I'm a recovering academic who uses her insights from behavioural economics to develop methods that facilitate collaboration. In my weekly newsletter, I share the summary of my latest interview on the "workshops work" podcast along with an application of facilitation as a life and leadership skill.
How to better choose activities: a hack 👾 | On the Podcast: Designing Change: The Art of Service Design and Facilitation
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Dear Reader, In the last Foundations of Facilitation course that I hosted with Michelle Howard, we shared one easy framework hack that I keep up my sleeve when having to decide on an activity to use in a workshop. Every session is unique, and so it boils down to the purpose of that day, as well as my ambition for the activity. To decide, I reflect on two scales:
This 2x2 framework visualises the areas in which the potential activities may be suited. And as you might guess, some activities can fit into several of these quadrants - depending on how you frame them - or how many participants you involve. As a general rule of thumb, when the focus is on content (idea generation, alignment on specific solutions), I use (digital) whiteboards, markers and stickies to support participants in their note-taking. Examples for activities are Brainstorming activities, voting, or a World Café. Whenever the focus is on the connection between participants, I stay away from note-taking devices so that they can focus on each other instead. Activities could be Troika Consulting or Unhurried Conversations. Whenever the focus is on divergent over convergent thinking, the pace is faster and the groups may be larger. You may have a 5 min brainstorming with the full group on one whiteboard or a fast paced Impromptu Networking. If thinking shall converge, pace slows down so that decisions taken are well understood by everyone. If you are thirsty for more models and facilitation hacks, check out our Academy programme in September! And, if you like the icons in the graphic below, check out CNVS! 🎙 Meanwhile, on the podcast… We all know what bad service feels like. Food that takes a small lifetime to arrive, delayed airport check-ins, and being involuntarily subjected to that infuriating hold music for the fifth, and final time. But what makes a good service, and how do we design it? Gerry Scullion’s 21 years in the game have taught him the intricacies of a well-designed service ecosystem, what it means to bring harmony to stakeholder dynamics, and what we can glean from someone’s reaction to our feedback. It’s full to the brim with facilitative insights viewed through the interrelated lenses of Service Design, Human Centric Design and Design Thinking. Sit back and enjoy! Find out about:
🔖 Click here to download my 1-page summary of the show. 🎧 Click here to listen to the interview Or, watch the unedited interview on Youtube: ⏯️ Join me live, online and for free: Tomorrow! Next week, I will be hosting a workshop on how to redesign boring All-Hands meetings for our friends from Streamalive: Revitalising All-Hands Meetings: Strategies for Engaging and Energising Your Team Click here to sign up and join for free. ⏯️ Listen to me on other podcasts This week, I am on Paddy Dhanda's Superpowers School's podcast to talk about .... Facilitation! Of course :) And if you don't have time to listen, check out the landing page on which he summarises all key take-aways That's all from my side. I wish you rest for a calm mind and healthy body! Myriam
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How can we facilitate collaboration?
I'm a recovering academic who uses her insights from behavioural economics to develop methods that facilitate collaboration. In my weekly newsletter, I share the summary of my latest interview on the "workshops work" podcast along with an application of facilitation as a life and leadership skill.
Happy Friday Reader It’s happening! The last-ever NeverDoneBefore Festival is just around the corner, and I wanted to share a little more about what makes this one truly special. Will it be huge? You might be thinking – with all the buzz around it being the final edition – that we’re hosting hundreds of people. But here’s the beauty of NDB: it’s not a massive, impersonal event. We keep it intimate. Think of it more like a close-knit gathering where everyone gets to know each other, connect,...
Dear Reader, We often hear the phrase in self-help books: What gets our attention will grow. In fact, I have it stuck on a note right next to my screen. But what about the things we don’t focus on—the ones we brush aside, believing that sweeping them under the rug will somehow preserve our fragile sense of harmony? The truth is, these unnoticed moments can quietly swell until they become unreasonably large, disrupting our lives far more than we anticipate. Today, I want to write about the...
Dear Reader, As facilitators, we often talk about the importance of creating space. But how do we balance sharing our own voice with making room for others? And how can we tell when our contributions invite or unintentionally silence those around us? This is where the concepts of “crowding in” and “crowding out” come into play. Inspired by economic theory, these terms initially describe how public spending can either attract private investment or decrease it. Thomas Lahnthaler recently...