We just launched what promises to be the biggest bundle of new workshops we've ever built: Facilitation Techniques.
It's a growing collection of technique guides designed for one purpose: to give you a clear, reliable process for running specialist facilitation methods you haven't tried before.
No theory essays. No academic history lessons. Just practical instruction manuals that tell you exactly what to do, step by step, so you can deliver a technique for the first time and look like you've been running it for years.
The collection will eventually cover over 100 techniques across 11 categories.
World Café and Fishbowl are free for you until Tuesday 10th February. After that, the full collection is available to Pro Members with unlimited access.
The first 17 guides are available now, with more arriving soon.
Who is this for?
These guides are written for facilitators who already know how to manage a room.
You don't need help with the basics of group dynamics, timekeeping, or reading energy.
What you need is a reliable process for a specific technique you haven't run before, written in plain language, with enough detail that you can pick it up and deliver it tomorrow.
If you run workshops and you want to expand your toolkit without attending a week-long certification for every new method, this is built for you.
What's in each guide?
Every technique guide includes:
🔹 A detailed explanation of the technique
🔹 When to use it and when not to (pick the right tool for the job)
🔹 The full process broken into timed steps with instructions
🔹 Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
🔹 Adaptations for virtual delivery, different group sizes, & time
🔹 Real-world application examples
🔹 A printable quick reference sheet for use during the session
🔹 Any templates, worksheets, or visual aids the technique needs
Tip: You can use our AI to adjust all our workshop frameworks for session length, group size, or audience in seconds if you become a Pro Member.
What's available now
Here are the first 17 technique guides, organised by category...
Dialogue & Conversation
1) World Café
Small groups of four or five sit at café-style tables and explore a question together, then rotate to new tables over multiple rounds. One person stays behind as table host to carry ideas forward. Over three rounds, ideas cross-pollinate across the room and patterns emerge that no single group could have produced alone.
2) Fishbowl
A small inner circle has a focused conversation while the rest of the room watches and listens. Depending on the format, outer circle members can swap in to join the discussion or groups rotate at set intervals. It's a way to have a quality conversation with a large group without it turning into a free-for-all.
3) Circle Practice/Council
Everyone sits in a circle and speaks one at a time using a talking piece. No cross-talk, no debate, no interrupting. The result is a quality of conversation most groups have never experienced: slower, deeper, and more honest than typical meetings.
4) Troika Consulting
Groups of three take turns: one person presents a real challenge, then turns their back while the other two discuss it openly. Something about not being watched while others talk about your problem produces surprisingly honest and useful advice. Three rounds, everyone gets a turn.
Generative & Creative
5) Dynamic Facilitation
Instead of following a fixed agenda, you follow the group's energy and capture everything on four charts: solutions, data, concerns, and problem statements. The facilitator protects each speaker and writes down every contribution, which creates the psychological safety for genuine breakthroughs to emerge.
6) Appreciative Inquiry (4D)
A structured approach to change that starts with what's already working rather than what's broken. The group moves through four phases: Discover, Dream, Design, and Destiny. Instead of diagnosing problems, participants build a shared vision from their own success stories and commit to specific actions.
7) 1-2-4-All
Participants think alone for one minute, discuss in pairs for two minutes, combine into fours for four minutes, then share with the whole room. Every single person contributes from the first moment. By the time ideas reach the group, they've been tested through three rounds of conversation.
Large Group Methods
8) Open Space Technology
Participants create the agenda themselves. Anyone who cares about a topic posts it on a wall, and people self-organise into discussion groups. The facilitator sets up the structure and then gets out of the way. It sounds chaotic, but it consistently produces focused conversations and genuine commitment to action.
9) Future Search
Brings 40 to 80 people from across an entire system together over two to three days. They explore shared history, map present trends, create ideal future scenarios, then agree on common ground before making concrete plans. It's a planning meeting designed to produce action, not just ideas.
Spatial & Embodied
10) Systemic Constellations
Participants physically represent elements of a system (people, teams, forces, stakeholders) and are placed in a space to reveal hidden dynamics and relationships. By moving representatives and checking what shifts, the group discovers patterns that stay invisible in normal conversation.
11) Sociometry
Participants position themselves physically in a room to map relationships, preferences, and group dynamics. By asking people to move based on questions like "stand near the person you'd go to first with a new idea," invisible networks and alliances become visible in seconds. It surfaces information that surveys and discussions miss entirely.
Play, Simulation & Experiential
12) LEGO Serious Play
Participants build three-dimensional models out of LEGO bricks in response to questions, then share the story and meaning behind what they built. The building acts as a thinking tool that surfaces ideas and knowledge people can't access through conversation alone.
Visual & Graphic
13) Graphic Facilitation
Capturing a group's conversation in real time using drawings, symbols, text, and visual structures on a large shared surface. It makes thinking visible so the group can see connections between ideas, track the flow of discussion, and build shared understanding.
Conflict & Difficult Conversations
14) Polarity Mapping
Helps groups recognise when they're dealing with a tension that can't be solved but must be managed over time. Using a visual map, participants identify two interdependent poles, chart the upsides and downsides of each, then build action steps and early warning signs. It shifts groups from "either/or" debate to "both/and" thinking.
Structured Collections & Frameworks
15) Liberating Structures Overview
An introduction to the collection of 33 microstructures created by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless. Each one is a simple method for including and engaging everyone in a group. The guide explains how the system works, how to choose the right structure, and how to combine them.
Decision-Making
16) Consensus Decision-Making
A structured process for working toward solutions that everyone in the group can genuinely support. It's not about unanimity or majority rule. The group discusses, modifies, and refines proposals until all serious objections have been addressed. It takes longer than voting, but the commitment to the outcome is far stronger.
17) Consent-Based Decision-Making
The sociocratic approach where the question isn't "does everyone agree?" but "does anyone have a principled objection?" If a proposal is good enough for now and safe enough to try, it moves forward. It's faster than consensus and avoids the endless pursuit of perfection that stalls most groups.
What's coming next
These 17 are just the beginning. The full collection will grow to over 100 techniques across 11 categories:
- Spatial & Embodied
- Dialogue & Conversation
- Large Group Methods
- Generative & Creative
- Visual & Graphic
- Structured Collections & Frameworks
- Decision-Making
- Conflict & Difficult Conversations
- Play, Simulation & Experiential
- Reflective & Meaning-Making
- Energy & Engagement
New guides will be added regularly. If you're a Pro Member, you'll get access to every new technique as it's published.
Why these guides are different
Most facilitation technique resources give you either a paragraph overview that's too thin to use, or a 300-page book you'll never finish. These guides sit in the middle:
✅ Detailed enough to run the technique tomorrow, without attending a certification course
✅ Written in plain language with no unnecessary jargon or academic framing
✅ Honest about limitations, telling you when NOT to use a technique as clearly as when to use it
✅ Include exact facilitator scripts and phrases so you know what to say, not just what to do
✅ Built-in quick reference sheets you can print and keep beside you during the session
✅ Adaptations for virtual delivery, different group sizes, and time constraints
Questions? Send me an email. I read every response.