You’re planning a workshop. How can you find the best facilitation tools for maximum engagement?

To find the best facilitation tools for maximum engagement in a workshop, begin by identifying the workshop's goals and audience. Conduct a needs assessment to understand participants' preferences and learning styles. Explore popular platforms like Mentimeter, Miro, or Zoom for virtual workshops, and tools like sticky notes, whiteboards, and interactive games for in-person sessions. Seek recommendations from colleagues, read reviews, and consider trial versions to test compatibility. Prioritize tools that foster collaboration, interactivity, and participant involvement. Regularly evaluate and adapt your toolset based on participant feedback and evolving technology to ensure continuous improvement in engagement and learning outcomes.

You start from the outcome. What really do participants achieve after your workshop. You need to understand the context to actually design intermediate results into the flow corridor and finally identify the right tools that achieve the different intermediate outcomes

A session design is like navigation on GPS.?? You need to know your destination (purpose) to find the best route(tools for facilitation) to reach the desired place (session outcomes)?? Always begin with the end in mind aka the purpose

Finding the best facilitation tool for maximum engagements in a workshop involves so many things. First things is to identify the needs/purpose of the workshop. What is the Key outcome you and your participants are desiring to achieve? Who will be your audience? Check and determine if they are already familiar with any facilitation tool. On the basis of your initial research explore various facilitation tools that can align with your workshop and the needs of the participants. look for tools which make your workshop more interactive and which encourage participant interaction such as Zoom,Kahoot!, Mural, slack and make sure that selected tools are user-friendly and accessible to all the participants.

Begin by clearly defining the purpose/objectives. Once established, conduct thorough research on facilitation tools, considering online and offline options. Take into account your audience's preferences, choosing tools that are user-friendly, compatible, and accessible. Prioritize interactivity features such as polls, quizzes, and real-time collaboration to enhance participant engagement. Test the selected tools before the workshop to identify any technical issues and gather feedback from others who have used them. Consider the cost, customization options, and availability of technical support. And align your choice of facilitation tools with your workshop's goals and your facilitation style to create a compelling and engaging experience.

It is extremely important to consider the learning styles of participants when selecting the best tools to use with any particular group. Use a survey like HBDI to determine which learning styles participants prefer: - Analytical - Visual - Structured - Kinesthetic Based on this assessment front end load the content and approach to facilitation to cater to preferred learning styles. Vary the approaches you use or keep presentations brief and give participants a choice of exercises. Some may prefer to work independently. Others may prefer to work in pairs, trios, or small groups. One approach for giving choices is the Learning Smorgasbord advocated by the late Dave Meier of the Centre for Accelerated Learning.

Survey your audience on what they would like out the workshop, you can do this as an online survey, in person interviews and get a good cross section of view. Consider using the framework of the 6 Ps when engaging those coming to the workshop - purpose of the workshop, principles they would like to work within, process we all agree to follow, participants that should be there, practicalities that should apply, and products (the outputs of the workshop).

Know your audience by doing inclusivity, by doing that you will know how to interact the audience, the way how will they will understand more. Is it more on speech, presentation, video, picture and so on. There should be everyone must do so that the training given will be really understand based on their capacity. Example if mix up many audiences, some of them might different level of education background, and some might by third tier of education, the presenter need to go for lowest way of presenting to the audience. Because if the lowest education background understand, should be there is no problem by the 3rd tier education and above to understand. Make the inclusivity learning culture to identify before start the training.

Empathy helps in designing a session which can come closest to the needs of the audience. Know their pain areas, struggles, solutions attempted in the past and current challenges. Customisation can come only by knowing your customer i.e. the audience

Understanding your audience is a game-changer for time management. By grasping their background, interests, and familiarity with the topic, you can tailor your facilitation approach to be more effective and efficient. This ensures your sessions are on point, engaging, and avoid unnecessary explanations or adjustments, saving precious time and keeping the momentum going. It's about making every minute count by aligning closely with the audience's needs and preferences.

Reflecting on my experience last year facilitating an international seminar on climate change, which started as a three-week in-person event and then shifted to a mix of virtual and brief in-person sessions due to health contingencies, adaptability was key. For the virtual component, we used various collaborative tools to build familiarity before meeting face-to-face. The unexpected shift back to a virtual format tested our adaptability, underscoring the importance of being equipped with versatile tools to facilitate under any circumstances. In an ever-changing world, a facilitator's ability to adapt and use a diverse set of tools is essential for effective engagement.

One of the best sources for great tools for workshops is Session Lab and also the IAF. The contributors of both are Facilitators who have tried and tested so many tools and methods, and provide you with a run down, instructions, templates and the like. It is a gold mine of resources!

Mi experiencia personal me llevó a descubrir Training for Change, una plataforma clave para perfeccionar mis habilidades de facilitación en línea. Inspirado en los principios de Paulo Freire sobre aprender haciendo, este recurso te sumerge en herramientas colaborativas, la creación de espacios dinámicos en línea y la gestión de contratiempos. Buscar lugares como Training for Change, donde el aprendizaje se da mano a mano con compa?eros, fomenta el pensamiento creativo. Aprovechas las experiencias compartidas, ampliando tus perspectivas y métodos.

To find the best facilitation tools for maximum engagement in a workshop, consider researching and comparing options based on user reviews and recommendations. Explore platforms that offer interactive features like real-time polling, brainstorming boards, and collaborative documents. Trial a few tools to assess their usability and effectiveness in engaging participants. Additionally, seek feedback from peers or industry forums for insights on tools that have successfully enhanced engagement in similar settings.

Testing and refining your facilitation tools is like rehearsing before the big show. It's essential to ensure everything runs smoothly and adds real value to your workshop. A dry run or gathering feedback from a trusted colleague can offer insights into what's working and what might need tweaking. This process helps in fine-tuning your tools, ensuring they're not just flashy but genuinely enhance the learning experience. It's about striking the right balance between innovation and clarity, ensuring your tools enrich the session without overwhelming your participants.

Another to consider is accessibility of participants to any tools and systems if they need to contribute online - especially important in organisations which may have IT policies that prevent uploading new software.... always have a back up solution or workaround in place just in case

From my experience, regardless of whether the workshop is virtual or in-person, conducting rehearsals is key. These rehearsals should test scripts, content, participant dynamics, and your mastery of technology for virtual settings, or room navigation and material use in physical settings. Each format demands readiness for various contingencies. A practical approach is to create a verification checklist to ensure thorough preparation from the rehearsal phase, facilitating a seamless and engaging workshop experience.

From chaos emerges cosmos. ?? Despite your best efforts some things may work while others may not. Any tool that did not work will have learnings and insights for you. Look for those learnings, make required changes, improvise, try again and shine on! ???

Remember, energy flows from the facilitator to the participants. Your enthusiasm for the topic will transfer to the audience. Take your energetic self to the classroom, be enthusiastic about the learnings you are going to deliver and the methodologies you will use. Create curiosity and excitement. Enthuse yourself to engage the audience.

How do you assess whether a workshop was well facilitated and deeply engaging? It boils down to how much fun the attendees had, how well they were able to exercise their senses, and whether they at least felt they were pushed out of their comfort zone, and as a result a little bit more confident than how they walked in? Achieving these are most often than not a deliberate process where the facilitator having understood the purpose and the audience, design the learning journey with these sweet spots of engagement with the attendees. Even if the above mentioned ideals are not reached, it is imperative that a facilitator always ensure "do no harm" principle.

Crafting an engaging workshop is a collaborative effort that reflects our commitment to diversity in learning. Firstly, we proactively engage with companies to understand the preferences of their learners. By conducting conversations with key stakeholders, we gather valuable insights on how their audience prefers to receive content. Then internally, we conduct brainstorming sessions to pool a variety of opinions, ensuring that our workshops and experiential learning activities resonate with different individuals. This enables us to adapt and tailor these tools to fit seamlessly into our content, creating a dynamic and interactive learning experience.

Bring in your personality too. If you love music, use it, have fun with it and involve your attendees. Lots of fun to dance the Macarena during a break or use this to break up a moment. Don’t be afraid yo be you.

As facilitator of 100+ innovation projects all over the world, I love to share a CHECKLIST: 15 TIPS for THE PERFECT BRAINSTORM: 1. Define a relevant challenge 2. Create with the sponsor an assignment 3. Create momentum 4. Invite people for whom it is relevant. 5. Invite people for content as well as decision-making 6. Include outsiders 7. Invite the senior problem-owner 8. A special venue 9. An psychological safe environment 10. Never at the office 11. Spend twice as much time on the convergence - as on the divergence process. 12. Apply various idea-generating techniques 13. Keep up the pace 14. Appoint an expert facilitator 15. Make the output concrete Extra Tip: Check the FORTH innovation method for a structured approach.