From what facilitation actually is through to reading a room live and landing the commitments.
Watch them here, in order or out of it. Modules 1 to 4 are everything you control from a desk
before anyone walks in; modules 5 to 8 are the room itself. The modules are standalone,
so nothing you make in one is needed by the next.
How this training works, and what is deliberately left out.
play_circle5:5215 slidesNo quiz for this one
An orientation to the path. Six minutes on what the eight modules cover, the order they are taught in, and why the path splits into two acts with a hinge in the middle. Explains how a single module works, roughly how long the whole thing takes, and what is deliberately left out of this path and where that material lives instead. The modules are standalone, so this also covers taking them out of order.
The role, the mindset, and when it is actually worth it.
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The role and the mindset. This module defines facilitation and separates it from presenting, from training, and from simply deciding, then makes the case for owning the process rather than the content. Covers the three jobs of a facilitator, substantive neutrality and servant leadership, what grabbing the content looks like in practice, and the ego and control trap that catches most people early. It also covers what you are allowed to be bossy about, and finishes on the judgement calls that tell you when a workshop earns its time and when you should just make the decision instead.
The single highest-return thing you do before anyone walks in.
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The highest-return work happens before anyone walks in. This module covers writing one sharp session objective and treating it as an artifact rather than a feeling. You learn to tell an outcome apart from a topic and apart from an activity, apply the finish line test and the artifact test, and write the objective sentence itself, with four real before-and-after examples. Also covers why one objective beats five, how the participant list follows from what the outcome needs rather than from who would be offended to be left out, and the pre-mortem question to put to whoever called the meeting.
The five blocks every session is made of, and the exercises that fill them.
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The structure underneath every session. This module breaks any workshop into five blocks (frame, diverge, converge, commit, close), gives each one its share of the clock, and shows why commit is the block that most often goes missing. Covers the mistake hiding inside divergence, why diverging and converging must never run at the same time, the four transitions between blocks and the one that breaks most sessions, Kaner’s Diamond and the Groan Zone, and what it costs you to rescue a room out of that zone rather than hold it there. Ends with 1-2-4-All and an exercise kit mapped to the blocks, so you can diagnose an agenda you did not design.
Turning the blocks into a timed arc a real room can walk.
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Turning a block skeleton into a timed agenda a real room can walk. This module covers backward design, making every activity earn its slot, and the 3x rule for timeboxing against how long things actually take rather than how long they take in your head. Also covers where the buffer sits, the Rule of Thirds, treating breaks as a design decision, how the numbers change when the session is remote, the two diamonds, and how to write a run of show. Finishes with a block checklist you can run over any agenda to find its faults before you send it.
2:18 · the door
Everything above happens before anyone walks in. Module 4 is
where the subject stops being paper and starts being people.
The first ten minutes, and the unglamorous skill of being understood.
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The first ten minutes, and the unglamorous skill of being understood. This module covers what a strong opening buys you for the rest of the day, IDOARRT and what it sounds like spoken out loud, the two lines almost everybody skips, and working agreements the group writes rather than receives. Also covers opening a room that does not want to be there, running a check-in round, and opening when you are not the most senior person present. The second half is instructions: the re-explain tax, the twenty-second framing, demonstrating instead of describing, checking that it landed and then stopping talking, and how to recover once an instruction has already failed.
Getting a real contribution out of everyone, not just the confident.
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Getting a real contribution from everyone, not just the confident. This module treats three people talking while everybody else waits as a design problem rather than a personality problem, and fixes it by changing the structure instead of encouraging people. Covers writing before talking, 1-2-4-All applied to a real prompt, and two further structures. Then powerful questions, asking what rather than why, holding the silence after a question, and redirecting to the group. Finishes with the dominant voice and the quiet voice, handled without embarrassing either, psychological safety and who should speak last, and what to do when the topic is too hot for a normal round.
Pacing a session, and what to do when the room goes flat.
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Pacing a session, and what to do when the room goes flat. This module covers timeboxing out loud, the two-minute warning, and the difference between running to time and running to the outcome. Then the energy arc across a day, why the post-lunch slump is a design problem rather than a people problem, and how to choose between a break, a format change and pushing on. Also covers telling ordinary tiredness apart from the Groan Zone, cutting under pressure without gutting the session, recovering an activity that has flopped without pretending it has not, and deciding your cuts in advance rather than in the room.
Sensing what is happening while it happens, then landing the end.
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Sensing what is happening while it happens, then landing the end. This module covers the four reads (seating, devices, eyes, sound) and what each signal actually means, how to tell avoidance apart from fatigue, and when to trust the read over the plan. Covers three moves for adapting live, plus the silent room and the derail. The second half is the close: landing commitments so they are written where everyone can see them and said out loud by name with dates attached, what a real commitment sounds like against a vague one, and running a reflection close.
2:15
8 modules, 2:15 of video, 210 slides.
About 4.5 hours in total once you add the practice and the quizzes. Take it in one
sitting or one module a week, and jump straight to the one that matches this week's problem.
Each module has one short practice, roughly ten minutes, that runs on
material we supply. You do not need a workshop in the diary to do any of them.
An objective sentence
One sentence naming an artifact you can hold up afterwards, not a feeling you cannot check.
Module 2
A ninety-minute skeleton
Five blocks, timed, with the sentence you will say at every joint already drafted.
Module 3
A timed agenda with buffer
Run against the block checklist, hardened for participation and for energy.
Module 4
A read you can trust
Four signals, and the three moves that follow when the plan and the room disagree.
Module 8
If you do have a session coming up, every practice works on that
instead, and that is the version worth taking. The quizzes are formative: unlimited retries,
a written explanation rather than a score, and nothing is gated behind them.
What is deliberately not here.
Better said now than discovered in Module 6. Foundations is a beginner
path and it is shaped like one.
A dedicated closing module
Taught as a block in Module 3, designed in Module 4, delivered in Module 8. Enough at beginner depth, and not enough beyond it.
Group dynamics and difficult participants
Touched in Modules 6 and 8. The Facilitator Bootcamp gives it the full 150 minutes.
Anything about senior stakeholders
That is path 4.2, Executive and Leadership Facilitation.
Start at 0:00.
Module 1 runs eighteen minutes and asks you to watch one meeting you do not run. You can be
into it tonight. A notebook is all you need.
Workshop tips picked for the rooms you actually run. Three times a week. No "10 tricks for hybrid" listicles, no synergy slides, no hot takes dressed as frameworks.