Delivery Matters

Stories behind workshop plans,
sticky notes and markers.

Author: James Smart - page 5

Remote Problem Solving Webinar & Resources

Online workshops are an evolving field. Many facilitators have had to adapt to designing and leading workshops for remote teams but we still have room to grow and improve. In this recorded webinar, we'll design a remote problem-solving template from the ground up. You'll see first-hand how to design workshops quickly and easily, as well as picking up some valuable tips and tricks for facilitating remote workshops in virtual environments. Alongside the recording, you'll find the workshop template also see a collection of questions and answers from our previous session concerning everything from session design to online tools and remote facilitation. Let's dig in! Watch the webinarSessionLab templateMural board Q&A…

Survey report: online facilitation and virtual meetings

We are in a transition where leaders have canceled all their in-person events (due to coronavirus) and don't yet know what their teams need. Many institutions have frozen spending and so there is a lot of unknown as to what my client landscape will look like as we go forward. 95% of my existing contracts were canceled so there's a lot of transition and adaptation going on.Survey respondent It’s no secret that the current global crisis is affecting the world of facilitation. Organizations are freezing budgets, canceling live meetings, and figuring out how to restructure their businesses for remote working environments.Facilitators are having to adapt too. Transitioning from running live…

Tips for working remotely: what I’ve learned from five years of remote work

Remote working is not only here to stay, it’s growing. A report from Buffer found that 99% of their respondents wanted to work remotely in some capacity for the rest of their future career. Creating remote teams with employees globally distributed can be challenging, but comes with many benefits. As a fully remote company, we at SessionLab are passionate about celebrating what working remotely can bring to both employees and the organizations employing them. I’ve worked fully remotely with several organizations including SessionLab for over five years. I’ve faced many of the challenges of remote working and while it’s been a learning curve, I believe working remotely has changed my…

How to improve your problem solving skills and build effective problem solving strategies

Effective problem solving is all about using the right process and following a plan tailored to the issue at hand. Recognizing your team or organization has an issue isn’t enough to come up with effective problem solving strategies. To truly understand a problem and develop appropriate solutions, you will want to follow a solid process, follow the necessary problem solving steps, and bring all of your problem solving skills to the table. We’ll first guide you through the seven step problem solving process you and your team can use to effectively solve complex business challenges.We’ll also look at what problem solving strategies you can employ with your team when looking…

17 Tools to Improve Office Productivity

Recent statistics show that 85% of the global workforce is actively disengaged at work, causing a global impact of $7 trillion in lost productivity. With this in mind, it’s vital to the success of your organization that you find innovative methods of engaging your workforce to increase productivity. Implementing these productivity tools could have a positive effect on improving employee engagement and achieving your organizational goals. There are thousands of productivity tools to choose from that will help your office excel. It’s essential, however, to select the ones that best fit the needs of your business and employees. 92% of employees agree that when a company optimizes the right tools…

Facilitation skills for team management: 30 managerial skills to learn from facilitators

Team management often requires people to wear multiple hats and occupy many roles at once. A good team manager is a leader, a coach, a trainer, a mentor and much more besides. But what can team managers learn from facilitators and the world of facilitation? Can you be a better manager by learning techniques from expert facilitators? We think so! After a conversation with Myriam Hadnes, founder of Idayz and host at the Workshops Work podcast, we thought about some facilitation concepts and skills that a team manager could use when working with a team. Here, we’ve collected 30 management skills and tips that can be learned by taking the…

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We Facilitate: Plans are useless, but planning is invaluable – an interview with Martin Gilbraith, freelance facilitator

Facilitation can sometimes be a lonely profession. Whether you are a freelancer or part of an in-house team, you will often be one of only a few people practicing facilitation and who truly appreciates the value of facilitation techniques. As Martin Gilbraith, a facilitator with over 30 years of experience noted in our interview: “the vast majority of facilitators work alone or in very small teams and very small practices. Even those that work in big companies are generally the only in-house facilitator or one of a very small team. Mostly, what we do is pretty lonesome.” Learning from other facilitators and experts in the field can not only help…

We Facilitate: 20 facilitation tips to help you be a better facilitator with insight from Martin Gilbraith

Being a great facilitator is all about listening, learning and growing so that you can guide others towards achieving their goals. But how can you get started as a facilitator, and what resources are there to help you improve your facilitation techniques? In a series of interviews, we are speaking to expert facilitators and thinkers about their experience of facilitating, some of what they’ve learned, and the challenges they’ve faced. In this first interview, we spoke to freelance facilitator, trainer and consultant Martin Gilbraith on the subject of facilitation and got to thinking about some of the habits of effective facilitators and some of the insights that stuck out to…

What is an Agile coach and how do I become one?

Have you ever felt lost in a conversation because people were talking about a topic with such confidence and jargon that you were afraid to ask for clarification? This is how many people first encounter Agile coaching and development concepts and it can be a little overwhelming! This post was created as a roadmap for anyone interested in Agile roles or methodology. Here, we’ll answer some common questions - like why you’d need an Agile coach - and to show you how you can apply this knowledge to your role and maybe even become an Agile coach yourself. What is an Agile coach? An Agile coach helps teams and individuals…

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