the foundations for good facilitation, as well as tools, techniques, and templates to help you elevate the collaborative experiences you lead. I’m John Sunart, an experienced facilitator, and I’m drawing on years of experience to bring you the best tips and tricks for facilitating with all sorts of people and all scales of organisation. Whether you're new to facilitation or a seasoned pro, join me in the studio and let's take your facilitation skills to the next level. facilitationstudio.substack.com

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