In this article, we will look at 9 models of instructional design. First we will go through some of the best-known traditional models: ADDIE, Dick and Carey’s model, and SAM. Next, we will add some insights from dynamic training learning models. 

We will continue with 3 instructional design models focussing on how to make sure learner motivation remains high. Raising and keeping motivation high can be a challenge, especially in elearning. For each of the 9 models presented, I’ve selected a key learning that can be transferred from that specific framework into any kind of instructional design work you might be doing.

In closing, we’ll add some important notes on what you to take into consideration when working in multicultural settings, given that there is very little in the models to support this part of a learning designer’s work. 

Why are instructional design models important? 

Think of models of instructional design as scaffolding for your thinking. They offer a starting point, and can be invaluable to make sure nothing important gets lost while working step-by-step on a learning program. 

Anyone designing training courses and other learning experiences, whether face-to-face in the classroom or in the virtual environments of elearning, ought to be familiar with at least a few instructional design models. You are likely to gravitate towards one or the other, depending on your ways of thinking, as well as on what kind of content you are working with. Having a bunch of different options at your fingertips will give you the knowledge and flexibility to design and adapt courses that best serve your learners’ needs. 

One of my first trainers in facilitation and training design once pointed out that we all have a natural tendency to design courses and experiences that fit our way of learning and thinking. This means that the experiences we craft will work very well for people who share our worldview and style, but might leave other people cold. 

Familiarity with instructional design models can ensure that you:

• Have a range of tools to draw from, in order to create courses that fit your learners’ needs, not just your own;
• Design based on time-tested, scientifically sound frameworks upon which to base the different elements of your courses;
• Include all the important elements, decreasing the risk of leaving something important behind in the rush of day-to-day work;
• Know what different elements to add to your course design to make it motivating, engaging, and effective.

Last but not least, if you are working in education you are probably a curious person who might just like to know more about the thinking that grounds most instructional design work today. 

3 Traditional Instructional Design Models

As long as there have been teachers and students, there have been ideas and models of learning, aka, pedagogy. That said, when we talk about instructional design we are generally referring to a series of models and frameworks codified from the 1950s onwards, mainly in the US context. The origin of instructional design models is closely associated with three psychological currents (cognitive, behavioral and, more recently, constructivist psychology) and with systems engineering, especially as applied to military training. 

Instructional design models arose, in other words, when new scientific research into learning met the need for structured training materials that would be effective regardless of who delivered them. In fact, these frameworks were adopted in military and industrial fields before making their way to education institutions such as schools and universities. 

Inevitably, this implies that biases on what learning is, and what learners need, are baked into these classic models. Later in this article, we’ll get back to what that might mean and what learning designers working in multicultural settings might do to adapt these frameworks to contemporary sensibilities. 

In the next few paragraphs, we will take a closer look at three “traditional” or “classic” instructional design models. They contain time-tested concepts that are still relevant today. Let’s start with the most basic, popular and timeless of instructional design models: it’s time to meet Addie! 

ADDIE model

The ADDIE model is one of the earliest models of Instructional Design or, at least, one of the first frameworks to be explicitly codified as such. 

The acronym in ADDIE stands for five steps in the cycle of designing and implementing a training program: Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation. The process starts with looking at needs, both the needs of the organization creating (and commissioning) the training course and the learners’ needs, and ends with an evaluation of lessons learned. 

ADDIE is such a well-known, reliable and practical framework that we’ve dedicated an entire learning guide to its workings. I’ve seen it stated that all other instructional design models descend from ADDIE, so if you need a quick flexible guideline to start designing, look no further. You can even start with a ready-made template based on this most versatile of frameworks.

A key learning from the ADDIE model

Go through the design process methodically step-by-step. Start from collecting needs, and weave evaluation opportunities throughout. 

Dick and Carey’s Instructional Design Model 

Speaking of models that share a lot of their DNA with ADDIE, let’s now look at Dick and Carey’s Systematic Design of Instruction, aka the Dick and Carey model, aka the Carey model (it’s two Careys, by the way: Lou Carey, who together with Walter Dick proposed the original model in 1978, and James Carey, who has been working on later updates of the model—I assume the two researchers are related, but couldn’t find out, so if you know, drop it in the comments please!). 

Dick and Carey worked on this model to illustrate ADDIE in finer detail and help learning designers, particularly newcomers. They include 10 steps in their model and invite users to think of these as a whole system, rather than a list of isolated components. This corresponds well to what is likely to happen in real life, where different steps might take place in parallel rather than in a neat, orderly progression. 

The 10 steps of Dick and Carey’s Systematic Design of Instruction model are:

• Identify Instructional Goal(s): A goal statement describes a skill, knowledge or attitude that a learner will be expected to acquire

• Conduct instructional analysis: identify what a learner must know and/or be able to do;
• Analyze learners and contexts: collect and analyze information about the target audience, including prior skills, prior experience, and basic demographics; 
• Write performance objectives. Objectives should, of course, be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound);
• Develop assessment instruments: how will you test learners’ knowledge before, during, and after the course? 
• Develop an instructional strategy: what will activities and content be? 
• Develop and select instructional materials, in collaboration with your content providers and subject matter experts.
• Design and conduct a formative evaluation of instruction: what parts of the design and/or content could benefit from some improvements?
• Revise instruction: improve and iterate
• Design and conduct summative evaluation. Close this project and start a new one! 

A key learning from Dick and Carey’s model

Different steps of your design work are likely to take place in parallel rather than in a neat, orderly progression.

Rapid prototyping with the SAM model 

Instructional design model creators have a soft spot for acronyms. Especially acronyms that sound like they could be people. After ADDIE, it’s time to make the acquaintance of SAM, the Successive Approximation Model.  

Perceptive readers might already have noticed a limitation of the two classic models presented so far: it may take a long time to prepare courses following all the prescribed steps. Changing them based on feedback and evaluation could therefore be harder than it sounds, as most important decisions and choices might already be locked in. To include more opportunities for iterative design in your projects, you might want to look at the SAM model. 

SAM is a simplified version of ADDIE developed by Michael Allen to highlight the possibilities that come with making design work recursive. Because of its iterative nature, SAM works best for short courses and interventions or, in any case, situations in which your course will likely run over and over again many times through the years. 

SAM stands for Successive Approximation Model. It is divided into three phases: Preparation, Iterative Design, and Iterative Development. After gathering information in the first phase, the instructional designer using the SAM model will prepare a quick prototype of the course (a part of a module, for example) and submit it for a round of feedback from representatives of all interested parties (students, content providers, and so on).

Team collaboration is emphasized as an important part of the learning design process. For a deeper dive into the SAM model you can check out this YouTube video.

A key learning from the SAM model

Instructional design can benefit from checking in with stakeholders before the final product is ready, to collect feedback and integrate it early, when it’s easy and safe.

3 Learning Models for Dynamic Training Experiences

These classic models of instructional design are invaluable supports to work out the overall flow of learning design work. They clarify all the necessary steps, and will help you be more aware of the workflow involved in creating successful learning courses.

Once you begin storyboarding the details of each individual learning module, working side-by-side with content providers, you might want to turn to some more detailed learning models to help you structure the finer details. 

The idea behind many training models is that different people learn in different ways, and it’s the training designer’s job to accommodate this by mixing and matching activities of various sorts. Sometimes the focus is on the senses (visual learners vs kinesthetic learners, for example) others on the way information is absorbed (by discussing, applying, and so on). 

In this article on Train the Trainers courses, you can find an overview of learning styles and some discussions on whether such categorizations are even valid. I find them a beneficial way to remind myself to provide multiple ways to engage with any topic and offer learners different pathways and choices to take. 

In this section, we will look at three frameworks trainers refer to, that can help you make learning courses engaging for different types of learners. For each, you will also find a ready-made template you can use to see what such dynamic training experiences look like in practice. Using SessionLab’s planner, you can drag and drop sections of these templates to customize them based on your design needs. 

4MAT

4MAT, as codified by author Bernice McCarthy, is a simple 4-step model of how to present and teach new information in a way that caters to different learning styles. Each step features a question, a learning style, and a type of activity. 

The first step is about engagement. The key question is why. Why are we learning this? Why is it useful for me? The key here is to find an interesting situation, something that intrigues the trainees, motivating them to stay in the classroom and pay attention for the rest of the time.

The most common type of activity for this step is storytelling. In learning, this might mean starting the course with a video, in which the course instructors provide inspiration to begin with.

The second part of the model focuses on delivering information. Most of your course materials will be at the level of step two. The key question is what. What is the information provided, what should I learn to develop the new skill required? Instructional content for this stage can take many forms including all traditional forms of transmitting knowledge, such as lectures, reading materials, and so on.

Next comes a section dedicated to practice. The key question is how, and this step is about providing opportunities to move from the cognitive to the practical, through examples, case studies, role play and other safe ways to put the theory to use.

The final part of the model deals with performance. How will your learners bring their knowledge into real-world problems? The key question here is What if. What if we did things differently now? What actions will learners take that would have been different before the course? Learning journals and reflection questions are a great way of applying this step in learning.  

If you are using SessionLab’s planner for your design, you can even color-code sections for what type of question (Why? What? How? What if?) that particular activity or module helps learners answer.

A key learning from the 4MAT model

Using questions (Why? What? How? What it?) to make order among key sections of your project will bring clarity to a design and help content providers stay on track. 

4C

You may have heard of the classic text Training from the Back of the Room, by Sharon Bowman. It’s a great resource, particularly if you are looking to create courses that are centered around the learners themselves, and designed for empowerment. 

The book contains another 4-step process based on learning types. The idea here is to start with Connection (making connections with prior learning, with peers and instructors), then move on to Content, Concrete Practice, and Conclusions. The conclusions are centered around action planning.

Essentially, the ideas are quite similar to the 4MAT model, but I find this model easier to apply to online course design. Connection can be established by asking reflective questions to participants, as well as introducing instructors and, if applicable, groups of peers.

Concrete Practice can be achieved through quizzes, assignments and case studies, while Conclusions is likely to take the form of a learning journal or, if your course is blended, a final workshop focussing on action planning. 

A key learning from the 4C model

People will benefit more, or less, from different parts of the course, depending on their learning style. Try to include something for everyone.

Kolb’s learning cycle

This 4-step model, based on work by American educational theorist David Kolb in the 1980s, is my go-to way to design training and education experiences. It reminds me to make time for conveying concepts and frameworks as well as to start with an attention-grabbing practical activity.

Step 1 in Kolb’s learning cycle is about creating a Concrete Experience to base learning on. Engage learners from the start with a simulation, a roleplay, and exercises that bring your topic to life. 

The second step is about Reflective Observation. This is a moment to ask questions of learners. What did they notice during the previous activities? Did they glean any insights? In this type of training program, new knowledge is drawn out directly from participants’ observations. 

The third part of the cycle is the one that looks most like “conventional” teaching. Called Abstract Conceptualization, it implies teaching and discussing models or frameworks that students can connect their previous insights to. This is a cognitive learning step where new information is acquired. 

Lastly, we come to Active Experimentation, where new knowledge is applied, actually or in a simulation or role play, to real world problems and scenarios. 

If you are preparing a learning course, Kolb’s cycle can help you ideate activities that come before and after the main teaching modules, in an order designed to facilitate learning.

What does this look like in practice? Check out a ready-made template for a training session designed based on this learning model, and adapt it to your needs.

A key learning from Kolb’s learning cycle

Start with a game or role play connected to your content: new concepts are easier to integrate if learners have lived through an experience that leads to insights in that direction. 

What Instructional Designers can learn from Dynamic Training

Dynamic training models emerged from reflections related to face-to-face education and can be hard to translate to online learning. Moreover, they are often applied in nonformal education settings, and might not be exactly the right fit for academic or corporate training.

Nevertheless, it is my firm belief that all instructional designers can benefit from learning about dynamic training models.

Kolb’s learning cycle might, for example, inspire you to sprinkle real-world challenges in a training course. 4MAT is an excellent reminder to always add the Why. If you fear that your course structure might be too repetitive and would love to add some more stimulation and ensure quality instruction, dynamic training is a great place for inspiration. 

3 Instructional Design Models to Raise Motivation in eLearning 

As online courses gain more and more popularity, particularly with adult and life-long learning, the issue of how to sustain motivation is becoming central to the discourse. Because there are so many learning opportunities available, and so many distractions competing for attention in our social-media-infused world, it’s easy for learners to deviate from the carefully designed path you’ve laid out for them.

Blended learning designs, which we’ve discussed in this blog article, are part of the solution to the challenge of keeping learners motivated and engaged. Small group learning can help the learning process by keeping participants accountable. Engaging visuals, the use of multimedia (videos, quizzes, visually compelling handouts) as well as facilitation techniques in online and face-to-face workshops are all excellent practical ways to support motivation.

But what about learning design models? Below are 3 instructional design models you can learn from for design that specifically supports motivation.  

ARCS model

The ARCS model of Motivational Design was developed by John Keller, an American educational psychologist, to systematize research on motivation and turn it into an instructional model. Much of this work is founded on previous research on the principles that support learning, especially Robert Gagné’s 9 principles or conditions of learning. Read through our guide to his work for more information and practical ideas on how to apply these theories to the practicalities of course design. 

The ARCS acronym stands for Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction. According to this model, those four are the main areas we should take care of on the path to supporting student motivation. 

The model starts with Attention, arguing that some element of emotional engagement, most notably surprise, is needed to engage participants at the start of a learning experience.

The first thing that came to my mind when I read this was the “wow effect” often felt in a training room if care has been put into arranging it in some way that is different from the usual. Sometimes this is as simple as putting chairs in a circle (To learn more about how room setup can influence learning, you can take a look at this article on room setup.) As for grabbing attention in elearning contexts, which admittedly can be harder, this might mean starting with a video, a story, a “hook” to involve learners from the start. 

[…] people are motivated to engage in an activity if it is perceived to be linked to the satisfaction of personal needs (the value aspect) and if there is a positive expectancy for success (the expectancy aspect).

John Keller, 1987

The second part of the model focuses on Relevance. This is about ensuring that the concepts presented are closely connected to learners’ needs and experiences. Relevance is obtained by anchoring new skills into existing knowledge, and understanding how they will be applied.

One practical way to establish relevance, which I commonly use in my training courses, is to ask students, at the beginning of the first day, to discuss what they already know about the topic, and what they would like to learn. 

The C in ARCS stands for Confidence. This is about providing measurable, achievable goals, a way to measure progress, and growing levels of challenge. An important part of motivation, according to Keller, is the establishment of a positive expectation that success is possible and at hand. 

Last but not least comes Satisfaction. Satisfaction comes from a sense of achievement and is enabled by creating feedback channels where instructors can provide learners with support, encouragement, and pointers for improvement. 

The importance of confidence and satisfaction in keeping motivation high has helped me understand, among other things. why some students of mine rebelled against experiments I’ve attempted with giving no grades nor evaluation at all. While it can be good to avoid putting too much pressure on results, knowledge that hard work will be rewarded by an external authority can be very motivating! 

Reflecting on the ARCS model and looking at how to incorporate it into your designs can help instructional designers craft courses that keep learners engaged and balance internal and external motivation throughout. Discovering the ARCS model has helped me to understand better why some of the methods and tools I applied to raise engagement were working, and a quick framework of reference to check for new ideas or to confirm I’d cover all important aspects of raising and sustaining motivation. 

A key learning from the ARCS model

Design for motivation by including activities and tools to work on Attention, Relevance, Confidence and Satisfaction throughout the course. 

Backward Design 

I was delighted when I discovered the existence of backward design as an instructional design model. I was also quite intrigued when I learned of the criticism it has inspired. 

Let’s start with what made me happy. Backward Design is a model that stresses designing with the end in mind. The first thing you should do, it argues, is define your learning objectives, then work your way backwards from there. 

Backward design is where we get the invaluable sentence structure “By the end of this course, students will be able to….” 

This resonated with me for two reasons. First of all, as a process facilitator I am constantly urging my clients to define their end goals and objectives. “Until I know the objectives” I have been known to say “I cannot design a session for you”.

The second reason that made me glad Backward Design is out there is how much it resembles a facilitation method I use a lot, called Backcasting. I’ve used backcasting mostly with community groups to define their long-term goals and work back from those to “what are we going to do tomorrow”. It’s a brilliant way to include wide-angle visions and practical next steps in the same flow. 

As I read more about Backward Design, though, I realized that it’s one thing to co-design the future or a session in facilitation, it’s quite another to work backwards as a learning designer or learning design team, without all those other voices in the room.

Backward Design has been criticized for leading to courses that can be quite rigid in their progression (aka “teaching to the test”). There are many learning pathways, and applying backward design rigidly can lead to forgetting about the need for flexibility. Despite the criticism though, there is a lot of value to the Backward Design approach.  

In terms of supporting motivation, having a clear end goal that can be explained in two sentences is a great way to motivate participants. In adult education, it’s essential to specify how the course will help participants in their real-world challenges. Backward Design encourages instructional designers to ensure every piece of the course is fit for purpose. 

A key learning from Backward Design

Instead of starting with the content, start with the learning objectives and figure out, step by step, how learners will get there. 

The Kemp Instructional Design model

My introduction to instructional design came in the context of co-designing summer schools on entrepreneurship, targeting Masters’ students in European Universities. The courses’ pedagogy was 100% centered on the learners and we included a lot of peer education and personal empowerment.

This makes perfect sense for a course that aimed to empower young people on the path of entrepreneurship. That pedagogy was probably also inspired by the work of Morrison, Ross and Kemp in defining what is generally known as the Kemp Instructional Design model. 

You can envision the Kemp design model as a solar system where everything revolves around the learners. While the actual steps of the instructional design process are akin to ADDIE, if a little bit more detailed, the change is in the perspective taken. 

The Kemp model encourages designers to see everything from the learners’ point of view so that their needs, priorities, and constraints are what the course is designed around. This chapter from the Pennsylvania State University’s instructional design handbook gives a good overview of how the Kemp model works. 

A key learning from the Kemp model

Design a learning environment and instructional materials based on what you know about learners’ needs, priorities and constraints. 

Instructional design models and cultural competency

This last note from Kemp’s model is a good introduction to discussing the relevance of all the models we’ve looked into so far to multicultural groups and in a multicultural environment. Every model since the A in ADDIE, stresses the importance of collecting information on your perspective learners and using this to inform how you structure your course.

At the same time, not very much is included in these models with respect to cultural competency. The models hail mostly from US research, and the traditional or classic ones refer mainly to research made in the 1970s, specifically for the education and training needs of the US military. What does this imply in terms of using these models as lenses through which to view all education? 

There are certain biases baked into the models. Learning, for example, is demonstrated by tests and quizzes that imply that the “right” kind of learning has to do with repetition and the acquisition of facts and data. There is also no specific instruction given in traditional models around diversity and inclusion.

Many learning designers have learned to adapt courses to different cultural environments, mainly by developing instructional materials, stories, and images that their learners can see themselves in. This is a great practice, but it is true that it does not require major changes to the structure of the courses themselves. 

What would courses look like if they were designed with multicultural learning at their heart? Authors Charlotte Gunawardena, Casey Frechette and Ludmila Layne have compiled a Culturally Inclusive Instructional Design guide that contains a 10-step list of recommendations for inclusive e-learning design. First of all, the authors invite learning designers to consider their own biases and preferences. What core beliefs drive your design decisions? What do you think is “normal” or “best”? From here, the authors provide more recommendations, such as:

• Acknowledging that bias cannot be eliminated from designs, but that space can be made for alternative experiences, preferences and perspectives;
• Inviting to create space for learners to co-create the course, giving them choices of different learning pathways, and providing options in terms of timelines and milestones;
• Allow for different kinds of learners to shine, without trying to rank them or resolve tensions between apparently disparate or even opposite conclusions. A complex world requires that we learn how to hold different ideas in our heads, all at once.

The authors also recommend learning about, and using, a variety of different instructional design approaches, without getting overly attached to a single or “best” way of teaching, learning and designing. Instructors and designers should know that all of these processes and tools have value, in different contexts and for different materials.

What next? 

Hopefully you now feel better equipped to tackle your next learning design challenge. There are yet many more instructional design approaches and principles to learn. 

If you want to learn more about the principles behind learning theory, you might find this article on Instructional design principles interesting.

If you feel ready to practice and dive into creating a new course structure, you might want to take a look at a design template based on ADDIE, that you can customize based on your needs.   

Let us know in the comments or in our friendly community of facilitators and trainers how your learning design is informed by these, and other, models. 

Whether you’re creating elearning courses, training sessions or working in blended environments, this guide will help you understand how to deploy these instructional strategies and engage your learners. We’ll explore each principle in turn and provide practical examples and advice for applying them in your instructional design process.

Good instructional design is an art and a science.

Even if you’re new to learning design, chances are you’ll already be practicing some of the learning principles I’ll outline below. In my own practice, I learned from mentors and teachers I admired and through trial and error long before I came across learning theory.

Creativity and experience got me so far, but then I realized that a deeper understanding of how people learn would help me improve the courses and workshops I designed. Instructional design theories and learning frameworks provide a solid foundation that you can build upon with your signature style.

In this guide, we’ll explore Robert Gagne’s 9 principles of instructional design and how to apply them.

By better understanding these principles and how to practically action them as an instructional designer, you can create more engaging learning experiences that will help participants retain and better utilize what they learn after the course is complete. 

What are Gagne’s instructional design principles and why are they important? 

Robert M. Gagne was an American psychologist whose worked centred on educational psychology. He is best known for his 1965 book The Conditions of Learning. There, he demonstrated a nine-step process for creating effective learning called the events of instruction.

The 9 instructional design principles (also known as Gagne’s nine events of instruction) as outlined by Gagne are:

1. Gain the attention of your learners
2. State the objectives 
3. Stimulate recall of prior learning
4. Present the learning content 
5. Provide learning guidance
6. Elicit performance from learners
7. Provide feedback
8. Assess learner performance 
9. Enhance retention and transfer

You’ll find a detailed explanation of each of Gagne’s instructional design principles below alongside practical tips for implementing them in your eLearning course, classroom or live training session. 

Instructional design principles are important because they provide a proven framework for designing an effective learning experience. They successfully incorporate the key concepts and psychological principles at the heart of learning into a practical, easy to follow process.

In my experience, these principles help concretize all the learning theory out there and make it easy for me to ensure the course I’m designing will engage students and achieve the desired learning outcomes. They provide a systematic process that is easy for any instructional designer to follow, repeat and internalize.

While most of these principles will occur in your course roughly in the order presented above, it’s worth noting that these events can overlap and you’ll revisit them at various points in your learning flow. 

For example, it’s common that an eLearning course will present the content of one training block alongside an interactive game that gives learners an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and for instructors to gauge their progress.

Afterwards, you might then go into another learning block that repeats this process, perhaps even restating objectives at certain points and asking learners to remember previous learning when pertinent. 

In most effective courses, many of these instructional principles are repeated throughout and learners will have multiple opportunities to receive feedback, interact with experiential content and practice their skills.

Try thinking of the list as both a rough skeleton of the points you will want to hit in your learning flow as well as practice advice for improving individual sections of your course or training programs. 

When designing an eLearning course outline or instructional design storyboard, it’s helpful to detail how each training block aligns with your learning objectives.

In SessionLab, instructional designers can add colour-coding to training blocks to delineate the learning objective, activity type or even which stage of the learning process it touches upon. This can help ensure you have a balanced learning flow that will be engaging for your learners. 

As Gagne writes, “organisation is the hallmark of effective instructional materials.”

Start by creating a simple course outline that meets your learner needs. Turn that outline into a storyboard by adding detailed text, timing and clear instructions. Attach learning materials, images, links and other multimedia to each training block so that your content team can easily find what they need.   

By combining the following instructional design principles for course creation with SessionLab, you can quickly structure your online course and ensure nothing is missed. 

1) Gain attention

Effective learning can only begin once learners’ attention is in the room or on the course provided. Gagne’s first event of instruction is all about getting the attention of your learners, sparking their curiosity and drawing them into the session. 

In a live setting, gaining attention often means actually starting the session, asking for people to settle into the room and leave what’s outside of the session for later. While this can be as simple as raising your voice and saying, let’s begin, it can be especially effective to engage learners’ curiosity and help them be present in the moment with a game or activity.

For a learning program or online course delivered via an LMS or course platform, getting the attention of your learners also needs to consider a combination of good design and simple, but engaging content.

How to gain attention in instructor-led training

• Call the room to action by using your voice and presence. Often, this looks like standing up at the front of the room, raising the volume of your voice and calling the group to attention. In traditional learning environments, lots of learners expect some kind of formal signal to begin so don’t be afraid to lean into this.
• Use an icebreaker game to help people mentally arrive in the room. Bonus points if it relates to the topic of the day and starts getting people engaging and learning with one another.
• Don’t forget the body! A simple invitation to take a few deep breaths, stretch or do an energizer can help people give their attention to what’s happening in the room, rather than what’s happening on their phone or after the session.  
• Use music or other audio tool to signal the start of the session. One facilitator friend swears by the use of a Tibetan gong!
• Create engaging visuals. Have a thought-provoking cover slide on your visual presentation or have posters or images relating to your topic around the room. 
• Place question cards, quotes or image cards on tables and chairs ready for when people come in. Pique their interest or invite them to start thinking about the session and their own understanding of the topic at hand while everyone arrives.

How to gain attention in eLearning courses

• Share a short, engaging intro video. Video content that features the instructor behind the training can be very effective, adding a human touch to forthcoming material while also introducing the key points of the course.
• Share a story relevant to the topic at hand. Good stories are highly engaging for us as people, whatever the medium. A real world example that engages with the topic of your course is also a great shout – if it’s personal, even better! 
• Have an interactive moment early on, preferably including some element of user choice. Picking an avatar, a favourite colour or simply answering a question in the first moments of the course can help get the attention of learners in this environment. Bonus points if it’s persistent! 
• Use compelling visuals. As above, attractive, thought provoking visual material can be a great way to get attention immediately. Good design can go a long way here!  
• Make a big claim or bold statement to grab learner attention and encouraging critical thinking. Something a learner strongly agrees (or disagrees!) which can be a compelling hook to move forward. On other occasions, using evocative language and restating the ideal goal state or benefit of the course can be a great way to gain learner attention. Let them know what real world problems they’ll solve after taking your course!

2) State objectives

In adult learning, it’s been shown that people learn better when they know why they’re doing a particular activity and what the goals or desired outcomes of a training program are. Gagne’s second event of instruction is all about outlining the goals and objectives of the training they’re about undertake.

Stating course objectives can help learners engage with each step of the learning flow, understanding what the overall goal is and how each step can help them reach that goal. 

This stage is often about building trust too – giving your learners an overview of what they’re going to learn and some sense of how you’re going to help them learn it. Whatever your learning format and audience, try to use language that speaks to them and relates to their personal goals, as well as those of the wider training program.

How to state objectives in instructor-led training 

• Let your learners know the objectives of the training session early in the process. Practically, this looks like having a slide in your presentation to present the objectives or a handout which includes learning objectives close to the top. For some sessions, you might even state the objectives of the training in the invitation email or in a shareable agenda so participants can come to the session fully prepared. 
• Try making objectives personal and aspirational. Statements such as “by the end of this training you will be able to:” can help the goals of a session more concrete. Aspirational statements that invite participants to consider their personal goals can also be effective ways to motivate learners.
• In live environments, it can also be effective to ask learners and trainees what their own objectives are at the beginning of a training session. This can help ensure alignment, create a participatory environment and also create the potential to cover peripheral topics (if able) that learners will respond to. 
• Having learners share those desired learning outcomes with the rest of the group can also be an effective way to cover the objectives of the course and also begin the active learning process. Ask participants to share their own goals with the group and then add any core learning outcomes they’ve missed at the end.

How to state objectives in eLearning courses

• A simple bullet point list or slide that tells learners exactly what they’ll learn on the course is a tried and tested method for stating objectives. This might also come in the form of a course outline where objectives are linked to the main sections of your course. 
• Outlining before and after states is also an effective way to sell the self-paced course they’re on and carry them through the first screens and into the training proper. What will it look like after the course has been completed? How will the learnings benefit their day-to-day work?
• A short video where the instructor introduces learning objectives works well. The human touch can help demystify tricky objectives or help demonstrate an ideal future state. For example, if you were running a course on improving facilitation skills, a video where an expert facilitator tells trainees how achieving learning objectives has improved their personal practice can do wonders to get participant buy-in. 
• I’ve found that including an activity that asks participants to write down their personal objectives is a great way to start people on their learning journey. If you’ve gotten the right people on the course at the right time, most personal objectives will overlap with those of the course, but it’s an effective exercise to get participants thinking about what they most want to get out of the material ahead. 

3) Stimulate recall of prior learning

In Cagne’s principles of instructional design, the recall of previous learning is an integral part of the learning process. By creating connections between new material and their existing knowledge and experiences, it’s easier for learners to retain what they learn. 

In many cases, the recollection of previous material is also a great tool to allow a trainer to assess participants’ existing knowledge or skill level. You can use this to tailor the learning experience and to measure the impact of your course – for example, running a short quiz at the beginning and end of the training and seeing how the results change.

Remember that previous learning doesn’t just mean “what previous courses or training have you taken on this subject?”

If the subject of your training is conflict resolution, it might be more effective to ask participants about recent conflicts and how they resolved them. Personal experience and parallels to real life situations can be very effective at stimulating the recall of prior knowledge. 

How to stimulate recall in instructor-led training

• Group discussions where participants are encouraged to share their experiences around a core training topic is a highly effective method of stimulating recall. In my experience, 1-2-4 All provides the best structure of this kind of discussion. It allows trainees to have some personal time thinking about the subject before a pair and small group discussion. It also ensures that one person doesn’t dominate a whole group discussion and that multiple viewpoints are shared. 
• Experiential activities can also be a great way to stimulate recall. For example, a simple problem solving game might require participants to use skills they’ve learned in order to be successful. In my experience, using an energizer game as an opportunity for people to use problem solving skills related to the topic at hand can also help.
• One simple way to stimulate recall is to simply ask all participants to summarize their knowledge on a chosen topic and present those summaries to the group. 

How to stimulate recall in eLearning courses

• Quizzes and other interactive content are highly effective in a self-paced format. A short quiz can help you engage learners early on, providing variation in your course content while also allowing you to gauge their level of knowledge.  
• Asking learners to recall prior knowledge and summarize can work in a self-paced format, though without peer feedback, it might not suit every training topic or learning format. That said, even as a self-reflection activity it can be effective. You can even begin the process of multimedia learning by asking participants to create a slide-deck or image to summarize their existing knowledge.  
• Referencing previous learning content or well known material in your course material can help gently nudge learner recall. If you know your trainees have engaged in a previous course or will likely have read a well known book on the topic, organically referencing these in your course is a good idea.
• Sending preparatory reading material to your trainees in your invitation or prep materials can give participants an opportunity to prepare and also give you something to refer back to later. Be aware that not every trainee will do this reading, but don’t be afraid to refer back to it to help stimulate recall either. 
• A single great question can also pave the way for this kind of recall. Ask a question that invites participants to reflect (and take time to do so!) on a given topic or an inspiring subject can be all it takes to promote this learning principle. 

4) Present the content

So this is the big one – actually presenting your learning content to your trainees. In most training sessions, this is where the bulk of time is spent. Here, you’ll organize your learning content into a methodical, engaging learning flow that will help learners understand and engage with the learning material. 

In live training, presenting content can often look like a trainer running through a slide deck, asking questions from the group, encouraging reflection and perhaps including an experiential game to demonstrate some of the content in action. 

In eLearning environments, content will likely live in an LMS or learning platform, and be a sequence of interactive slides, games and other material. Using the key principles of multimedia learning and varying your content style is a great place to begin, though you’ll want to go further in order to produce a truly effective instructional design.

In any format, there are some solid best practices for ensuring your learning content is presented in an engaging fashion that will help learners move efficiently to the next stage. 

How to present content in instructor-led training

• Try presenting your content in different ways to engage different learning styles. Standing at the front of the room and simply talking to your trainees without any variation or interactivity can quickly grow stale and lower engagement with your content. Use slides, videos, audio, handouts and images in your visual presentations to cater to different learning styles. You might also encourage active participation in the form of a training activity that involves your participants in presenting content.
• Simplicity and legibility is important. Your content should follow a structured learning flow that makes it easy for learners to follow, understand and synthesize. Be sure to contextualize anything you present and that it’s suitable for the level of understanding your learners have.
  Using SessionLab to design your content flow and storyboards is one effective way of ensuring your content is well structured and follows a logical sequence.
• Summarizing content and describing key points to learners either at the beginning or end of a training block can be helpful at switching your participants into the right mode for learning while also reinforcing the key takeaways. 
• Relating your material to real world contexts can provide learners with a way to relate this new knowledge to their own experience. Try using multiple examples or even ask for examples from your group.
• Encouraging note-taking is another effective method of helping participants engage with the content you’re presenting. In some training activities, you might ask learners to share notes with each other between learning blocks or to summarize the content you just presented using their own notes. 

How to present content in eLearning courses

• Presenting content in different forms is especially important for keeping learners attention in self-paced eLearning. Using a blend of text, video, audio, infographics, slides and other media are all useful at creating engagement.
• Interactivity can be an effective way of presenting your content in a more memorable and experiential manner. Simple learning games developed with the help of subject matter experts can make all the difference when it comes to helping learners actively engage with your content.  
• Ensure that any additional media or interactivity you add is relevant to the topic and learning goals. Making things visually appealing is a bonus, but adding heaps of images that aren’t relevant to your central content can distract the learner. As with everything in instructional design, balance is key. 
• Segment your content into digestible chunks and add simple, measurable goals to each section. This can help keep your learners on track and ensure they don’t lose sight of why they’re being given a particular piece of content. 

5) Provide learning guidance

Gagne’s fifth event of instruction is where the instructor or trainer provides learning guidance. This guidance can come in many forms, though it should always have the aim of helping learners better understand the material provided and helping them learn how to learn. 

In my experience, learning guidance comes in two main forms: 

1. Learning guidance that is baked into the content
2. Learning guidance offered alongside main content by the instructor or course

Making learning guidance present on a content level is often a design decision. For example, instructional designers will often start with simple material before increasing in complexity in order to facilitate learning.

They may distribute handouts which help guide a learner towards answering questions on the training content or include step by step instructions that facilitate deeper comprehension. They might also include practical examples of what is being learned in the form of a case study or training activity. 

Learning guidance offered alongside the main content is often about helping learners improve their own ability to learn.

Instructional designers might include a PDF on best practices for studying, taking breaks and keeping learning alive. In cohort based learning, that guidance might also look like providing office hours or online chat groups where participants can help one another learn too.

How to provide learning guidance in instructor-led training

• Develop step-by-step lessons that start with simple, easy to understand concepts before moving towards more complex material. This allows learners to build on existing knowledge and develop their understanding as they go.
• Break your content into small chunks and create opportunities for the group to ask simple qualifying questions at regular intervals. You might also solicit relevant experiences from the group or step to one side and talk about how to best internalize the content effectively.
• Using an instructional design model such as the ADDIE model to thoroughly understand your learners needs can really help you choose the right method of learning guidance. Ensure you’ve investigated what will wok best for your learners in order to produce the most effective instruction.
• Talking through a question and how you might arrive at an answer for the group can be really effective at demonstrating a learning mindset. You might do this yourself or by doing a pop-quiz and asking the correct respondent to talk more about the process they went through when finding the answer.
• Practical examples are a great tool for providing learning guidance. You might include a real world example or case study in your content that shows how someone might deploy the knowledge being learned in your training. You might also use a training activity involving role play that gives participants an opportunity to practice in a safe environment where you as a trainer can also provide guidance. 

How to provide learning guidance in eLearning courses

• Most content authoring tools offer features like image hotspots or buttons that allow users to explore a subject in more detail. Add links to additional material where you can. Include tooltips on key terms and learning points so that those learners who may need extra help can find it without leaving your course and come out of their learning flow. 
• Add a section with advice on how to get the most out of the course. Set expectations for how long learners should spend on each section, how much extra reading they should do and how they should approach the material. Even something as simple as a reminder to silence phones and give learning material their full attention can help here!
• Peer-support and activities can be effective, even in a self-paced environment. With cohort based learning, give opportunities for learners to discuss material or complete a group task to support your self-paced material. Blended courses are a great way to make this dance between self-directed learning and group discussion a reality – see more in this blended course template! 

6) Elicit performance

Gagné’s sixth event of instruction is eliciting performance. This is typically where learners are able to practice new skills, demonstrate what they’ve learned and begin retaining information. Practical exercises, role playing simulations and quizzes are all common methods trainers and instructional designers will use in order to elicit performance from learners. 

By tapping into experiential learning methods, this stage of the learning process can help learners retain information and file it in their long term memory. 

This is arguably the most important step of the learning process. Whatever the topic or format of your training, you’ll want to ensure you give ample opportunity for participants to practice their skills and demonstrate their knowledge within your course – simply providing lots of informational content isn’t enough, however great that content might be. 

Eliciting performance is also an important step for the instructor. If learners are having continually difficulty with a particular concept, the instructor may want to revisit that topic in greater detail. In a self-paced format, the input you get from participants at this stage can also be used for improving your learning experiences. 

How to elicit performance in instructor-led training

• Role-playing games and training activities where learners must deploy their new skills are great ways to elicit learner performance. In some scenarios such as soft skills training, participants are able to use what they’ve learned in a real-life situation immediately while in others, you may need to offer a simulation – such as for workers operating specialized machinery which may not be available on site. Wherever possible, consider how you can create opportunities to directly employ what’s being learned in a “as true to life” manner as possible. 
• Simple quizzes and Q&A sessions can also be an effective way to give participants a chance to show what they’ve learned. It’s often useful to go beyond repetition and ask learners how they arrived at an answer or how they might use their answer in the real world. 
• Giving participants an opportunity to present what they’ve learned and demonstrate their understanding is another common method of eliciting performance. Put folks into groups and ask them to discuss what they’ve learned, how they might apply it and then presenting those ideas to the rest of the cohort. This is an effective way of encouraging people to not only repeat what they heard, but to start putting those learnings into practice. 
• In a live session, it’s important to consider how a balanced agenda can pave the way for effective practice. Add breaks to your SessionLab agenda and use the automatic timing calculations to ensure participants haven’t been digesting content for 3 hours straight before then being asked to demonstrate new knowledge!

How to elicit performance in eLearning courses

• Interactive activities are the name of the game for this stage of the learning process. Use quizzes and games where participants need to demonstrate their knowledge in order to proceed. You can gate progress or create fail states so that participants can only go to the next step when they provide correct answers and demonstrate their understanding. 
• Simulations are even better if they’re relevant to your learning objectives. For example, if you’re delivering a sales training course, you might simulate a few customer calls and ask respondents to select the best responses.
• If you’re running cohort based training or a blended learning course, get participants to do an activity together or in a facilitated group activity. This provides a great opportunity to practice new skills with the guidance and feedback of peers and an instructor. 
• In some scenarios, using open-ended questions and giving participants an opportunity to respond creatively to a problem and use their new skills can be effective. This approach requires peer or instructor feedback to be effective, and so is best used in a blended format, or at the end of a larger unit of self-paced training. 
• It can also be effective to give participants some homework or ask them to practice what they’ve learned in a real-life environment between training content. Give participants a clear call to action on what to do next with some practical ideas for how to use what they’ve learned. Even with entirely self-directed learning, it’s possible to give direction for employing new skills between training content and then ask participants to reflect on what they did when they come back for the next block.
• Allow participants to retake or repeat key sections, particularly if they’ve not satisfied performance expectations. You might link back to sections contextually or simply provide an index or course overview so learners can go back over what they need to whenever necessary. 

7) Provide feedback

Gagné’s seventh event of instruction is providing feedback. This is where the instructor provides direct feedback on learner progress and how they’re performing in comparison to the desired learning goal. This kind of feedback is most often given in direct response to learner input, such as when they are answering questions about a new learning, conducting a practical exercise or practicing new skills. 

In a training context, feedback is most effective when given immediately following learner action. It should also provide enough detail for the learner to understand what went well or what needs improvement. The idea is not to just tell the learner why they were wrong but also to help them make adjustments and move towards the desired learning goal.

The best kind of feedback to give your learners is often dependent on context, where they are in the learning journey and the relative importance of a given point. Here are some of the different kinds of feedback you might provide to your learners:

• Confirmation feedback: this kind of feedback lets the learner know they did the right thing or gave the right answer. This typically includes a positive affirmation that futher encourages the learner.
• Corrective feedback: the type of feedback tells learners that they did the wrong thing or an incorrect answer was given and explain why. Remedial feedback will typically direct learners to where they can find the right answer or prompt them to try again. 
• Evaluative feedback: this feedback method gives the learner a sense of how they performed, often in the form of a score. You might also include a description of what that score means, often in line with an assessment criteria document. This kind of feedback is often short and to the point, with learners expected to take some ownership of next steps based on the score they received. 
• Descriptive feedback: descriptive feedback can be used in both correct and incorrect scenarios, giving participants a deeper level of feedback that often includes suggestions, additional information and next steps that will help learners improve their performance and progress on the learning journey. 
• Peer feedback: peer feedback is an opportunity for learners to reflect on the performance of others and provide input to one another. This is especially useful during group activities or as a point of contact in a blended learning environment.
• Self evaluation/self feedback: this kind of feedback method involves prompting the learner to self reflect on their progress or performance. Self reflection is a great habit to encourage at various points in the learning process.

How to provide feedback in instructor-led training

• In a live environment, feedback is often given immediately following learner input or during a practical exercise. The faster you’re able to help learners correct their actions, the easier it is for them to make changes and incorporate the desired learning. 
• Create space for learners to ask follow-up questions. The best learning experiences are rarely one way and giving participants a deeper understanding of what to improve, change or why their answer was correct can help deepen the process.
• In many cases, it’s vital for learners to understand why they were wrong, as well as being given the correct answer. Contextualize your feedback and where necessary, detail the process of finding the right answer. This can help ensure participants develop the skills they need, rather than just parroting the correct answer in a training context.  
• When learners are practicing their skills or conducting role-play exercises, ensure there’s an opportunity to course correct and practice the ideal behaviour. This can help switch context from a potentially negative to positive relationship with the training material and help reinforce the desired outcome. 
• Positive affirmation that helps reinforce ideal behaviour is as important as correcting undesired responses. Tell people when they’ve done well and explain why their response was ideal. In a group setting, it can also be helpful to share what a great response or effective application looks like.     

How to provide feedback in eLearning courses

• It’s worth noting that giving people a chance to learn from their mistakes is especially important during eLearning. Just telling people they were wrong and then moving on isn’t an ideal flow for learning. After providing feedback on a wrong answer be sure to then provide the opportunity for participants to give the right answer or demonstrate their knowledge some other way. You might also offer a simpler or adjusted version of the simulation or provide a quiz that offers additional hints or tooltips. 
• As with live training, any feedback should be given in a direct, immediate and clear manner. Your content authoring tool will have everything from tooltips, pop-ups, audio tools and more. Leverage these tools thoughtfully to congratulate participants on a correct response or gently let them know that the response was incorrect and provide them with feedback that can help them do better next time. 
• As a rule of thumb, try to ensure every point of learner input provides feedback of some kind. Whether it’s a positive affirmation of correct practice or an incorrect answer message, each point of input is an opportunity to guide participants to the ideal learning journey.  
• Achieving clarity in a self-paced training course isn’t just about the text. Visual design is a vital element of providing feedback that is easy for the learner to understand and doesn’t create friction. Think about how to make feedback visually distinct from other learning material and try to employ a consistent method of delivering feedback throughout your course. 
• Test your courts and explore how it feels to receive feedback to an incorrect response. If every incorrect answer triggers a warning klaxon and a wall of text, that’s unlikely to feel good for your learner, and may negatively impact the learning journey. 
• Remember that feedback is about guiding participants to the correct response and deepening the learning journey. Messages will want to let people know what went wrong but also guide them towards understanding. It’s not fun to be told you’re incorrect over and over again without context or support! 
• Providing links to additional material or opportunities to revisit content is easily achieved in most content authoring tools. Giving learners an opportunity to improve their understanding by linking to supporting material can help ensure they get the right answer while also reinforcing key points. This can be an effective way of helping learners gain an understanding of the material, rather than just brute forcing your quiz. 

8) Assess performance

Gagné’s eight event of instruction is an assessment of learner performance. This is where trainers officially evaluate how well learners have performed against the desired learning objectives. In practice, this can look like a written or oral exam, practical demonstration, scored quiz or other form of assessment. 

For most learning scenarios, it’s important that trainers do not offer additional guidance or help while assessing performance. Participant ability will typically be measured on individual performance and with a pass/fail model. 

The results of these assessments are used in multiple ways. First, they’re often given back to participants to either congratulate them or provide an opportunity to retake an assessment or deepen their learning.

Assessments are also a great tool for trainers and instructional designers to improve the quality of their materials – if participants struggle with certain elements, it’s potentially a sign you need to make something clearer or cover certain topics in greater detail. 

How to assess performance in instructor-led training

• Demonstrations and practical activities that are supervised or observed by the instructor is a common method of assessment in live training. Typically, those assessing the performance will score or grade each trainee as they progress through a pre-defined scenario. This is especially useful when training participants in practical skills.
• A formative assessment in the form of a written or oral exam is also common. These often include a series of questions that are scored by the trainer in order to determine performance. 
• Individual outputs such as essays, reports or creative products are another tried and tested assessment method – many university courses include essays and other personal outputs to assess learner progress and performance. Note that these can be more difficult and time consuming to assess, and require thorough assessment criteria used by every instructor in order to be fair and effective. 
• Be sure to outline how performance will be assessed at the outset of the course and again just before an assessment. Trainees should know exactly how they’ll be assessed and there shouldn’t be any surprise criteria that doesn’t relate to what they learned. Include it in your training agenda and provide links to supporting material where appropriate.
• In some cases, it can also be effective to assess participants before the course begins and then assess them again at the end. Measuring the improvement in skills or knowledge can provide a finer degree of assessment and also help the trainer understand the true impact of their material. 
• Going further, it can also be helpful for learners to get used to being assessed in some small form throughout the course. You might sprinkle various assessment techniques such as quizzes and group questioning throughout your course to help you and your learners be aware of performance throughout the course. 

How to assess performance in eLearning courses

• Scored quizzes are a common feature of self-paced courses for good reason. They provide an opportunity to cover many learning events in turn and effectively assess the performance of learners. 
• Vary the format of your assessments so that they’re engaging and can’t be brute forced. Using a mix of multiple-choice questions, word games and other quiz formats can help you assess performance while avoiding burnout.
• Challenges and simulations provide an experiential way to assess performance. Remember that even if your assessment method is gamified, participants still need to know how they are being assessed. Clear instructions and good feedback are key here. 
• Include links to assessment criteria and supporting materials in your course introduction and ensure participants can access what they need when preparing for assessment. 
• Clearly signpost when a section of your online course is part of the formal assessment of course progress. You might distinguish these sections visually while also clearly spelling out that this section is important. 
• Milestone tests or short assessments spread throughout the course are especially important in a self-paced environment where the instructor does not have the ability to organically gauge performance. 
• Pre-testing before the start of an eLearning course can be an effective way to tailor the experience for your learners. You might allow them to skip certain sections or draw more attention to others based on the results.

9) Enhance retention and transfer

Gagné’s ninth event of instruction is about enhancing the transfer of knowledge and helping learners retain what they’ve learned during the course so they can apply it in real-life. The goal of any learning experience isn’t to just help participants pass the course – it’s to equip them with skills and knowledge that will be used from here on out.

Instructional designers tend to achieve this in two ways. First, by using activities that improve retention and knowledge transfer throughout the course, often in the form of simulations and practice exercises.

They’ll also provide resources to help participants continue learning once the training is over. Static resources like PDFs, checklists and job aids are helpful, though you might go further and offer feedback loops with line managers or group forums for peer support. 

How to enhance retention and transfer in instructor-led training

• A summary of key points and core topics in the form of a one-pager can be a great resource to provide to learners at the end of a training session. A job-aid that helps demonstrate the connection between what’s been learned and how to apply it in day-to-day work is also an effective resource to share at the end of a course. 
• End your training session with a final opportunity to practice key skills or demonstrate knowledge. You might do a final group role play, quick-fire quiz or practical exercise. 
• Close the session with a group reflection or debrief. Giving everyone the opportunity to reflect on what they learned and share different perspectives how they’ll use what their new skills or knowledge can be a great way to ensure next steps are taken and that learning is retained. Closing activities like Letter to Myself or I used to think…Now I think are proven methods you can use here. 
• Create opportunities to check-in following the training session. You might have line-managers or trainers check-in with trainees to discuss progress and to reinforce key learnings. Alternatively, create an accountability group where a cohort of trainees can share experiences and tips while keeping what they learned alive. 
• Have trainees create an action plan for how and when they’ll use their new skills following the workshop. Setting an intention for a real-life application of what’s been learned can ensure trainees are in a good position to retain material following the course. 

How to enhance retention and knowledge transfer in eLearning courses

• The steps trainees take immediately following the completion of an online course are key. Encourage learners to think about how they’ll apply their new skills and knowledge throughout or ask them to create an action plan with next steps. 
• Ask participants to create their own artefacts related to the course. You might have an activity where they create a one-pager with key points or create a visual that would help others (and themselves) to remember the most important elements. 
• Remind learners of the journey they’ve been on and give them some guidance of what they might do next. If there’s a story at the heart of your training, you might use the end of your course to give that story a compelling ending or show how other learners have achieved great things following the course. 
• Links to further reading and interesting resources related to the course can encourage trainees to continue engaging with the material and go deeper. 
• Repeatable simulations which trainees can use to practice their skills are a great method of encouraging knowledge retention. You might allow participants to simply repeat previous practical simulations or include a more difficult version that encourages them to go further. How about creating a scored simulation where trainees in a cohort might be encouraged to achieve and share a high score?  

Next steps

Now we’ve explored these core instructional design principles, you might be wondering what’s next and how you might go about using these principles to design effective learning experiences.

Beyond these core principles, most instructional designers will use a tool such as the ADDIE model to effectively project manage the process of creating a completed learning experience.

It’s also worth acknowledging that alternative principles of instructional design are out there.

Some learning designers prefer David Merrill’s principles, which includes five principles: task-centered, activation, demonstration, application, and integration. The successive approximation model (SAM model) is also a popular method for creating a learning program.

I would recommend using these instructional design models to get a broader view of how you might progress from conducting a needs assessment to working with subject matter experts and sharing a completed course with participants. 

Whatever instructional design model you use, a storyboarding and learning design tool like SessionLab is a simple and effective way to go from an outline to a fully realized learning design while keeping these principles in mind.

You can invite your subject matter experts to collaborate on your design and attach materials to each learning block, ready for your content team to recreate in your LMS.

Want to learn more? Explore how learning designers at Vlerick Business School use SessionLab to design instructor led training and eLearning courses at scale. 

Working on a blended learning course? See how to apply instructional design principles in a blended environment with this in-depth guide to blended learning design.

Designing instructor led training? You might also find this step-by-step process for creating a training session plan helpful. You’ll find tips on creating engagement and realizing a live training session with the help of a detailed agenda.  

We hope that the above guide and these additional resources will help you take a systematic approach to learning design that also leaves space for your personal touch.

Did we miss anything or is there something we should explore further? Let us know in our community of facilitators and learning professionals!

Even for expert trainers and learning designers, developing a blended learning course can be a daunting experience. Combining such disparate elements in a coherent whole that leverages the best of each, for learning that sticks, requires thoughtful planning and design.

In this article, we’ll look at the key elements for creating excellent blended learning experiences. Read on for practical tips and tricks, ideas and recommendations on avoiding possible pitfalls. We will cover:

What is a Blended Course?

Blended learning courses are training and education experiences that combine different elements, leveraging the power of both synchronous and asynchronous study opportunities. 

Barely existing before the Covid-19 pandemic, blended learning spaces are now a growing trend. The reasons are quite straightforward: the training community is now very well aware of the advantages offered by online, self-paced learning (such as MOOCs, Massive Open Online Courses). Content can be hosted online and accessed by learners at their convenience, offering much-needed flexibility. 

At the same time, it’s well known that direct interactions with peers and instructors are irreplaceable elements for learning that sticks. Blended courses designed by learning designers bring together the best of both worlds.

There are four possible components to a blended course.

• Asynchronous, self-paced learning modules. Self-paced study resources, such as videos and articles, give learners the flexibility to study when it works for them, and return to materials at any time.
• Small group work. Working through assignments in a group of peers is a strong motivator, which is likely to increase retention and boost learning. We will see below how this can be organized, depending on the type of course you are designing.
• Synchronous workshops, online. Participatory workshops held on online platforms are a versatile container for learning activities. These can combine plenary work, guided individual reflection, and discussion in breakout rooms (Looking for more information on how to hold engaging workshops for online learning? Here is a dedicated guide).
• Synchronous, face to face sessions. If your course is designed for a specific company, or perhaps for a University, it may allow for participants to gather in person. We’ll see below how to make the most of this opportunity! 

Not all blended courses will include all components, as the mix greatly depends on the specific circumstances. Having at least one synchronous and one asynchronous element is what makes it a blended learning space. You can see an example of how this might fit together in this blended learning course template.

In the next paragraphs we’ll look into each modality in turn. But first, allow me to share a personal story.

A Real-world Example of Blended Learning

My experience with blended learning environments comes from working as a group coach for various cohorts of Masters’ students enrolled in the EIT Climate-KIC’s education programs. 

Traditionally held only in-person, these programs had to undergo a quick, radical restructuring due to the Covid-19 restrictions of 2020 and 2021. In 2020, the program was moved fully online but remained completely synchronous, with participants joining from all over the world to online workshops and lectures, held on Zoom.

Having kept our poor students (as well as ourselves!) hostage too many hours in front of the screen, we quickly learnt that online participation could be leveraged to give more flexibility to learners. 

The 2021 program was therefore re-designed, this time as a blended learning environment. Our main objective was to design online learning activities that would encourage strong connections among participants, adding many opportunities for online interactions.

We achieved this with a combination of

• large, online, in-sync workshops, where 200+ participants joined at the same time, working on vast Miro whiteboards, listening to inspirational speakers, and going through a variety of online learning activities;
• intimate, 8-people cohorts that met on Zoom once every two weeks with a coach to work through specific parts of the program and support one another’s motivation and learning process.

The rest of the program was based on self-study, with modules including online resources such as reading materials, videos, and individual exercises, particularly journaling. 

In 2022, the program moved back to a mainly in-person, live environment. As designers and education specialists, we met o discuss whether we should keep any elements of the previous blended learning environment.

We concluded that online work was extremely supportive of the in-person section, enabling participants to e-meet before meeting in the classroom, explore topics, and start forming a group spirit. 

After the in-person component, we designed modules that allow participants to dig deeper into topics of their choice, and online workshops to keep in touch and keep learning together long after the events were over.

Why Learners Love Blended Training

As I learned when designing blended learning programs for our students, participants get a lot of benefits from blended training. Essentially, it allows to get the best of both worlds: the flexibility and depth afforded by self-paced learning, and the cohesiveness, networking opportunities, and shared space for reflection that comes with live interactions. 

Research shows that the absence of learner interaction causes failure and eventual drop-out in online courses and the lack of learner connectedness was noted as an internal factor leading to learner drop-out in online courses.

Blended learning effectiveness: the relationship between student characteristics, design features and outcomes

As noted in the above quote from this intriguing paper published in the International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, failure in online courses stems most often from the absence of opportunities for interaction among peers and with instructors.

Blended learning, by contrast, includes many different opportunities for online and face-to-face training activities that strengthen connectedness and support the learning process.

How to Combine Synchronous and Async Elements for Blended Learning

Each element of a blended learning course serves different purposes. As designers of such courses, it’s important to have clarity about what works well, using each format to support learning in such a way as to have them strengthen each other.

Let’s go through them one by one and see what purposes they serve, and how they can work together to ensure your learning objectives are met.

Asynchronous, self-paced online learning

Self-paced online learning is individual work learners can do in their own time. From the designer’s point of view, this implies creating, selecting and developing online resources. These can include videos and reading material as well as exercises and worksheets for learners to work through individually.

To design modules for self-paced e-learning, you’ll need first to storyboard the flow of the course, then work with learning content providers to add videos, course content, presentations and activities. If you need some extra ideas on how to set up your workflow with all the right software tools, this article on instructional design software might help. 

Great for: flexibility. Learners can study at their own pace, whenever is convenient. Well-designed self-study modules will also allow for different levels of exploration and depth, with the main content being the same for everyone but plenty of opportunities to dig deeper into specific facets of the subject.

Risk: it can be hard to sustain motivation if relying only on self-paced modules. Lack of feedback channels with other learners and with instructors mean it’s easy to get lost and give up.

How to use it: use self-paced e-learning modules to structure content, especially when it’s technical. Divide topics into easily digestible chunks, and lay it out clearly in your LMS (Learning Management System).

Small group work

Designing small group work into your blended learning course can be a challenge, but it’s certainly worth it. Here are some possible scenarios and ways you can set small groups up:

• In higher education, randomly place students in peer groups and provide them with group projects. Make sure you dedicate a live (online or face-to-face) session to setting up their groups and coaching them on how to work together, and give them precise milestones to achieve, step by step;
• In company trainings, it might be appropriate to have individual teams work through group assignments together, potentially with case studies that apply to them. 
• Even in courses that are joined online by individual learners, it’s possible to get the benefits of small group work. One way of doing this, as is the case in my story below, is to invite participants to join as a small team of co-workers or friends. Another option is to randomly assign participants to a group (this latter option is only feasible if the course has a precise starting date by which all participants will be registered). 

Great for: motivation. A small group setting is an excellent way to keep participants accountable. It doubles as a space for networking and creating connections.

Risk: small groups require a strong set of guidelines, especially at the start of their learning journey to work well. 

How to use it: expect some fluctuating attendance and drop-outs, so make the groups a bit larger than you would in a face-to-face setting (think 5 to 8 people). Include a small group activity after each self-directed module. 

As is wonderfully laid out in this case study from the BMC Medical Education journal, small group practice can degenerate into an unstructured, disorganized mess where a few earnest individuals end up doing all the work for everyone. Or it can be an uplifting, memorable experience of collaboration and learning. 

Early in the Covid-19 lockdowns, I enrolled in a blended learning course hosted by Acumen Academy. I was encouraged to set up a study group, and since everyone was home trying to figure out how to live our lives in our living rooms, I easily persuaded five other facilitators to join.

We were encouraged to meet for a couple of hours online every two weeks, after each completing a course module individually. After our small group session, we each had to upload a finished worksheet with a group project to our LMS accounts, proving the session was complete, before moving on to the next module. 

Although setting the actual time and date was left up to us (and was a scheduling challenge, I will not lie!), the rest of our work was carefully set up fro us with canvases, exercise sheets, and detailed session timelines. As someone who likes to learn in conversation with others, I have clear and crisp memories of our lively discussions and the online canvases we created and filled with virtual sticky notes. 

Synchronous, online workshops

Include online workshops in your design as opportunities for learners to interact with content providers and peers. A virtual workshop can serve many different functions, including going through case studies, running role play activities, giving space in breakout rooms for discussions relative to the course content and Q&A sessions with speakers. In the context of a blended course, online workshops should not feel like lectures or webinars, but be truly interactive. 

Great for: integrating course content into real-life scenarios, digesting and discussing content, exploring the topic with peers.

Risk: the use of technology tools such as whiteboards can pose an obstacle to participation. Make sure you have experienced virtual facilitators and tech hosts on board. Getting participants fully familiar with the technology you are using is key to making the experience useful and memorable. 

How to use it: add online workshops at the start and end of the course. Repeat the same workshop more than once to ensure higher attendance.

How to add Live, In-Person Events to Your Blended Learning Design

Not every learning course can include live, face-to-face events. If you are having participants join from all over the world, for example, it’s extremely unlikely that everyone will gather in the same location at one point in time. That said, there are quite a few situations in which adding in-person events to your blended learning design is possible. 

You might be designing training for a company that has a team retreat later in the year, which can be an opportunity to reflect and discuss the learning content. In higher education settings, it might be possible to launch an online learning course at the start of the school year face-to-face, or meet in the classroom every few months. 

When people meet in face to face sessions, the amount of social interaction is much higher than in remote learning. Informal moments during coffee breaks can lead to unexpected outcomes, synchronicities, collaborations, and new ideas. Cohorts formed exclusively online tend to dissolve after the course is over, while people we’ve met in real life we might keep in touch with for years.

If you do have the luxury of adding face to face events to your design, you should make sure not to waste them! 

Great for: creating momentum and enthusiasm. Networking. Supporting reflections, questions and feedback.

Risk: live events are more expensive and time-consuming to organize. 

How to use it: add a face-to-face event at the beginning of your course to raise enthusiasm. If you have this component as well as small group work, make sure to dedicate some time during the live event for groups to meet and start organising their work together. If it’s possible based on your situation, add periodic face-to-face meetings with instructors and content providers for such activities as Q&A, role plays and simulations. 

Don’t waste them in: lengthy presentations and “death by powerpoint” – you have so many more options of how to provide great content for your learners!

5 Tips (+1) for Designing Great Blended Learning Environments

Having established what the components of blended learning courses are, let’s look at some practical tips to keep in mind when working on the storyboarding and setup of such courses.

1. Keep the sections straight in your head. It’s up to the designer to clearly establish what content will be delivered how, and how the various sections work together to achieve your learning objectives. Diagrams and schematics may help with this, as can a practical design tool such the ADDIE model for instructional design. You can also use the SessionLab app to keep the design clear and visually appealing.
   
2. Use in-sync components to raise motivation, whether it’s big online workshops or small group work assignments. Dropouts are a big concern in online learning, and blended learning approaches can really help with this!
   
3. Leverage the power of small groups. Research findings prove that small groups are the key to achieving learning outcomes. Design activities that groups can go through autonomously, give them team challenges and tools for collaborative learning.
   
4. Provide opportunities for deeper dives. The main content for your self-paced online learning modules will be the same for everyone: keep it accessible, clear, and simple. At the same time, motivated learners will want to dig deeper into topics of their interest, so provide extra resources and specialized learning tracks;
   
5. Give extra-clear instructions in your LMS. Blended learning courses have many moving parts and learners might get confused. What time is the online workshop? Do I need to attend? Create FAQ sheets and video explanations detailing the course structure. Have an email address or chat for participants to contact and make sure someone is answering. Don’t be afraid to repeat information twice (or more).

The last piece of advice I’ve got is rather controversial, so hear me out, and feel free to disagree in the comments:

6. Don’t record live components. The most common questions you will get once the course is set up are probably going to be “Will you record the live sessions?” and “Where can I watch them?” Knowing that sessions will be recorded is bound to lower learners’ motivation to join, and we all know that watching a recording of a participatory workshop is no substitute for participation. Clarify that these are not lectures, and instead of providing recordings, repeat sessions more than once to accommodate different needs and time zones. 

Start your Blended Learning Design from a Customizable Template

Now that you know more about the different elements that compose a blended learning course design, you probably have some ideas of how to put them together in a flow that works for your learners.

Starting and/or ending with synchronous sessions is a common format, as well as including small group work after every self-paced module. 

Using SessionLab, you can easily visualize all the components, color-code them, and drag-and-drop elements to customize your design. To see what a blended learning course might look like, we’ve prepared this ready-to-use template. 

This starter kit begins with an opening session designed to be hosted online, with the support of a facilitator well-versed in virtual workshops. It then contains two blank example modules to be filled with your content.

Each module ends with a small group session, and the entire course concludes with a synchronous reflection workshop where learners can have the opportunity to ask questions, think back on their learning and provide feedback. Find the complete template here!

In closing

Blended learning courses are a growing trend in education and elearning, both for higher education students and for professional training. I hope this article has equipped you with all the terminology and resources you need to design great blended learning courses with confidence! 

Have you tried basing your design on our ready-made template? Have you used SessionLab for your blended course design? Do you agree that live sessions should not be recorded? Have we forgotten any important tips? Share in the comments and in our friendly online community!

Training games are a great way to engage trainees with interactive activities that help facilitate the learning process. In this guide, we’ll share our favourite training activities alongside tips for engaging trainees. You’ll leave with practical ideas for improving your next employee training and add new methods to your toolkit. Let’s dive in!

What are training games and activities?

Training games and activities are interactive activities designed to engage trainees and create a more memorable and engaging learning experience.

These games are experiential in nature, and they invite trainees to actively participate in a task or game rather than just passively receive information. These kinds of training activities include group discussions, role-play games, debriefing and sharing exercises, group discussions, hand-on activities and more. 

Training activities are used to help facilitate some aspect of the learning process and often correlate with one or more stages of Robert Gagné’s pricinples of effective learning.

In some scenarios, these activities can go further by asking participants to actively use knowledge they are gaining in the session or to practice soft skills too. These opportunities for interactivity are a wonderful addition to any training program.

For example, if you’re delivering feedback training to a team, you might include an activity where they practice giving each other feedback in the session. This kind of gamified training is a great way to enhance learning and build practical skills that can be used immediately after the training is complete. 

On another occasion, enhancing your corporate training with a fun activity can do double duty in enabling better learning while also building team connections and communication skills.

Why use training games and activities?

According to Seymour Epstein’s cognitive experiential self-theory (CEST), our brains process and retain information in two ways: analytical-rational and intuitive-experiential. 

The intuitive-experiential parts of our brain are more active when focusing on specific tasks, especially those that are physical in nature or which invoke feelings and experiences. Knowledge gained through this kind of experiential learning tends to be retained more quickly and is forgotten more slowly than other methods. 

The analytical-rational parts of our brain are more active when focusing on processes, synthesizing information and making decisions .

In Seymour Epstein’s theory, our brains work best when both of these parts are working in tandem. Great training often employs various methods in order to activate both of these systems and help learners get the most out of the experience.

To simplify, adult learners can learn by passively receiving information but any learning is more effective when paired with experiential activities such as participating in tasks and games. 

Training games are an effective way to bring that intuitive-experiential part of our brains online. They also help create space in an agenda and enhance the learning experience.

For best results, try pairing training activities with a discussion or debrief in order to also activate the analytical-rational part of the brain and help trainees retain and use the training material you provide. 

However you use these games and activities, you’ll want to consider when and where to place them in your training agenda so you can create an effective learning flow and deliver a successful training program.

In SessionLab, it’s easy to create everything from a training program outline to an agenda for an individual training session. Start by dragging and dropping your training content into place.

Colour code your activities according to interaction type so you can build a balanced training session that caters to different learning styles. 

When you’re ready to lead your session, it’s easy to export your agenda in the format of your choice. Create a PDF handout for your trainers and trainees or invite stakeholders to collaborate on your session directly. 

Training icebreakers

Every training session has to start somewhere. After you’ve gotten the group’s attention and outlined the objectives of the training session, this is a perfect time to break the ice and start warming up the group. 

These training icebreaker activities are designed to help loosen up the group and create connections while also creating space to begin exploring the topic of your training programs.

While it might be tempting to jump right into presenting your training materials, using a training icebreaker game can ensure that you truly have the attention of your learners and that they’re best positioned to engage in learning. 

Just the facts

Getting a group of trainees energized at the beginning of a training session while also getting them to talk about the topic at hand is a great use of an icebreaker. In this training icebreaker,  start by defining a topic the group is going to list facts about. 

For example, for training on feedback skills, the topic might be “Facts about good feedback.” Next, invite the group to sit in a circle and have each person in turn contribute a fact about the topic.

While this is easy to start with, it can be difficult to keep going around the circle without repeating a fact or introducing an opinion or unproven theory. When someone breaks the rules of the game, another member should challenge by saying “Just the facts!” and then the group will vote on whether it is a fact or not.  

This is a great training icebreaker to get people warmed up while thinking critically about the topic at hand. 

I Expect

Having the group share their expectations of a training session can help create alignment and spur engagement while also giving the trainer insight into how they might best serve the group.

In this ice breaker for training, start by dividing a flipchart or virtual whiteboard into four quadrants. Then ask participants to respond with what they expect from: 1. The Training, 2. The Trainer, 3. From Yourself and 4. Other Participants.

You can have participants write their responses on sticky notes and add them to the chart, or simply ask for responses and write them in the necessary place. Check back at the end to show the group what they’ve achieved in line with their expectations. 

Magic Box

Training icebreaker games are often at their best when they encourage participants to begin engaging with the topic at hand while also sharing their perspective with the group.

Magic Box is an effective exercise that asks trainees to start by choosing an object from a pre-created box. Next, they’ll tell the group who they are, why they selected the object and what they think it has to do with the training ahead.

Participants are asked to think creatively about the relationship between the object and the workshop they’re about to undertake, creating engagement and allowing space for personal expression. It’s one of my favourite training icebreakers! 

Best and Worst

Sharing personal experiences and encouraging curiosity at the beginning of a training session can help set the stage for learning. In this training icebreaker, start by asking each person in the group to write down one best and one worst question that they want to learn about the group. For example: what’s the worst present you’ve ever been given, what’s the best advice you ever received.

Put all the questions in a hat and have everyone pick 2 at random. Go around the circle and have everyone share their answers and related stories. 

In a training environment, I tend to ask participants to add a third question relating to the topic at hand or put some extras in the hat myself: for example, what’s the worst feedback you ever received or what makes you cringe during a presentation?

One Word Method

Training icebreakers are great for helping your group to fully arrive in the space and relax into the training session to come. One Word Method is one of my favourite ice breakers as it’s easy to run, encourages creativity, and it can also be adapted to serve any topic or training session. 

Start by introducing a topic of theme and let participants know that they’ll collaboratively create a sentence by each contributing one word of that sentence in order. The aim of the game is to create a sentence that makes sense and which also covers the subject or topic you’ve chosen.

This training game is especially effective at encouraging everyone in the group to speak early in the session and can help introduce a difficult subject in an approachable manner. 

Who are you? The pirate ship exercise

Every member of the group brings a unique perspective to any workshop, meeting or training session. In this fun training icebreaker, participants are encouraged to consider their role and perspective and what they’ll bring to the training ahead.

Start by sharing the picture of the pirate ship and ask people to reflect on which character on the ship best represents them. You might also ask, “Which character in the image best represents how you feel about this training? Why? Put your answer in the chat”. The ensuing discussion can help break the ice while also getting the group to think about how they’ll engage with the training to come. 

Training games to enable effective learning

Helping learners to learn is the goal of every educator and trainer. These training activities are designed to help create an ideal learning environment and can be used to support your main training content and get your trainees engaged early in the process.

Often, employees learn as much from each other as from a presentation, and these activities are designed to enhance employee engagement by encouraging participation and the sharing of experiences among the team.

Catch All

In Robert Gagné’s 9 principles of instructional design, he notes the importance of asking participants to recall previous learnings. This training activity from Thiagi Group is a simple game where participants are asked to recall something relevant to the topic at hand and share it with the group. 

Start by getting participants to stand in a circle and choose a category relevant to your topic or training materials. Next, throw the ball to a participant who must respond by recalling something they know or have learned about the topic before throwing it to another participant. You can use this at the start of a session to gauge existing knowledge or use it after lunch to help the group recall what they did in the morning.

Walking Questions 

In many training scenarios, one of the best sources of information and insights is from trainees themselves. In this training activity, you’ll invite groups to answer one anothers questions in order to close knowledge gaps and encourage proactivity in the group. 

Start by giving each participant a sheet of paper at the end of a training block. Each trainee writes one open question on top of a sheet of paper. They then hand the paper to the person to their right. On the new sheet they receive, each trainee will read the question and write down any ideas or insights they might have before handing it onto the next person. The activity ends when everybody has their original sheet back, complete with ideas from everyone else in the group. 

Angry Customers

The fourth stage of Kolb’s learning cycle is Active experimentation, where participants get to practice using the skills they’ve learned during the training. Role-play or simulation games are an especially effective training activity to encourage this in trainees. While the specific role-play you use will need to reflect your training topic, Angry Customers is a great example of how it’s done.

In this training game, split your team into two groups. One group will brainstorm examples of angry customer statements while the other group will brainstorm statements that might help defuse such a situation. Next, pair people from separate groups together and roleplay an angry conversation. Debrief at the end to help the group identify what worked best and how they might use these insights in real-life situations.

Pecha Kucha

It’s common for trainers to ask trainees to present learnings or summarize discussions in small groups during live training. Such a presentation can help enable knowledge retention and to ensure participants have a good understanding of the material.

Pecha Kucha is an effective training activity that asks participants to create a presentation with 20 images that they present for 20 seconds each. It provides a great framework for sharing information in a fast but comprehensive and visually interesting manner that can help enable knowledge retention and recall. 

As an added bonus, it’s also a great way of building presentation skills and teaching employees simple ways of sharing information with other teams.

Fun with Snowballs

Creating an opportunity for participants to recall and share information while also having fun can enhance learning and create a memorable training experience for all. In this training game, start by distributing paper to each participant. Next, ask a question relevant to your training topic or material presented and ask each participant to write their response on the piece of paper. 

Next, get everyone to move into an open space and have a snowball fight using the responses they’ve made. After a few minutes, blow a whistle and have each participant grab the snowball closest to them and read the answer or information out loud.

Variations for this game include asking participants to write a key takeaway or learning, or to use this at the start of training to ask participants what they know about the subject before you begin.

You might also award points for a correct answer to a question or keep a record of correct and incorrect answers so you can adjust your training materials accordingly.

Triz 

Adult learners and trainees are typically more goal oriented than child learners. Getting your trainees to think about their personal goals, as well as those of the training at large can help pave the way for engaged learners. 

Triz is an effective training activity that asks participants to list all the things they must do in order to fail at their goals. For example, you might ask, “What should you do to make sure that you achieve the worst result imaginable during this training?”

By flipping perspectives, its often easier to surface key barriers to learning and create space for a considered reflection on how to engage and make progress on their goals. 

Mixed Up Sentences

Passive presentations with no interactivity or space for trainee engagement can be a drag for participants to sit through. While it’s often necessary to present information in this way, there are ways to enliven the process and also reinforce learings too. 

With this training method, start by creating a sequence of sentences that summarize the main points of your presentation. Next, put those sentences out of order and remove one from the list. During your lecture or presentation, invite participants to take notes and at the end of the session, split them into teams who will use their own notes and the sentences to recreate the missing sentence and also put the sentences back in order. 

1-2-4 All

People learn in all sorts of different ways. While some people enjoy lively group discussions and interactive presentations, others need some quiet time alone with the material. 1-2-4 All is an effective way of catering to multiple learning styles while also creating space for personal reflection and small group discussion. 

Start by inviting participants to silently reflect on a question or topic of the training. Next, ask participants to form pairs and build on the reflection or ideas they each had. Finally, ask participants to form groups of four and discuss further before presenting their main learnings or ideas to the group. 1-2-4 All is a simple training activity but it’s also one of the most effective ways of creating space for everyone to be heard and contribute to a group discussion. 

Collaborative and fun training games

One of the fundamental principles of adult learning is experiential learning, which gives participants the chance to use skills and knowledge in a practical way.

Asking trainees to utilize their creative or critical thinking skills in the form of a game can help create an experiential learning experience and enliven the group. They’re a great way to enhance group dynamics and improve communication between trainees too.

Marshmallow challenge with debriefing 

Marhsmallow Challenge is a classic team building game that works well in a training environment by asking participants to work together as a team and engage their problem solving skills. 

Start by briefing the team on the task: they must build the tallest free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow, which needs to be on top. After each team has presented their marshmallow tower and a winner has been crowned, conduct a debriefing where participants will reflect on what went well, what could have been improved and what learnings they will take from the exercise. 

Human Machine 

Effective collaboration is an important aspect of how groups operate. Collaboration and camaraderie is important in a training environment too, and this training game is an effective way of engaging a group collaboratively. Start by getting the group into a circle. Let them know that together, they will be creating a human machine where each person will be a part of that machine. 

Start by asking one person to enter the middle of the circle while making the sound and physical movement of one part of the machine. After 5 seconds, another person enters the circle and connects to the first person, also making a sound and a movement.

Continue until everyone has been connected to the machine. In small groups, you can also deconstruct the machine one piece at a time. Use this training game when you’re looking to encourage creative thinking and collaboration in your trainees. 

Blind Square – Rope game

Fun training games where participants need to engage their problem solving brain while working as a team can be a great counterpoint to heavier training material and presentations. In this training game, start by tying a long piece of rope into a circle. 

Instruct trainees that they’ll need to turn the circle into a square but must do so while blindfolded. They’ll have 15 minutes to plan their actions but must not touch the rope. They’ll then have 10 minutes to create the square as a team while wearing their blindfolds.

This is a simple but effective training game that builds communication skills and can also be used to start a conversation about collaboration, planning and problem solving.  

Helium Stick

Training activities don’t need to be complicated in order to create engagement in your group and help pave the way for collaborative learning. Helium Stick is a fun and engaging training game that is a simple and effective way to encourage presence and collaboration in the group. 

Start by asking everyone in the group to form two rows, facing each other. Next, ask them to put their index fingers out and rest a long, thin rod on everyone’s fingers, ensuring its level. Finally, ask the group to try moving the rod down while ensuring everyone’s fingers remain in contact with the rod. The result is a fun, engaging game that helps trainees land in the session and create some levity in your agenda. 

Human Knot

This physical training game is a fun energizing game that also doubles as an exploration of the differences between self-organization and command-control management. For any training that contains elements of group dynamics and human systems, this is a great choice of training icebreaker or energizer. 

Start by getting trainees into groups of 7-16 people. Next, ask everyone to get into a circle and close their eyes. Next, they should link hands with two different people in the group and then open their eyes. The group must then untangle themselves without breaking any links. This training game often results in a lot of laughter and fun, while debriefing it can help give groups an understanding of how certain dynamics can manifest within a group. 

Virtual Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger hunts on a specific topic can be a great way to get participants engaged in their own learning and encourage proactive exploration of a training topic. Start by creating a list of items that participants need to find that relate in some way to the topic of your training. 

For example, if you were running training on conflict resolution, your list might include finding a series of quotes or articles to cover each step of the resolution process, finding or taking photographs to represent four emotions experienced as a result of conflict, collecting the social media profiles of 3 thought leaders in the space, or even creating a spotify playlist of songs relating to core feedback principles.

Creativity is vital here, but the end result can be an engaging exercise that not only reinforces learning but also creates lots of space for fun. 

Games and activities for closing a training session

The closing stages of your training session can be among the most important when it comes to reinforcing learnings and helping your participants retain the key points of your training.

These training activities are designed to give trainees space to reflect on the session, reinforce their learnings and debrief with the group. They can be especially useful if you want to encourage trainees to take action following the training session or create a sense of closure too. 

If you’re following the ADDIE model of training design, these closing activities can also help you evaluate the effectiveness of your material and provide crucial feedback for future training sessions. 

Letter to Myself 

The best training sessions often result in positive change, whether that’s solving a problem or enabling trainees to do something they couldn’t do before. That said, it’s not uncommon for some participants to struggle to retain or implement learnings after the training. This training activity is a great way to avoid that issue.

Start by handing out pens and postcards/paper to the group and explain that everyone is going to write a letter to their future selves. In that letter, they’ll explain what they wish to achieve by the time their future selves open the letter.

You can add additional prompts such as, “I want to remember…” “I want to make a positive change because…” or “The biggest takeaway from today is…” to help guide the group and ensure participants are well positioned to retain and use their new knowledge in the future.

I used to think…But now I think…

Effective training is all about creating positive change. In this closing training activity, participants are asked to reflect on what they’ve learned and how their knowledge or perspective has changed as a result of what they’ve learned. Giving immediate feedback in this way can help surface valuable insights and cement learning too.

First, trainees will consider what they thought or knew about your training topic before the session, then they’ll reflect on what they think or know now. Give a few minutes for solo reflection before group sharing so that everyone is able to gather their thoughts before also enjoying the collective wisdom of other team members. 

Artful Closer 

Closing a training seminar by asking participants to create a visual representation of something they’ve learned can be an effective way to aid knowledge retention, share insights and create a memorable experience. Start this training activity by asking participants to close their eyes and think about the highlights of the session and choose one of the key lessons they learned. 

Next, participants will create an abstract image to represent that learning and which captures the essence of what they’ve learned. After they’re done, trainees then share the images in small groups and try to interpret what each image represents. For a closing activity with a visual edge, Artful Closer is a great choice that can prompt interesting discussions and aid knowledge retention too! 

Magical Gifts 

Having the members of your group share their takeaways from a training session is a great way to reinforce learnings and create a sense of closure.

In this paired training activity, one person starts by sharing their favourite takeaway from the training session or what action they’re going to take next. The second person listens carefully and then hands them an imaginary gift in response and describes what it is. 

For example, if I say that my next step after receiving training on emotional intelligence is to reflect on my experience and prepare for a tough conversation with my boss, the other person might hand me a magical pillow to help me rest and prepare for that conversation or a megaphone to help my voice be heard. After receiving the gift, the first person shows appreciation and explains how they will use the gift before switching. 

For particularly heavy training topics, this closing activity can be effective at introducing some levity and kindness while still ensuring people meaningfully reflect on what they’ve learned. 

Conclusion

Whether you’re designing live training sessions or blended learning courses, training games and activities can be an effective way to enhance the training experience and create space for experiential learning. Use them alongside tools like Gagne’s instructional design principles in order to design the most effective learning experiences possible.

These games aren’t just about using up time or giving people a break (although that’s also a worthy cause!) – activities like these can help engage participants and create a memorable experience that ensures learning is retained long after the session is over. 

Want to go further? Check out our guide on how to design a training session plan and create an agenda that will set the foundation for an effective session. 

Looking for an example training agenda? Explore this training plan template based on Kolb’s learning cycle and adjust it to your needs. 

This honest guide to hybrid event planning is packed with practical tips, insights and information to get you started setting up, designing and running successful hybrid events. First of all, you’ll find a definition of what hybrid events are, complete with examples of how they may work, hybrid event best practices and more. 

Once that is clear, read on to find out three key insights on how to face the challenge of working with both people who share a space and people who join online.

* Why “honest”? 

• Because hybrid events can be hard and we’re not going to hide it. 
• Because we collected insights based on conversations and experiences from real people, working in the real world. 
• And, last but not least, because this guide will not provide cookie-cutter solutions but rather insights, pointers, tips and inspiration – ultimately, as always, the actual design is up to you! 

The following sections of this in-depth guide include practical tools, roles that you’ll need to cover, an overview of tech needs, and more. The whole article is packed with useful tips, but if you are in a rush to begin planning, start with this section on practical tools to support inclusion in your next, exciting, adventure in hybrid event planning! 

What are hybrid events?

A hybrid event is one in which some participants are sharing a physical space, while others connect online… all at the same time! This is not altogether a novelty. Keynote speakers, for example, were sometimes presenting and answering questions from a screen long before the Covid-19 pandemic came along and hybrid events entered the mainstream.

That said, contemporary hybrid events are going in the direction of more interaction and engagement than a mere Q&A. Effective facilitation is therefore essential to make hybrid participation work.

The word hybrid is borrowed from the natural sciences. In botany and biology, it refers to the offspring of two animals or plants of different subspecies or varieties. A hybrid will preserve some features from each parent and develop others that are completely new. Similarly, hybrid events share some of the characteristics of in-person events and some that come from the online world… and others that are unique. 

In this guide, we will be using hybrid events, meetings and workshops somewhat interchangeably. Distinctions among them can be made (and are, with great accuracy, by Robert Kienzle in his excellent 132-page Hybrid Live Guide). That said, as long as you aim to facilitate active participation while some participants are sharing a location and others are joining from elsewhere, this guide will apply: take what is appropriate and adapt it to the specifics of your situation.

For more long-term setups in hybrid teams that will work together continuously, this guide will still work for you as facilitator, but you are likely to have to add some research on what workflow and communication tools and apps (such as Slack, Asana and so on, as described in this guide to remote collaboration tools) might support your team in the long term.

Hybrid events are not the only possible way of combining remote and in-person: another possibility is to combine modes of participation not at the same time, but in sequence.

In blended events, sessions are run remotely and in-person at different times, with all participants joining in the same way. Think, for example, of training courses in which everyone meets for intensive seminars, then takes some online modules over the space of a month or two. Here is a little slideshow I put together to illustrate the difference. 

Different ways participants may be joining your hybrid event 

While all hybrid events have in common the simultaneous presence of participants sharing a physical space and others connecting online, different configurations are possible. 

Hub-and-spoke: cohorts of participants who are in the same room, with rooms scattered in different locations, all connecting to the same event. You may have, for example, a group of five joining from the Zurich office, a group of seven in Lisbon, and a larger assembly of twenty joining from headquarters in Copenhagen.

Hub and satellite: one main group joining in person, and individual virtual attendees connecting from their personal devices. This is becoming an increasingly common setup for many hybrid events, e.g. for community/networking gatherings and festivals. The main hybrid event takes place in a physical location, and access is given to remote participants to join with a virtual event platform as well, for the entire event or in part.

A combination of the two is also possible, with some participants joining your hybrid event independently and others in small groups. From the facilitator’s point of view, the scenario changes what activities you can run and how to give instructions for them.

Start your session design process by mapping who will be there, with approximate numbers of participants. Combine this with your overall objectives to create a flow appropriate to the specific hybrid event or meeting.

Why you need to know how to handle hybrid events

In 2020 and 2021, with so many people working from home, facilitators moved their work to online settings. We shared knowledge (e.g. in SessionLab’s remote facilitation guide) the tech improved at breakneck speed, and it’s a safe bet to say that online facilitation is here to stay. Having a virtual event enables wider participation of attendees from different locations and personal situations (or over-booked agendas). 

At the same time, in-person events are possible again: those who are able to dedicate the time, and travel, might be keen to attend a physical event. Given all the possible reasons that might keep virtual attendees in front of their screens while others want to be in the same room, it simply makes sense for event organizers to create hybrid event formats. 

It is in looking at facilitation practice in 2022 that the striking emergence of hybrids becomes clear, with over 60% of facilitators having led at least a hybrid session (based on the State of Facilitation report).

It’s therefore important for facilitators to be aware of how hybrid events work, and get familiar with how to facilitate them. Just as it was important to learn how to run virtual events alongside traditional in person events during the global pandemic.

Even if you end up deciding that hybrid event planning is not for you, you’ll need to know why, and how to articulate this to clients. Who knows, you might take to this new environment as a fish to (new) waters and become one of the first world-class experts in hybrid facilitation!

When should you run a hybrid event?

While every facilitator should at least be hybrid-literate, certainly not every event should go hybrid. As hybrid events become increasingly common, it’s important to clearly communicate to clients that they do require more work, (ideally) a larger team, and extra attention to technology. This might mean hiring more people, renting equipment, adding time for preparation and therefore, in essence, more expense. 

Hybrid events should not be thrown around as an afterthought or an “add-on” to events planned in a different format. Having a camera pointed at speakers during a conference and allowing people to tune in is not a hybrid event: it’s a live broadcast and/or a webinar. In a hybrid event, we are looking at actual participation of all attendees, in different ways, aiming for the same level of engagement, with a flow of communication among all those involved.

Clearly articulating the specificity of hybrids to event organizers is essential to ensure decisions are taken realistically. Make sure you take the time to ask for the rationale behind the request for a hybrid event.

Discuss pros and cons with the convenor/client. Is is genuinely better than a strictly virtual event? If for the purposes of the gathering it’s a real advantage to allow virtual attendees and in-person attendees, and the resources to make this happen are available, then go for it! 

What are the challenges of hybrid event planning?

In terms of facilitation, all hybrid events require three complete designs: one for the people who are sharing the room, one for those joining remotely, and one for the connection between the two.

The novelty of this scenario and the complexity of juggling so many moving pieces made handling hybrids one of facilitators’ main challenges in 2022, according to the State of Facilitation report!

It can get even more complicated in cases in which you will have to tweak instructions for different numbers of people joining from different rooms: in the “hub-and-spoke” model, for example, activities might need specific instructions if some groups are even and some odd-numbered!

Besides the challenge of running different programs simultaneously, hybrid events add the hurdle of combining them. If this effort fails, you are likely to end up with disengaged participants or groups. This can create disagreements and conflict between your virtual audience and in-person attendees. People may end up feeling slighted or excluded from certain conversations, dynamics or decision-making taking part in other parts of your hybrid event.

Ideally, participants joining in different ways should still have many opportunities to work together and interact, create bonds and foster the sense of being “in this together” as parts of a whole.

Taking into consideration people with disabilities and neurodivergent people will require additional hybrid event planning. You’ll need to consider how to support access to audiovisual technologies and resources these people may need to participate fully in your hybrid events. Just as accessibility should be considered for any in person event, the same is true for virtual attendees and their hybrid counterparts.

How to plan a successful hybrid event

In early 2022, the Italian chapter of the International Association of Facilitators hosted a one-and-a-half-hour discussion among a group of about 30 professional facilitators on the topic of hybrid events. At the end of the conversation, three approaches emerged as crucial for facing the hybrid challenge successfully and making hybrid event planning more effective:

1. Keep it simple

Keep. It. Simple. These were the three most-oft-repeated words at the workshop! The setting of a hybrid event is so complicated that simple activities work best. Keep the instructions clear and minimal and be a bit more directive than you normally would. This advice was valid when moving towards virtual events and its valid here too!

Don’t worry about being too basic or linear: trust that the nature of hybrid events will provide added complexity, and throw you some curveballs. That is when you will be grateful for all the head-space you will have given yourself by rejecting more elaborate methods or activities. 

2. Craft a spacious design 

Make sure you have defined objectives with the event organizers, and plan activities to ensure those are reached. Because there are so many uncertainties connected to the technology and all the different settings, keep the breaks as actual breaks rather than scheduling leisure activities or games.

Virtual attendees will need that time to get away from the screens. Those people who are physically present will be glad to have informal opportunities to mingle and relax. And you and your team will need all the time you can get to make last-minute adjustments or, if you are lucky, take an actual break! Approach your hybrid event planning with spaciousness and generous time buffers in mind for best results!

3. Gather feedback and correct course

Another piece of advice that is always valid, but worth focussing on for hybrid events: gather feedback, iterate and correct course. Hybrid event planning requires a lot of preparation, but this should not mean you are now bound to a definitive schedule that will never change.

Every group and interaction is different. Learning how to ensure your specific hybrid event is successful will require adaptation to the unique context at hand. What works for a virtual audience is different for those at the in-person event, and so too might it be different during a hybrid event. As such, it pays to listen and create space for feedback.

Involve participants from the beginning in shaping your hybrid strategies (see below for more on how to do this) and schedule regular moments for feedback. For longer events, this could be at the end of each day. For shorter workshops, don’t wait for the last moment: ask for feedback about mid-way, ideally just before a break, so you can start making some changes right afterward.

Time for feedback on the process should not take long: use a poll and get some insight in 5 minutes.

You might want to ask questions such as:

• Which cohort are you in (online, in-person…)? [multiple choice]
  
• How connected do you feel to your cohort (the other people participating in the same mode as you)? [quantitative, e.g. on a scale 1-5]
• How connected/aligned do you feel with respect to the other cohort(s)? 
• How easy/hard is it for you to contribute to discussions?
  
• What are the facilitators doing that is working well to make this hybrid event a success? [open question]
• What could we do to make the experience even better? 

Collecting feedback in this way is serving more functions than one. First of all, you are gathering information that can help you and your facilitation team improve as the event goes on, shaping it based on your specific group’s needs. Secondly, you are modeling flexibility and willingness to adapt and change, two values that are likely needed in any organization or group you might be working with, all the more so if they are experimenting with virtual and hybrid events.

At the same time, you are raising the participants’ awareness of the process, even just by the simple act of reminding them that different cohorts in your hybrid event might have different needs and experiences. This in itself makes it more likely for attendees to collaborate in making it easier for everyone to be included and contribute.

Remember that this feedback is invaluable for future events. Be sure to share this with the hybrid event organizer, the rest of the team and potentially the attendees too!

Hybrid events best practices

In this section we will cover a range of practicalities you’ll need to keep in mind while designing, setting up and running hybrid events. The first part is a deep dive into strategies to support inclusion of different groups. This is arguably the number one challenge of a hybrid event: in this section, we find out why, and list some strategies as well as four practical tools you can use to make sure inclusion is fully supported, wherever your participants may be!

Next, we touch upon the intricacies of tech setups. As virtual event platforms and tech solutions change all the time, so rather than recommend specific solutions, we will be pointing out what you need to watch out for and keep in mind during hybrid event planning and when facilitating a successful hybrid event. 

The third essential matter to consider is your prep work: besides designing carefully and mapping participants, you’ll need to figure out how you will communicate instructions in different ways to both virtual and in-person attendees.

As facilitators, we are already wearing various hats, and hybrid event planning and facilitation will add some new ones to your collection. In this section, we use roles as a way of framing how to best set up a hosting team, and who will do what.

The fifth and final matter to consider is how to run different types of activities: plenaries, small-group, individual, as well as specific activities, to bridge the different cohorts. This section is packed with practical tips to get every part of your program fine-tuned and hybrid-proof! 

Ready to dive in and learn what it takes to run a successful hybrid event? Let’s start by looking at thorny matters of power dynamics and how to bridge those differences.

How will you make sure everyone is included in the hybrid conversation?

In any gathering of human beings, there is bound to be a lot of diversity, and some imbalance of power. This is the case for in-person events and it remains true for hybrid events too.

As facilitator, part of your role is to make the invisible dynamics intelligible to all participants. Offering new vocabulary and words to express what is going on in terms of power dynamics allows the group to reframe them as cultural artifacts: elements that can be interacted with, evaluated and, if needed, changed.

Let’s consider some key points concerning possible power imbalances specific to the hybrid environment, and what we, as facilitators, can do about them.

Power imbalances in hybrid events

Here are three typical cases of how the hybrid setting can exacerbate pre-existing power imbalances or create new ones. The next time you join or lead a hybrid event, see if you can spot these as they happen! 

1. In-person attendees may have a stronger say – Participants who meet in person will have all the benefits of sharing space and are likely to tend to create a niche culture for themselves, based on the simple fact that they will read one another’s body language and subtle cues. As facilitators, we should raise each group’s awareness of cohorts joining from other locations and not fall into the trap of allowing the in-person group to prevail over virtual attendees.
   
2.  The largest group, wherever it is, may dominate – There certainly is power in numbers, and the largest group of attendees, whatever their position, may hold greater sway over the entire hybrid event. Pay extra attention to the minority and make sure those voices are heard, perhaps by inviting them in, as you would with any quiet participant (“We haven’t heard from the folks over in Sydney in a while.. I’d like to just check in if there is anything you’d like to add…?”).
   
3. Those who share the facilitator’s position might prevail – By the mere, inescapable fact of being humans, facilitators may develop an unconscious bias towards the people in our same room or position, creating momentary alliances. Be aware of the “us vs. them” risk. You may find it natural to prioritize those with whom you are sharing space, or a situation (e.g. if the facilitator is online), and should remind yourself to check your biases and act accordingly for all hybrid events.

How to handle power imbalances

Our goal as facilitators is to make sure everyone’s voice can be heard. There are (at least) two pathways to getting there. The first is to work on your awareness as a facilitator, while the second leverages the collaboration of the entire group. 

1. Keep power imbalances in your awareness and be attentive to them. 

Consider this part of your facilitation prep work. Take time to consider where power imbalances might be and how your own stance, language and behavior can worsen or improve the situation. 

If you know you will tend to prioritize in-person participants (because you are in the room with them, or out of pre-virtual-facilitation habit learned from attending online events), make a mental note of this. Remind yourself and your team to take questions from online participants first. Place the screen on which you see the online participants where your attention will be directed to it.

If you catch yourself internally agreeing with the in-person attendees more than with the online ones, ask yourself why. Are you fully understanding them, or are you missing their point (perhaps because of the lack of visual clues)? If you’ve run a lot of virtual events, that experience will help here too!

2. Focus all participants’ attention on the hybrid scenario, open a conversation and co-create support systems. 

If you got the impression that the previous point might leave you exhausted, you are probably right. Holding your attention on the in-person and online groups at the same time is yet one more task for your already pretty busy inner juggler.

What can you do? Use one of the tools facilitators like best: throw the ball right back to your participants! Take time at the beginning of the session to discuss with the group: how are you feeling about being in this hybrid event? What examples of successful hybrid collaboration have you experienced? What would help you participate fully, at your best?

This can be part of the slot you have set aside to present and discuss ground rules/group agreements, or can be a specific conversation. With a large group that will meet only once, for example for a community event, it may be enough to acknowledge the challenge out loud, and propose some basic agreements.

With groups that will work together longer, e.g. in a series of workshops or a company team, it’s definitely worth spending time talking this through together.

At the start of a workshop, kick-start separate conversations in the different groups around such questions as:

• How does it feel to be in this cohort?
• What do you think might be obstacles to your full participation in the event today?
• What would work for you to counteract these? Do you have any requests for the plenary group? 
• How do you imagine the other group(s) feel about this setting? What might support them?

Then, use the What I need from you activity from Liberating Structures to facilitate a dialogue among the different groups of participants and invite them to ask of each other what they need to support full participation.

This process can feed into drafting your group’s unique “hybrid event collaboration agreement”, which you can revise as you go.

Practical tools to support inclusion 

Map the group

For participants – Use maps and diagrams to make sure everyone knows who is in the hybrid event, whether or not they are in the room. If people are joining in a huddle from the same screen, ask them to add individual names as well as the location (e.g. “Marina, Hannah, John – Vienna team” rather than just “Vienna team” or “Marina”). Names of participants joining remotely might be hard to read if they are projected on a screen for the in-person crew: make a map of your hybrid event participants on a whiteboard so everyone can see who they are interacting with. 

For yourself – Draw a diagram, for your own use, of who is where. Keep it on top of your notes. Add a mark next to the name of those who are taking the floor and speaking up. Even if you don’t remember to do this every time, you might still notice patterns emerge. Are people in the physical space, or in one particular room, participating more? What about your virtual audience? Try some nudging to rebalance this, e.g. by inviting a specific group to speak up more “I’d love to hear what our colleagues in Paris think about this…”

Language matters

Take a moment before the event to decide on how you will refer to the different groups in your hybrid event, and stick to it. This can also be part of the explicit agreement you establish with participants. Avoid creating accidental hierarchies in your virtual and hybrid events by referring to one situation as not-that: in-person and not-in-person, on-line and off-line or, worse, “here” and “there”.

Several facilitators and educators have been popularizing the idea of talking about roomies and Zoomies (I first heard of this trend from Judy Rees over at ReesMcCann). While this may not apply to your situation (you may be using another software, or have more than two groups) it’s a great example of what works. The two terms are fun, playful, and neutral, in that they do not imply one is more important or better than the other. 

Hybrid buddies

What do you do when you have a large group of people traversing an unfamiliar landscape, like a big city, and you want to make sure nobody gets lost? You create a buddy system! As we set out with our group to explore the terrain of our hybrid event, we can do the same. At the start of the workshop plan team-building activities in breakout rooms (see here for our handy methods list) to form a buddy pair, triad or huddle.

Inform participants that this group will remain stable throughout the event and be the setting in which they can support one another and draw the best from the different situations they are in. People connecting from their computers are at an advantage in terms of doing quick research. Those sharing a room with a facilitator might find it easier to attract your attention, or to speak out.

A buddy system is an excellent solution to ensure the group shares the challenge of making this the best possible hybrid experience, and lighten your load as well!

Use polls for convergence

When taking decisions or checking the room for agreement, there is a heightened risk that people will stay silent in a hybrid event. Because facilitators will be dividing their attention among different cohorts, it is easier to miss subtle body signals or facial expressions. Make moving towards convergence easier by using polls like those you would use in a virtual event to make sure everyone has an opportunity to pitch in a vote or a comment.

Participants at in-person events can use their mobile phones to take part in online polling apps like Menti and Slido (find more ideas on what tools to use in this article on tools for remote participation). By checking the number of people contributing to a poll, you can instantly verify participant engagement, count votes and move the group towards decision-making.

What technology should you consider when planning a hybrid event?

The tech side of planning a hybrid event can be daunting. There are a lot of choices to make that need to take into account the logistics of both in-person events and virtual events. There’s also some cool new tech (such as Owls, cameras designed to follow the speaker) to consider, but ultimately it comes down to figuring out, based on the constraints of the specific situation, how to enable everyone to hear and see one another, in all possible directions.

How will participants at your in person events be able to see those online? Screens and projectors will need setting up. How will remote attendees see those in person? At the very least, you will need multiple webcams pointed on the facilitator/speaker, the other participants, and any materials (e.g. whiteboard).

In hybrid events, sound is even more important than sight to allow for interaction and participation. Be aware that people might even be joining from their phones, with audio-only, if the connection does not allow for more data sharing.

What exactly to do in order to allow everyone to hear one another depends on the situation, but for sure you will need ways for people connecting online to clearly hear participants in the room, and vice-versa. You might have the option of using a multi-directional mike, or require an assistant with a cordless microphone to move around the space.

Having an established spot with a microphone from which online attendees can clearly hear the speaker is the easiest tech setup. This will probably translate into having to remind participants of where to go when they want to speak, until a routine is established. 

Small group work mixing online and remote participants is the hardest type of activity to set up if your location has limited space: if everyone is working together, with both in-person and virtual audience, there will be a lot of audio interference from hearing different voices and echoes coming from many speakers.

Be aware of the limitations beforehand, and plan activities based on the constraints of the specific location. Make ample time in your schedule for planning and checking your tech, just as you would for a virtual event.

It’s also important to have a backup plan to communicate with cohorts that are not sharing the space with you in case something fails (e.g. by setting up an instant messaging channel for all hybrid event attendees – and another one for just the hosting team!).

Virtual online whiteboards and shared documents, giving the possibility to all participants to visualize the same information and capture insights directly, are a great support to keep everyone aligned and on track. These work just as well in hybrid as they do in a virtual event. Define a single source of truth for your hybrid events where attendees can find all the key information on the program, links, contacts and schedule.

The hybrid event format allows virtual and in-person attendees to create particularly rich shared documentation by working together. Set up shared documents and galleries on which to upload pictures and output from exercises. 

In this facilitation story by Daniel Unsöld, the shared whiteboard used during a multi-day hybrid event functioned as a home base to orient remote participants who dropped out and reconnected, something which is likely to happen with longer gatherings. 

How to prepare for your hybrid event?

The factors limiting your design choices will fall into three categories: distribution (of participants), objectives (co-defined with your client/host) and technology (in which we are including also factors connected to the location). Before starting to create a session flow, define your objectives clearly.

Design based on desired outcomes; especially if these are your first experiments with hybrid events, trim down activities you may be tempted to insert as extra bits but that do not serve the main purpose.

Next, map all the participants of your hybrid event. Even if the map is approximate, it will still help you clarify what is needed for the different cohorts. Think about the technology available and any limitations connected to available spaces (e.g. acoustics). Remember that many of the logistic concerns of an in-person event (accessibility, room size, etc.) still apply!

Similarly to virtual events, and more so, hybrids require a lot of preparation. Get instructions ready for every activity. Virtual attendees will benefit from having instructions written up for them, perhaps in a slide or ready for the tech host to drop in the chatbox. Printed or projected instructions can also help participants who attend in person to understand the activity better, particularly if you expect your attention to be going to the remote cohort at that time. 

What roles need to be covered for successful hybrid events? 

What follows is a list of roles, not of people. A role is a part played by someone in a particular situation. For example, you are probably familiar with the role of time-keeper. You may keep the role of time-keeper for yourself as facilitator, or you may delegate it to a co-host, or even appoint a participant to remind everyone of the time. You may even use an app or automatic reminder to cover the role.

Roles are a useful lens through which to puzzle out the problem of creating the best team for a successful event: a person might fill more than one role, and a role could be filled by more than one person.

In any hybrid event, you need to consider all the roles you would for an in-person event, plus the ones needed to successfully run an online gathering, and a couple of new ones. Depending on the exact nature of your hybrid event, event organizers, number of participants, type of setting and so on, you may need to cover many different roles yourself, or have a hosting team.

There is no point in trying to be a jack-of-all-trades if that is going to be exhausting and result in less attention given to participants. Go through this list whilst planning your hybrid events and make sure you know how many roles you are taking on, whether you have enough resources to delegate the roles you need other people to do, or if you need to onboard apprentices, volunteers, (or even participants!) to cover some of these. 

Event designer

This is a role you are likely to be taking yourself, perhaps alongside someone from the convening team (aka, probably, your client). At the design stage, consider what the experience will be like for all the different groups involved in your hybrid event, create your plans B (and C…D?). Take a look at this template to see how the breakout session function of SessionLab can help you organize your design for a hybrid event. 

Lead facilitator

This is the role mainly responsible for guiding participants through the various activities of your hybrid event. The lead facilitator’s main focus is on awareness, clarity and inclusion. As lead, you’ll need to have the mental space required to sense the room and be as present as possible with the participants, regardless of which cohort they are in.

There is no firm rule or established practice in hybrid events as to where the lead facilitator is. The default may be to attend in person events, but it’s worth considering based on your specific event. They may be with the largest group meeting in person, with one of the satellite groups, or working alongside virtual attendees. This will influence power dynamics and tech needs. 

Tech host/producer

The tech hosting role is the one ensuring that the online environment works as smoothly as possible. This role is usually behind-the-scenes and is often (but not necessarily) silent. Think of who will be answering people in the chat, setting up breakout rooms and giving everyone access to links for whiteboards and polls. Anyone used to running a virtual event will find their skills useful here.This person may also be responsible for choosing a hybrid event platform or which online tools you will use.

Video/audio specialist

The technological aspect of hybrid events is key to enabling full participation. Video is important, and audio is fundamental! This role is there to ensure participants can see and be seen, hear and be heard. Experience in running virtual events and using those tools will be invaluable here.

Visuals curator/designer

Well-crafted visuals can be a great support for different groups to participate and follow. The role of the visuals curator/designer is to support full engagement with the aid of graphic tools. This might coincide with the work of a graphic recorder and/or might be more focused on preparing virtual whiteboards, curating collections of snapshots from the various locations, and so on.

Bridge-builder 

This role’s task is to pay particular attention to the connection between the different cohorts throughout your hybrid events. It may be partially filled by elements of the design itself, or there might be a person tasked with putting extra attention to this element. Though this might seem like an optional role, the bridge-builder can be vital in creating a successful hybrid event.

Time-keeper

A time-keeping role is essential for every meeting, hybrid or not. That said, because different groups at your hybrid events will be in such different settings and probably, at least part of the time, doing different activities, a time-keeping role is essential to ensure everyone stays on track. 

What should you keep in mind when designing and running activities at a hybrid event? 

Facilitators love to mix and match different types of activities to create an engaging flow. Below, you’ll find some practical tips on how to adapt different types of activities for a hybrid event, including plenary sessions, small-group work, individual work and a special new extra hybrid-only category: activities bridging the virtual and in-person worlds. 

In plenary 

When everyone is working together at the same time, the challenge is holding everyone’s attention and keeping the event cohesive. Excellent audio and video are key here, as you want to make sure participants and speakers can see and, even more importantly, hear one another wherever they are. 

Tips for facilitating plenary sessions in hybrid mode:

• Ensure your audio and video setup allows speakers to be heard and seen by all;
• Keep presentations short and interactive, use polls to punctuate longer talks;
• In Q&A sessions, give the floor first to the group that is at a disadvantage in that setting (in many cases this means the online cohort, but other scenarios are possible, e.g. the speaker and facilitator are both online and there is a small group meeting in person, in which case, prioritize them!);
• Make sure discussions are captured in a way that is accessible to all. If you have someone writing on a physical whiteboard, take pictures and upload them on a virtual platform, so your virtual audience can see what was written down and so that attendees to your hybrid events can review later.

Small group activities

Facilitators appreciate the benefits of working in small groups and breakout sessions, where participation is higher and everyone has time to get their say. This remains valid in hybrid events. Here are some specific considerations to keep in mind.

There are basically two ways of organizing small group work in a hybrid event. If your tech setup allows it, you should consider alternating both of these in your design, as they have different benefits. 

1. Different activities for online and in-person participants. 

Beginning with the same objective, design different things to do for the people who are sharing a space and for those who are online. This will allow you to benefit from the best of both worlds throughout your hybrid event. In-person groups can move around and use objects, maybe do a role play. With virtual attendees, you can encourage using the power of quick research and note-taking.

An example of this would be a storytelling activity in which the people who are in the same room tell a story with objects and acting, while the ones who are online create a storyboard using images collected from the web.

If you need to give different instructions to the two groups, make this clear, and share in a slide or chat the instructions for your virtual participants. If timings are different, give the remote crew more breaks, as they are needed to counteract the fatigue of being online.

2. Mixing online and in-person participants in small groups. 

This is the kind of activity that will feel most unique to hybrid events. To enable participants in different settings to work together, each small group will need their device (laptop or phone). You can leverage the fact that both the in person and virtual audience of your hybrid events will likely have a smartphone in their pockets.

The two limiting factors in this event format are bandwidth and acoustics. Firstly, you need to make sure the connection at your location can be trusted with multiple people connecting at the same time.

Next, try to imagine what the space will sound like with numerous conversations going on in hybrid mode: will participants be able to hear voices coming from different audio equipment? The risk is that everyone in the hybrid event will raise their voices and create a distracting cacophony. This can be avoided if the space allows participants to wander into different breakout spaces or use the outdoors. 

Tips for facilitating small groups at a hybrid event:

• Include in your design activities in which each cohort works separately and others in which they work together (as long as this is feasible for your tech setup);
• Keep instructions as clear and simple as possible. 
• Get everyone together again to debrief and share reflections;
• Use shared documents online to capture learnings. 

Individual activities

Make space for individual reflections as well as group work during your hybrid event. Before a brainstorming session, or at the end of a block of activities, learning is enhanced by having a quiet moment for each person to answer prompt questions individually. If you need to create breakout groups online or do other behind-the-scenes work, you will thank yourself for putting some time for participants to do individual work just before the activities you need to do more setting up for. 

Bridging the online and in-person groups

In a hybrid community gathering held in December 2022 in Valencia, which was based on this template, the facilitation team was looking for a simple way to connect people joining online to those in person on a very human level.

With co-facilitators Rowan Simonsen and Szilvia Zsargo, we decided to punctuate the event with what we called hybrid checkpoints: every two or three hours during our hybrid event, me and Szilvia invited the in-person audience in Valencia to scatter in the outdoor space of the campus and use their phones to connect to the Zoom call their colleagues were on.

Once they were in the call, Rowan, who was hosting the virtual component, created pairs (in some cases, triads) and sent them off for a 10-minute chat in breakout rooms. The prompt was simply “how are you doing and what are your insights at this point in the gathering?”. The insights collected were invaluable, and both virtual and in person attendees reported feeling a real sense of connection and empathy. 

Hybrid events checklist

We hope this guide gives you all your need to feel prepared and confident in setting up a successful hybrid event.

And since there is a lot in here, we thought it might be helpful to add a checklist you can go through while planning and designing. Whether you’ve never run an in-person event or or a pro, hybrid events have many moving parts and this guide can help you ensure a smooth process.

In closing… let’s learn together, fast!

Have you thought of how and where you will share your learnings about hybrid events and meetings?

Tools and skills around hybrid events are likely to be the defining topic for the next few years, and this is just the beginning. After all, it’s one of the best things about working in facilitation: the learning never stops!

We can all expect a lot of new things to learn, success stories (and the occasional spectacular failure) from the world of virtual events and hybrids. Learning is faster and more effective when we learn together as a global community of practice, so consider contributing by sharing your stories and experiences of hybrid events with other facilitators, including in comments to this piece!

Designing engaging learning flows 

Whether it’s guiding a team through a strategic planning session or running NGO leadership training, the journey begins with a well-designed agenda. 

While Tucker had previously used Excel to design his sessions, after using SessionLab, Tucker says he couldn’t go back.

“Excel is not a great tool for professional workshoppers designing a lot of experiences. I wondered what other agenda tools were out there and found SessionLab. I looked around in general and I thought oh, no, SessionLab. This is the agenda tool. We use it every day.”

For visual thinkers like Tucker, SessionLab’s simple overview and color coding is a massive boon to the workshop design process. 

“I love the color coding because it helps us know what we’re looking for in all of our experiences. It lets me quickly see what each section of the workshop is doing at a glance.”

In SessionLab, you can flexibly color-code every block and instantly see a visual breakdown of your session in the mini-map. color code by activity type, learning style or whatever taxonomy suits your needs. 

Tucker and the team at Thrive Impact use a standardized color scheme across their agendas to keep all their designers and co-facilitators on the same page. 

“For example, green is for breakout rooms where participants are connecting with one another while yellow is for group sharing in the main room. Purple is a video or large group activity and blue is when a facilitator delivers content and training. Then we have red for a break or reflection.”

By color coding in this way, Tucker is able to easily see the ratio between different activity types and create a balanced and effective learning flow.

“We’re looking for a good ratio of green, purple and blues activities. If we have too much blue, that means we have too much content and we need to re-balance the agenda, because we already know based on the data around learning experiences that people don’t always learn well that way.”

For Tucker, well-designed and balanced experiences are the foundation of an effective workshop, especially when working in a virtual environment. By using SessionLab, the team is able to quickly create sessions that engage their clients in a spirit of co-creation and problem solving. 

Effective co-creation

Effective collaboration and team alignment is a key aspect of any successful NGO. Similarly, Tucker and his team use SessionLab to co-create their agendas and collaborate on the design together in one-place. 

“We all pull up Session Lab and go through the agenda at the same time. We start with a high level overview of where we’re going and then go down to the nitty gritty details.”

Once a high-level design is agreed upon, the team at Thrive Impact will assign each team member to the section or block they’re delivering so each facilitator can work on their script or content and easily get feedback from colleagues.

At the top of each agenda, they’ll add a note with important links and team roles to ensure everyone is aligned going into the session. With everything they need in one-place, Tucker and his team are able to deliver exceptional learning experiences, every time. 

Creating a repeatable, systematized process in SessionLab has also helped the team streamline their workflow, save time and focus on what matters most.

“We have people on our team who love to systemize the process in SessionLab and it’s immensely important because it saves so much time.”

A big part of this process is about institutionalizing knowledge and making previous agendas and activities available to the team.

Not only does using templates and a team library help the team at Thrive save time, but it also helps them transfer knowledge and train new members effectively.

“With our SessionLab library, we can go in and say, oh yeah, I need to do that paired interview. Let me drag and pull that into my agenda and then I can make it my own. We can say, hey, go into the templates and take a look. That kind of internal collaboration and institutionalization is great.”

Supporting session delivery 

When Tucker first started using SessionLab, what stuck out to him most was the ability to stay in control of time and dynamically update session timing during a workshop.

“The thing that was initially really helpful was the fact that you could have dynamic time in SessionLab. There are many times in the room where we actually add time as we go. So we’re like, wow, this section went way over and we’ll add extra minutes and adjust activities directly.”

In SessionLab, every block has a set time allocation. When you make changes in real-time, your total time and schedule will update automatically, giving you the confidence to make changes and see the impact on the rest of your agenda. 

Tucker is also able to understand how he’s performing against schedule and make informed decisions on what to change while facilitating. 

“We know in real time where the train is on the track from a schedule perspective. That’s an important benefit of using SessionLab for us, too.”

Time-locks have also been useful to the team at Thrive Impact. By locking time sensitive items in place, they’re able to ensure that there’s time left for reflection or breaks and that they cover everything needed. 

“We always put a time lock at the very end of a session for five minutes. We know we always want to end a session with heart, which is really ending with space for reflection. Time-locking blocks gives me a good sense of how long I have.”

Conclusion 

When NGOs are given the tools to plan strategically, reduce burnout and solve core problems, they can create impactful and lasting change. 

For the team at Thrive Impact, that change all starts with a balanced and engaging session design. SessionLab plays a part in helping Tucker and the team design effective learning experiences and help NGOs achieve their goals and make change in the world. 

“We love SessionLab. We run so many workshops that we literally use it, almost every business day.”

Whether you’re a team leader, business professional, or facilitator, knowing how to plan and run a virtual workshop effectively is a valuable skill in today’s digital landscape. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk you through how to run a virtual workshop that is engaging and impactful.

What is a virtual workshop?

A virtual workshop is an interactive and collaborative process that is conducted entirely online. Unlike traditional face-to-face workshops held in physical spaces, online workshops take place in a virtual environment. 

During the virtual workshop, the facilitator will lead participants through an agenda including activities, discussions, and exercises with the intention of reaching a desired outcome.

Common outcomes for a virtual workshop can include improving team collaboration, solving tough problems or creating innovative ideas. Workshops can cover almost any topic you can think of, and they are especially effective at unleashing collective intelligence and bringing people together around a shared goal.

Virtual workshops are typically run by a workshop facilitator or team leader, all within an online setting. Facilitators will use digital tools to host the session, encourage engagement and collect input from participants. Using breakout rooms to hold small group discussions or using quizzes and polls to collect input are just some of the ways that facilitators might use digital tools during the workshop. 

Check out our workshop templates to see some example agendas you can use for inspiration or to get started when designing your virtual workshop.

How to plan a virtual workshop

The process for planning online workshops isn’t all that dissimilar from planning an in person workshop. Generally, the facilitator will follow a workshop design process from idea to completed agenda by thinking about objectives, audience and good design principles.

That said, facilitating in a virtual environment has a number of differences that factor into how you design, organize and host your virtual workshop.

The below list serves as an outline of a virtual workshop planning process, though you’ll find more in-depth tips in our section on best practices.

Want to go deeper? Check out our full step-by-step guide to planning a workshop.

1. Define the goals of the workshop
2. Define your target audience
3. Draft the initial concept of the workshop
4. Get approval from any stakeholders
5. Draft your virtual workshop agenda
6. Establish time, place and participants
7. Choose your virtual workshop platform
8. Create supporting materials such as visual presentations and interactive elements
9. Share completed agenda with any stakeholders
10. Refine your agenda based on feedback
11. Brief co-facilitators and technical team
12. Send invitations to participants or begin promotion of your virtual workshop
13. Test your technology
14. Set up your virtual space in your virtual workshop platform
15. Take a deep breath and run your session!
16. Report back to stakeholders
17. Follow up with participants
18. Reflect and consider improvements for your next virtual workshop

Want to see how such a planning flow can work in practice? Explore our workshop planning template to see a sequence of five working sessions where workshop organizers can come together to create an effective virtual workshop.

What are the benefits of running a virtual workshop?

Virtual workshops have become increasingly prevalent as both individuals and organizations turn to digital tools to help facilitate learning and growth. Being able to connect and collaborate with others in a dedicated session wherever you are located can be incredibly impactful. 

In this section, we’ll explore the benefits of running virtual workshops and why you should consider running them in your group or organization.  

Accessibility and inclusivity

One of the primary advantages of virtual workshops is their accessibility. Participants can join from anywhere in the world as long as they have an internet connection and some basic tech. This can help eliminate geographical barriers and allows individuals from diverse backgrounds to engage in learning or collaboration opportunities that may not have been accessible otherwise. 

With the right online tools, virtual workshops can also be inclusive in other ways. Consider how automatic transcription, description and translation software might widen your audience and make it easier for people with different needs to participate. 

The accessibility and flexibility of a virtual workshop makes it possible to bring people who might not otherwise be able to attend together. Different time zones become less of an issue. Inviting an expert speaker or coach to your session becomes possible. Think of a virtual workshop as an opportunity to do more and include more people too! 

Cost-effective

Hosting or attending virtual workshops is often more cost-effective than traditional in-person workshops. There are no expenses related to travel, accommodation, or renting physical venues. This makes virtual workshops an attractive option for individuals and organizations looking to optimize their budgets.

There’s also a reduced impact on less tangible costs that might otherwise be absorbed by participants or a team. Even time is saved when hosting a virtual workshop! This can help create an environment where participants are happy to attend and aren’t compromising some other aspect of their work or life.

Diverse learning tools

The digital environment of virtual workshops allows for the use of a wide range of learning tools and technologies. From virtual whiteboards for brainstorming to breakout rooms for group discussions, these tools enhance the learning experience and make it more dynamic and engaging.

Using specific tools for your use case can improve things further. Running a design thinking session? Use Figma and prototyping tools to supercharge your workshop. Running an ideation session? Encourage the group to bring in inspiration and resources for everyone to explore together, then use AI to summarize and cluster ideas.

The possibilities for a virtual workshop are vast and can be tailored to your audience. Be creative and use all of what’s available to make your virtual workshop something special. 

Get results, fast 

Workshops are proven methods for solving problems, creating change and driving innovation. Often, a team can get more done in a few hours of a well-designed workshop than they can in weeks of unfocused work. 

If your organization discovers a need for deep collaboration, why wait until the next team retreat? Run a virtual workshop with an effective facilitator to unblock your team and get results now, wherever you’re located.

If you have time in your calendar, putting together an agenda and bringing people together in a common goal can be done quickly and effectively. Just remember to plan effectively, have a clear goal and where possible, bring a facilitator! You might also save time by using a tried and tested workshop format based on the results you want to achieve. 

Recordings and reusability

Many virtual workshops are recorded, allowing participants to revisit the content at their convenience. This is especially beneficial for individuals who may have missed a session or want to reinforce their understanding of the material. Additionally, recorded workshops can be reused or repurposed for future training or reference.

The outputs of a virtual workshop are often collected in online documents and collaboration tools. Having these ready to go immediately after the workshop can help your team take action quickly. It can be so gratifying to pick up exactly where you left off, often using the same tools!

Reduce environmental impact

In an era of heightened environmental responsibility, virtual workshops align with sustainability goals and allow teams and individuals to practice what they preach. Virtual workshops significantly reduce the carbon footprint associated with travel, accommodation, and physical resource production. 

By embracing virtual workshops, organizations and individuals can contribute to a greener future while still enjoying high-quality learning experiences.

Connect remote teams 

In remote teams where possibilities for connection can be limited, a collaborative workshop can be a great way to get to know one another more deeply while working on a shared goal.

You might even include workshop activities expressly designed to improve connections and bring your group together. While online meetings are great to share information, think of a virtual workshop as a place to truly get things done as a team.

You’ll also find working together in real-time, rather than asynchronously, can be a refreshing change of pace. In our remotely located team, workshops offer a chance to have fun, as well as get things done! 

Tips and best practices for engaging virtual workshops

Virtual workshops have become an integral part of how remote teams collaborate, grow and solve tough problems together. Finding the right platform and bringing your team together is a great start, but the success of your virtual workshop depends on more than just the technology.

In this section, we’ll explore a range of tips and strategies to help you run virtual workshops that captivate your audience, facilitate active participation, and leave a lasting impact. 

Define your goal

Before you dive into planning your virtual workshop, it’s crucial to define clear workshop objectives. Ask yourself, “What do I want participants to achieve or learn by the end of the session?” Your objectives will guide every aspect of your workshop, from content creation to engagement strategies. Clear objectives help participants understand what’s expected of them and motivate them to actively engage.

For instance, if you’re hosting an ideation workshop, your objectives might include fully exploring a problem, brainstorming possible solutions, choosing the best and them coming up with action items that ensure next steps can take place. With these objectives in mind, you can structure your content and activities accordingly.

Be sure to include your objectives in your agenda and let participants know the objectives of your workshop too! If anything unexpected comes up on the day, your objectives can also provide a clear north star you’ll use to stay aligned. 

Choose the right tool(s)

Selecting the right tools is essential for a smooth and engaging workshop. Depending on the design of your workshop, you may need anything from a simple video chat software through an online whiteboard and even a dedicated platform. 

When choosing tools, workshop organizers should start by asking what is needed to run the workshop. Next, consider what you and your participants are already familiar with. The right tools are often those that satisfy the technical needs of your workshop design while also being easy to learn and use. 

You may also want to consider the following factors when selecting your tools:

• User-Friendly Interface: Ensure that the platform is intuitive and easy to navigate for both hosts and participants. This might also include asking your participants or client what they’re familiar with and whether they already have a platform for running virtual workshops. 
• Features: Evaluate the platform’s features, such as video quality, screen sharing capabilities, breakout rooms, chat functionality, and the ability to record sessions. Make sure the platform aligns with your workshop’s requirements.
• Scalability: Check if the platform can accommodate the number of participants you expect. Some platforms have participant limits or work best with smaller groups. 
• Cost: Review the pricing structure to ensure it fits within your budget. Some platforms offer free basic versions with limited features, while others have subscription plans.
• Security: Assess the platform’s security measures to protect your workshop from unwanted disruptions or unauthorized access.
• Your workshop design: Finding tools that meet the needs of your design is an integral part of the process. If you’re running small groups in parallel, support for breakouts that’s a must. If you want people to collaborate visually, perhaps you’ll want an online whiteboard tool as well. 

Need more help? Our post on the best online tools for workshops and meetings is a great resource for finding the right platform and toolset for your needs. 

Create an agenda (and share it!) 

A well-structured agenda forms the backbone of your online workshop. Without an agenda, it’s all too easy to go off track, waste time and be unproductive.

Start your process by designing an agenda that includes a clear timing, instructions and a structured flow of activities. This will keep you on time, ensure you meet your goals and keep you organized too!

In SessionLab, it’s easy to build a step-by-step agenda in minutes. Drag and drop blocks to structure your session. Add timing, instructions, attachments and links to each block so you can facilitate your virtual workshop with confidence. 

Remember that your agenda is also an invaluable tool for co-facilitators and participants too. Share your agenda with anyone helping you run the workshop so you can stay aligned and ensure that the session runs smoothly.

It’s also a great idea to share your agenda with your participants so they can prepare for the workshop and clearly see a breakdown of the session. With SessionLab, create a customizable printout or share an online agenda your participants can follow during your workshop.

Finally, when it comes to running your virtual workshop, have your agenda on a second screen, on a mobile device or in an easily accessible window.

Make it interactive 

Virtual workshops are highly interactive in nature. Rather than lectures or webinars where information flows in one direction, workshop participants are actively encouraged to engage and collaborate in the process.

The result of this interactive format is an engaged group who are actively contributing to the learning process and outcomes of the session. When designing your workshop, aim to include interactive elements and activities that allow your participants to collaborate and actively participate. Here are some of the ways you can make your virtual workshop more interactive.

• Discussion and Collaboration: Virtual workshops include facilitated discussions, group activities, and collaboration among participants. Facilitators often use breakout rooms and whiteboard tools to create space for participants to collaborate and share ideas alongside the plenary session. 
• Interactive Tools: Workshops often employ a variety of interactive tools such as polls, quizzes, virtual whiteboards, and online games. These tools promote participant engagement and encourage real-time interaction. Use what’s appropriate but remember that often, the best thing you can do is simply get people talking and collaborating. Keep it simple and always keep your goal in mind when choosing interactivity tools. 
• Feedback Mechanisms: Facilitators actively seek and incorporate feedback from participants, creating a dynamic learning environment where input is valued.This might look like asking for emoji reactions, responding to a poll or using text call chat to give input without disrupting the speaker. 
• Hands-on Activities: Many virtual workshops incorporate hands-on activities, exercises, and simulations that require active participation, problem-solving, and application of knowledge. Use breakout rooms and collaborative online tools to help your participants engage experientially and work on something in real-time. 

Finding a virtual workshop platform that supports interactivity and real-time collaboration will help make your session more engaging but remember that simplicity is also important.

Simply using engaging workshop activities and getting people talking and collaborating can be enough. Explore facilitation methods that match your goals and encourage your group with games and discussions.

Test your technology and set-up 

Technical issues can derail a virtual workshop, so it’s essential to test all your equipment and software before the event. Here’s a checklist of things to consider:

• Internet Connection: Ensure that you have a stable internet connection with sufficient bandwidth to handle video streaming and other online activities.
• Hardware: Check your computer, camera, microphone, and headphones to ensure they’re in good working order. Ensure your laptop is charged and that you have all your cables! 
• Software: Update your video conferencing software and any other tools you plan to use. Test screen sharing, chat features, and breakout rooms.This is especially important if you’re using any integrations or jumping between tools. A smooth experience can enhance the workshop while any delays or issues can be frustrating. 
• Location: being able to clearly see and hear the host is an important but often overlooked part of a virtual workshop. Consider lighting, background noise and what else is in your camera frame before the session.  
• Backup Plan: Have a backup plan in case of technical difficulties. This might include a secondary device, a mobile hotspot, or alternative communication methods. 

By addressing potential technical issues in advance, you can minimize disruptions during your virtual workshop. And when things fail? Own it and be honest and open with your participants. I’ve often found that using issues as an opportunity to be vulnerable and connect can help create a collaborative atmosphere where everyone is in it together.

It’s also helpful to bring an assistant or co-facilitator to help with technical aspects of your workshop. This person might help with any requests from participants, or even step-in if you are disconnected suddenly.  

Facilitate effectively 

Good facilitation is the key to a successful virtual workshop. As the facilitator, it’s your responsibility to create an interactive and participatory environment. You’ll direct the flow of conversation, keep the workshop on track and ask important questions too. 

While learning how to be an effective workshop facilitator takes practice, here are some simple strategies you can use to engage with your participants effectively:

• Start with icebreakers and check-ins: Start your workshop with icebreakers or introductions to help participants get to know each other. This sets a friendly and welcoming tone. Asking participants to check-in is also a great way to get everyone’s voice in the room and become aware of any needs or issues nice and early. 
• Active Participation: Encourage active participation through polls, chat discussions, and interactive activities. Ask open-ended questions to stimulate discussion. Most facilitators have their own preferred form of encouraging participation, but however you approach it, remember that workshops are collaborative in nature. Create plenty of opportunities for collaboration between workshop participants and participation will follow.
• Encourage Diverse Perspectives: Foster an inclusive environment where participants feel comfortable sharing diverse opinions and ideas. In practice, this can mean using breakout rooms where everyone has a chance to speak, and also being aware of who has and hasn’t spoken in plenary. 
• Use Breakout Rooms: Speaking of breakout rooms, they are a valuable tool for group discussions and collaboration. Use them strategically to divide participants into smaller teams for focused activities where everyone gets space to contribute.
• Manage your time: Try to keep discussions within the allotted time to maintain the workshop’s schedule. If something deserves more time or space, go back to your agenda and see what can shift to ensure you cover the ground you need to while also reaching your objectives. 
• Take breaks when needed: Maintaining energy levels when working virtually can be difficult. Aim for a break every 90 minutes, and ask your group if they need a break if energy levels are flagging. Either getting up from your desk or having a brain break or stretch can do wonders for engagement. 
• Be present: Just as you might ask your participants to close other tabs and be present in the virtual workshop, be sure to do the same. Take a breath and center yourself before the session so your attention is on delivering an engaging workshop and helping the group achieve their goals.

Facilitation is an important skill for anyone leading workshops and meetings. If you’re looking to improve as a facilitator, our article on facilitation skills is a great place to start. You might also find our guide to virtual facilitation useful for navigating the challenges of facilitating an online session.

Use multimedia where appropriate

To enhance understanding and engagement, virtual workshops often incorporate multimedia elements such as presentations and videos. These visual and interactive components add variation to your agenda and cater to different learning styles. 

Used well, these items can elevate a humdrum virtual event into something special and memorable. Here are some of the multimedia elements you might add to your virtual workshop. 

• Visual Slides: Presenters use visually appealing slides with images, diagrams, and bullet points to convey information effectively. Read more on how to create effective visual presentations here. 
• Videos: Short videos or animations are used to illustrate concepts, demonstrate processes, or provide real-world examples. While these can be effective, it’s worth making them short and to the point. Use Youtube timestamps or trim video content so you can engage your audience without making it feel like a trip to the cinema. 
• Screen sharing: Walking participants through something by sharing your screen can be more effective than simply telling them to do so themselves. As with the above, use sparingly and keep things to the point. Watching someone navigate a database for an hour is unlikely to engage your participants!
• Interactive Whiteboards: Virtual whiteboards allow presenters and participants to draw, diagram, or brainstorm collaboratively. Recreating the feel of writing ideas on a whiteboard during an in-person session can be a great way to engage the group. 
• Polls and Quizzes: Sharing the results of interactive polls and quizzes on-screen can be an effective way of making your workshop more engaging and visual. Use tools that do this in real-time to add an element of excitement to proceedings! 

Set clear expectations at the outset

From the outset, set clear expectations for your virtual workshop. Let participants know what they can anticipate in terms of the agenda, timing, and expected participation levels. Communicate any pre-workshop materials or requirements so that everyone is prepared.

Setting expectations also involves defining ground rules for behavior. For instance, you may establish guidelines for muting microphones when not speaking, using video cameras, and respecting others’ opinions in the chat or discussions. 

Virtual workshops are at their most effective when everyone is aligned on ground rules and expectations. Demonstrate the values you want people to embody throughout to set an example for others to follow. Set expectations when you first send out an agenda and then remind people at the beginning of the session for best results. 

Brief Co-facilitators

If you have multiple facilitators, ensure that everyone is well-versed in the agenda and comfortable with the virtual platform. Practice transitions, interactive activities, and troubleshooting scenarios to ensure a smooth workshop flow.

In most case, virtual workshops benefit from the addition of at least one facilitator or technical helper. Check out this guide to co-facilitation to see best practices for digital collaboration on a virtual workshop.

Clearly communicate with workshop participants

Provide workshop participants with clear instructions on how to join the workshop, use the virtual platform, and participate in interactive activities. Often, this means sending an invitation email with a copy of the agenda and major points attached. Be sure to include any relevant links to everyone can join with ease!

Establish guidelines for communication, such as using the chat for questions and comments, and encourage active participation throughout the workshop.

Evaluate and adapt

Continuous improvement is key to running engaging virtual workshops. After each workshop, take the time to evaluate its effectiveness. Gather feedback from participants through surveys or direct conversations and also reflect on your own performance as a facilitator.

Identify what went well and areas that need improvement. What changed in your agenda? What sections were especially effective and which need work?

Use this feedback to adapt your future workshops. Make adjustments to your content, engagement strategies, or technical setup based on the lessons learned from each session.

By constantly refining your approach, you can ensure that each workshop is better than the last. In SessionLab, you can save time by reusing your existing agenda, keeping the structure and whatever worked while also making any necessary changes in a snap. 

Practice and rehearse

It’s invaluable to find time to practice and rehearse your virtual workshop before the actual event. This includes running through your content, interactions, and technical setup. Pay attention to your pacing and timing to ensure that you can cover all the essential material within the allotted time.

If possible, conduct a test run with a small group of colleagues or friends to get feedback and identify what worked well and what could benefit from another pass. 

If short on time, I find it useful to practice the opening of the workshop, any interactive elements and any places where you introduce new tools, share your screen or otherwise switch from a straightforward set-up. These are the places where complications often occur and where rehearsal can help you feel confident and prepated. 

Follow up

After a virtual workshop is complete, that doesn’t mean your work as facilitator is over. An effective session will be supported by follow-up actions that will make it easy for participants to cement learnings and take next steps.

Send a follow-up email to participants with a summary of key points, additional resources, and contact information for further questions or assistance. You may also use this opportunity to ask for feedback or let participants know what’s coming next. 

You might also create a repository of resources related to the workshop’s content and share it with participants for ongoing learning. If applicable, you might also include a recording of the session or any working documents and materials. If there were any agreed actions or next steps, reiterate these or send links to where these actions will be logged and tracked. 

Remember that your workshop is just one part of an ongoing process. Use the follow-up to prepare your participants for whatever comes next and to take the great work of the workshop forward.  

Conclusion

Running a successful virtual workshop requires careful planning, effective facilitation, and adaptability to technical challenges. With this comprehensive guide, you can ensure that your virtual workshops run smoothly, engage participants effectively, and achieve your defined objectives.

Want to learn more about how to run effective virtual sessions? Check out how facilitators use SessionLab to run engaging online workshops that deliver results and supercharge collaboration. 

Whether you’re a project manager or team leader, the right meeting management software can make managing efficient meetings easy and save you valuable time.

In this guide, we’ll explore the best meeting management software, each offering unique features to help you plan, execute, and optimize your meetings effectively.

Good meetings are how the best teams align, make decisions and discuss what’s important to them. The majority of employees spent up to one third of their work week in meetings. Doesn’t that time deserve to be spent well?

An effective stand-up meeting can set your team up for success. On the other hand, bad meetings can feel like a waste of time. So how do you go about ensuring you have productive meetings that also stay on time?

The best meeting management software will not only help you create agendas and stay on time, but they’ll help you streamline your entire process. These tools make it easy to organize your meetings, share the agenda with participants and run the session effectively.

But how do you choose the right tool? In this guide, we’ll share some of the most effective meeting management tools on the market, outlining key features and benefits. Let’s explore!

What is meeting management?

Meeting management is the systematic process of planning, organizing, facilitating, and following up on meetings to ensure they are productive, efficient, and valuable.

In a professional or organizational context, meetings play a crucial role in decision-making, collaboration, communication, and problem-solving. However, without proper management, meetings can easily become time-consuming, unproductive, and frustrating for participants.

Whether it’s a daily stand-up, company all-hands or decision making meeting, every session benefits from being well structured and managed.

One important point when it comes to choosing meeting management software is considering your existing toolset and ways of working. For some remote teams, you may want a complete meeting platform with all the bells and whistles. For others, using an agenda planning tool will be enough to supercharge your meetings alongside your existing video conferencing tool.

In any case, remember that your meeting management solution works alongside the person leading and facilitating the meeting. Think of the solution you use as a way to streamline your process, make tedious tasks easier and save you time. Choose your tool accordingly!

SessionLab: Streamlined Meeting Agenda Planning and Facilitation

Best meeting agenda software

SessionLab is an agenda planning tool that makes it easy to quickly create and share your meeting agendas. Drag, drop and reorder your blocks to create your meeting agenda in minutes. Support your meeting process by adding notes, links and attachments to agenda items. It’s a powerful, easy-to-use tool for anyone looking to create well-structured and engaging meetings.

Automatic timing calculation: SessionLab handles timing calculations for you, so you can focus on creating a tight meeting schedule. Create meeting agendas with minute-perfect timing with ease. As you make changes, SessionLab will automatically update your timing, no need to manually calculate your time schedule.

Collaborative Meeting Planning: Collaborate with your team to design effective meeting agendas and plans, ensuring that everyone is aligned and able to contribute. Invite team members to leave their comments and work together in real time on collaborative agendas.

Access to a Library of Meeting Templates: Save time by utilizing a library of pre-made meeting templates for various types of meetings, from brainstorming sessions to project retrospectives. Running recurring meetings? Create your own agenda templates so you and your team can quickly and consistently run more productive sessions.

Beautiful printouts: Create materials that help you prepare and conduct meetings. Export your meeting agenda in a format that works for you. Customize your printouts to include the information you and your team members need.

Time-tracking during your meeting: Use Time Tracker to keep your agenda on track during your meeting. See where you are against your plan and effectively timebox each item in your agenda. Add meeting minutes and notes to your agenda so everything you need is in one place.

Key Features of SessionLab:

• Fast, effective agenda design.
• Automatic timing calculation.
• Collaborative meeting planning.
• Access to a library of meeting templates.
• Beautiful printouts.

How much does SessionLab cost?

SessionLab is absolutely free to get started with, including ten sessions and everything you need to starting creating better agendas and having more productive meetings. Want more robust features that can enhance team productivity? SessionLab Pro starts at $15 per month, with unlimited sessions, real-time collaboration, exports to Word and much more.

Microsoft Teams: Microsoft-powered collaboration

Best corporate meeting management solution

Microsoft Teams is an all-in-one collaboration platform that combines real-time messaging, video conferencing, and robust meeting management capabilities. It’s an ideal choice for organizations already invested in the Microsoft ecosystem and who want to link meetings to projects and documents easily.

Teams is an effective, collaborative platform where remote teams are able to chat, file share and host video meetings, all in one-place. While it may lack some advanced agenda management capabilities, Teams is a great all-rounder that is a natural choice for PowerPoint and Office 365 users.

Key Features of Microsoft Teams:

• Real-time collaboration and messaging.
• Video and audio conferencing.
• File sharing and integration with Microsoft 365 apps.
• Task and project management.

How much does Microsoft Teams cost?

Microsoft Team has a free version to get started with. Paid plans for Microsoft Teams begin at $4 per user, per month.

Hypercontext: One on one meetings All-star

Best one on one meeting software

Hypercontext is a meeting management tool with a strong focus on helping managers have productive 1:1 meetings and performance reviews with their team members.

Hypercontext integrates with popular calendar apps like Google Calendar and Outlook to help ensure that meeting schedules are synchronized and up-to-date. It also includes tools to aid collaboration and engagement such as discussion boards and action item tracking. Syncing with project management software is a great benefit here.

We also loved the meeting analytics on offer. Hypercontext provides data on meeting frequency, duration, and engagement, enabling teams to make data-driven improvements to their process.

Key Features of Hypercontext:

• Meeting agenda creation and distribution.
• Integrations with calendar apps.
• Team collaboration tools.

How much does Hypercontext cost?

Hypercontext has a free plan if you want to take it for a spin, though if you want to start using more advanced features, Hypercontext starts at $7 per user, per month.

Zoom: Interactive Virtual Meetings and Webinars

Best video meeting software

Zoom is renowned for its video conferencing capabilities, making it an excellent choice for hosting interactive virtual meetings and webinars. Zoom is great at helping your run productive meetings online. Share screens, collaborate on documents, and annotate shared content in real-time. Use breakout rooms for group discussions or activities. You can also record meetings for later reference and take advantage of automatic transcription to easily generate meeting minutes.

In our experience, Zoom works best when paired with other meeting management tools that can handle your meeting agenda or help with engagement. We’ll often have a SessionLab meeting agenda in the second screen and integrate with a Miro board for collaborative work

Whatever other tools in your stack, you’ll absolutely need some meeting software that will actually host your team meetings and allow you to communicate over video. Zoom is a great choice for this!

Key Features of Zoom:

• Video and audio conferencing.
• Screen sharing and collaboration tools.
• Recording and transcription features.
• Virtual background and breakout rooms.

How much does Zoom cost?

Zoom starts out with a free plan. When you start running larger meetings or need some advanced hosting tools, plans start at $15.99 per month.

Meeting Booster: Effective Meeting Minutes Program

Best meeting minutes software

Meeting Booster is meeting software designed to help teams have more productive meetings and . While Meeting Booster offers a full meeting management solution, we found it a great choice of meeting minutes tool.

With its minute taking features, you can easily record actions in a meeting and then send the minutes and actions to meeting attendees without any fuss. Document sharing and meeting notes are streamlined with a common view of the discussion and action items that can be shared during the session.

We especially loved the features for formatting minutes. It makes it easy to create professional materials and get approval on your meeting minutes from necessary stakeholders.

Key Features of Meeting Booster:

• Take, format and distribute meeting minutes
• Meeting action items and task management
• Meeting analytics and reporting

How much does Meeting Booster cost?

Meeting Booster has a free trial with paid plans starting at $17.

Miro: Visual Collaboration and Brainstorming

Best visual meeting tool

Miro is a versatile visual collaboration platform that helps teams brainstorm, plan, and manage meetings with a focus on visual aids. It’s widely used among facilitators who answered the State of Facilitation survey, and with good reason!

In many of our remote meetings, we’ll work together in a Miro board, often collecting ideas, voting on solutions and collaborating visually.

A good meeting management tool helps during both the planning and running of your session. In Miro, you can use mind maps, flowcharts, and brainstorming templates to encourage creativity and problem-solving during your meeting. Getting people into a shared whiteboard can make it easy to illustrate ideas and recreate that in-person vibe among team members.

Top tip: when inviting participants to join a shared whiteboard, you’ll need to send them the right link, in most cases through a chat function. Make the experience seamless: when designing your meeting, add Miro links to the relevant parts of your agenda to make sure you keep everything you need at hand!

Key Features of Miro:

• Digital whiteboards and visual collaboration.
• Mind mapping and brainstorming tools.
• Integration with popular project management and productivity apps.

How much does Miro cost?

Miro has a limited free plan with up to 3 editable boards. Their paid plans start at $10 per user/per month.

Otter.ai: Transcription and Note-Taking

Best meeting notes software

Otter.ai is an AI-powered transcription and note-taking tool that is ideal for capturing meeting minutes, making them easily accessible and shareable for your team.

With Otter, you can automatically transcribe your online meeting in real-time or upload a record to create a transcription afterwards. It’ll automatically identify speakers and create accurate meeting minutes with ease.

Creating resources to support your meetings and make it easy for participants who couldn’t attend to catch-up is a great way to support your team. Meeting management tools like Otter can prove to be a wonderful addition to your toolset.

Key Features of Otter.ai:

• Real-time transcription and note-taking.
• AI-powered voice recognition.
• Searchable and shareable transcripts.
• Integration with calendar and communication apps.

How much does Otter.ai cost?

Otter starts with a free plan. The paid plan’s start at $10 per user, per month and include features like advanced collaboration and exports.

Calendly: Simplified Meeting Scheduling

Best meeting software for scheduling meetings

Calendly is an efficient scheduling and appointment booking tool that simplifies the process of arranging meetings, consultations, and appointments. It’s especially effective for arranging 1-1s or external meetings with clients.

Share your Calendly link, and participants can book appointments based on your availability. Easily set your working hours and specify when you’re available for meetings to get organized with ease. Calendly integrates with popular calendar apps like Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCloud too!

Calendly sends automated reminders and notifications to both you and participants, reducing the likelihood of no-shows. For us, this has been especially useful during hiring processes or when conducting user interviews. Scheduling meetings without extra busy work is exactly what meeting management solutions are good for. Use Calendly alongside an agenda planning tool like SessionLab to effectively plan and arrange your meetings.

Key Features of Calendly:

• Automated scheduling and appointment booking.
• Personalized meeting availability.
• Integration with calendar apps.
• Customizable meeting types and durations.
• Meeting reminders and notifications.

How much does Calendly cost?

Calendly also has a free plan. Unlock more advanced features such as unlimited event types and integrations starting at $10 per seat, per month.

Fellow: Collaborative Team Meetings

Best meeting management software for teams

Fellow is a specialized meeting management tool with a strong focus on team management, feedback and ongoing collaboration. Easily assign clear action items and takeaways to your meetings and track interactions and feedback over time.

Fellow has an agenda builder that is great for simple meetings that may not require more robust time-tracking. You can easily schedule follow up meetings after running a session too. It also integrates with task management tools like Asana, Trello, and Slack to help streamline your workflow.

Key Features of Fellow:

• Meeting agenda creation.
• Meeting prompts.
• Action item tracking and follow-up.
• Integrations with productivity tools.

How much does Fellow cost?

Fellow’s paid plans start at $9 per user, per month, with a minimum of 5 users. You can also try it for free.

Slido: Engage Your Audience with Live Polls and Q&A

Best engagement software for meetings

Slido is an audience engagement platform that enhances meetings and events with live polls, Q&A sessions, and real-time interaction. It’s a great tool to add to your all-hands meetings or workshops.

Slido makes it easy to engage participants with live polls and Q&A sessions, making meetings more interactive. It’s great for gathering feedback, asking questions, and getting opinions in real-time from your audience.

Integrate Slido with popular presentation software like PowerPoint or video conferencing tools to seamlessly incorporate audience engagement into your meetings. You can also access valuable data and insights about participant engagement and meeting performance.

Key Features of Slido:

• Live polls and Q&A sessions.
• Real-time audience engagement.
• Integration with presentation software.
• Analytics and reporting.

How much does Slido cost?

Slido has a free plan with simple engagement tools. For bigger events and more advanced features, plans start at $12 per month.

Stormz: Effective Facilitation Platform

Best meeting productivity tool

Stormz is a platform designed to facilitate engaging workshops and meetings, making it easier to brainstorm, collaborate, and reach decisions as a team. If you’re looking for meeting management software that helps you visually collaborate and run exercises in one spot, Stormz is a good shout!

In essence, Stormz works a lot like a simple, stripped-back online whiteboard designed for simplicity and ease use. Facilitate real-time brainstorming sessions and decision-making processes with intuitive, tools. Engage participants with interactive activities and exercises that encourage collaboration and creativity. Collect meeting notes in the parking lot and return to them later.

In Stormz, you can really feel that the tool has been built with facilitators in mind. For move involved meetings and interactive sessions, we definitely recommend it as a bespoke alternative to Miro and Mural.

Key Features of Stormz

• Digital workshop and meeting facilitation.
• Collaborative activities and exercises.
• Real-time brainstorming and decision-making tools.

How much does Stormz cost?

Stormz has a 10-day free trial and then costs $10 per month with 10 participants per session.

ClickUp: Meeting Task and Project Management

Best project meeting platform

ClickUp is a versatile task and project management software that can play a significant role in meeting management by streamlining task assignments, tracking progress, and facilitating collaboration.

If you’re looking for an all in one solution that can help you keep your team organized more broadly, ClickUp is a great tool to consider.

You can easily assign tasks and manage projects, and initiatives. Tailor workflows to match your meeting management processes. Customize task statuses, assignees, and due dates.

Foster teamwork with communication tools, such as comments, task discussions, and file sharing. You can even track the time spent on various tasks and generate reports to assess productivity and resource allocation.

Key Features of ClickUp:

• Task and project management.
• Customizable workflows.
• Collaboration and communication tools.

How much does does ClickUp cost?

ClickUp’s paid plans start at $10 per user, per month, though it also has a free plan if you wish to test the platform.

Klaxoon: Transform Meetings with Interactive Tools

Best tool for interactive meetings

Klaxoon is a versatile meeting management software that focuses on transforming traditional meetings into interactive and engaging experiences.

Klaxoon offers a range of interactive tools such as quizzes, surveys, word clouds, and brainstorming boards to keep participants engaged and encourage collaboration. For online meetings where you want to encourage active participation, meeting management tools that include quizzes and polls are a wonderful place to begin.

You can also collaborative boards to gather ideas, feedback, and input from participants, making it easier to make informed decisions. Collect real-time feedback and conduct surveys to gauge participant opinions and measure meeting effectiveness.

With Klaxoon, you can take your meetings to the next level by leveraging interactive tools and collaborative features, ultimately improving the overall meeting experience and driving better outcomes.

Key Features of Klaxoon:

• Interactive meeting tools and activities.
• Collaboration and brainstorming boards.
• Real-time feedback and surveys.
• Integration with various apps and platforms.
• Analytics and reporting.

How much does Klaxoon cost?

Klaxoon has a free plan to help you get started with 50 participants. Paid plans for Klaxoon’s more robust features start at $24.90 per month.

Why is Meeting Management important?

Meetings have long been a staple of business and organizational life, providing a platform for collaboration, decision-making, and communication. However, not all meetings are created equal.

Organized badly, meetings can be a waste of time that leaves team members feeling drained and less aligned. Plan and organize a meeting well and your team can achieve great things and stay on time while doing do. This is where effective meeting management comes into play.

Meeting management refers to the process of planning, organizing, facilitating, and following up on meetings to ensure they are productive, efficient, and valuable. It might seem like a straightforward task, but there are several compelling reasons why effective meeting management is of paramount importance.

When a manager or facilitator uses the right meeting management software, meetings tend to flow. Teams are aligned on the agenda, meeting materials are easily created, meeting notes are collected and managers have everything the need to run the session.

In this section, we’ll share the benefits of using the right tools during every step of your meeting process and explore why you should start using a solution to help support your process.

Optimizes Time and Resources

Meetings take time to plan, organize and run. Good meetings are those that feel like an effective use of the collective time and resources of everyone involved. When thinking about running a team meeting, remember that the time used is cumulative for everyone in the session. A one-hour meeting with ten team members can cost your hundreds of dollars in working time. That time should be spent effectively and productively!

Meeting management software is designed to optimize the process and save you time in the process. For example, reusing and adapting a SessionLab meeting agenda can help you create a perfectly-timed agenda in minutes, rather than hours.

Planning and structuring your team meetings effectively can ensure you discuss what’s important, rather than going off on tangents that take you further from your goal. Effective meeting management ensures that meetings are focused, concise, and end on time, making the best use of everyone’s time.

The best meeting management software also makes it easy to do all the tangential tasks relating to your meeting. There’s always something for managers to do, and so saving time here can be a life saver. Whether its collating meeting notes, sending invites, creating beautiful meeting materials or assigning tasks, using meeting software can help optimize this process.

Enhances Productivity

Well-planned and managed meetings help teams get more done. They have a clear agenda, defined objectives, and a structured flow. This allows participants to stay on track, make decisions efficiently, and accomplish the meeting’s goals. Unproductive meetings, on the other hand, can lead to frustration and reduced morale among participants.

I often think of meeting management software as the second facilitator in the room. Have a question about what comes next? Check your agenda. Want to quickly poll participants? Use the engagement features of your tool to make the process quicker. Want to timebox each activity to make sure you cover everything needed? Use a time tracker connected to your session plan.

Meeting management tools are a great way to support your process and improve meeting productivity, all while saving you valuable time and effort.

Promotes Accountability and Ownership

Accountability and Ownership are cornerstones of successful organizations. Get your team behind a new initiative and have team members assigned to follow-up tasks and your projects will be more successful as a result. Good meetings and workshops are often where this accountability and buy-in begins.

Have you ever been in a meeting where you had a nice chat about an upcoming initiative, but it felt like you had no clear idea about what you should do next? Effective meetings enable your team and incentivize action. Great meeting management software can help you by making it easy to set action items, responsibilities, and create clearly defined and documented deadlines.

You can go further by inviting collaborators to co-create your agenda, lead sections of the meeting or give feedback on your plan. A great agenda is one that everyone involved believes in. Getting your team involved in shaping your agendas can have profound effects on team productivity and buy-in.

Encourages Participation and Engagement

Ever been in a meeting where you unintentionally got distracted, just because it was dull? Or perhaps you were trying to get feedback on a new project and were met with silence? Managing a great meeting also includes encouraging active participation and finding ways to engage your audience as necessary.

You can achieve this on multiple levels. Designing your agenda with space to check-in and warm-up participants with activities is a great first step. You might also consider how each item of your meeting flows into the next and tailor your plan to the task at hand. Sending your agenda to participants ahead of time can also ensure they’re prepared to contribute and engage with the topic of your session.

Meeting management software can help encourage participation during the meeting too. You might use a whiteboard for team members to collaborate in real-time. Using quick polls or idea generation games can make a session more intriguing. Something as simple as sharing videos or slides while video conferencing can help hold participants’ attention.

Remember that dropping everyone into a video conferencing tool and talking at them for an hour without variation or participatory activities is a surefire way to have a bad meeting. Use a meeting management tool to help facilitate engagement and active participation throughout the process.

Transparency and knowledge sharing

Transparency is vital for creating a sense of trust and credibility within your team. In the context of meetings, being transparent means making sure that the agenda and supporting information are shared openly and that decisions and notes are documented clearly. Management software can help support this process by making it easy to control who sees what and making it easy to invite people to your agenda and meeting notes.

A meeting management tool like SessionLab can be a great place to keep all your meeting agendas organized. You can reuse your best agendas, share notes and ensure consistency across your organization. Of course, you may have meetings that want to remain private or within certain groups, such as one on one meetings or executive sessions. A good meeting management solution allows you to control who sees what, and invite only those people you want to each agenda or workspace.

Your organization and team will likely create your own rituals and best practices around your meetings. The way you manage meetings in your team doesn’t need to be the same as everyone else (though there’s lots to learn from others) but it does help to be consistent within your group. Your meeting platform will help you achieve this with templates, instructions and by taking the pain out of sharing your best practices.

Conclusion: Optimize Your Meetings with the Right Software

There’s more to an effective meeting than simply getting people in the room. Video calls without structure or planning are rarely productive and seldom help a team achieve their goals.

Effective meeting management software is an essential component of the process, enabling meeting leaders to plan, organize and run sessions with confidence.

Whether you need help with agenda creation, note-taking, scheduling, collaboration, or engagement, the right tools can significantly impact your meeting outcomes. SessionLab is an effective way to start creating and sharing better meeting agendas and supercharging your entire meeting process.

Have thoughts or recommendations? Let us know how you get on in the comments below. Want more help with the cultivating the skills you need to run your meetings? Learn how to become a better facilitator and improve how you hold the space and execute meetings.

Looking for inspiration? Check out our workshop and meeting templates to see how to structure an effective session and use it as the basis for your next meeting.

Leadership activities are a great way of developing the skills and competencies needed to be an effective leader. It’s not easy to learn these skills, especially when so many leaders don’t receive effective training or support. In this article, we’ll explore the leadership activities you should master in order to lead a high-performing team and become a better leader!

Learning the why and how of being a great leader alongside practical techniques and frameworks is one of the easiest ways to become a better leader.

Anyone in a leadership role has both a big influence and responsibility for their team. Some of the aspects they need to pay attention to in order to be a good leader are:

• Setting the climate of a workplace
• Making decisions
• Inspiring team members
• Setting values for their team
• Improving team spirit and cohesion
• Being responsible for their team’s communication and wellbeing
• Developing leadership skills in other team members

There are a number of tools to help you with leadership development. Coaching, peer support circles, and leadership development workshops can all help one to become a better leader.

Leadership activities such as those featured here are also effective at introducing leadership concepts and learning how to solve common leadership challenges. You might run these leadership training activities during a workshop, add them to an ongoing learning program or simply introduce them to managers as needed.

In this guide, we’ve grouped leadership activities by these core competencies, so you can choose the right activity to help yourself or others develop their leadership skills. Let’s dive in!

What are leadership activities?

Leadership activities are exercises designed to help develop leadership skills and enable leaders to be more effective in their roles. They can include activities that help train new leaders and improve core leadership skills like problem-solving, active listening, or effective group management.

You’ll also find that the best leadership development activities give leaders tools and techniques they can use on the job. It’s one thing to know that leaders need to be good listeners, but quite another to be given a framework and toolkit that means you are a great listener who always helps their team feel heard and understood.

The exercises below are not only great to use when training leaders, but they are practical techniques leaders can use with every team member immediately, whatever their leadership style.

What are leadership activities used for?

While managers might approach tasks differently based on their leadership style, there are skills and competencies that all leaders should learn in order to best service their team. Learning how to be a good leader can be difficult, so using exercises and activities to improve leadership skills in a safe, experiential environment can help leaders be more effective in their role.

If you’re running a leadership development program, you might use these activities during the training program. For example, after conducting a self-assessment and deciding how they want to develop as a leader, participants might work on improving their leadership skills with these activities.

Whether you’re running such a program and developing managers internally with workshops or simply want to brush up on your own leadership skills, these exercises are a great place to begin.

A bespoke leadership development workshop (like the one featured in this leadership template!) is also a natural place to include these activities.

In SessionLab, it’s quick and easy to design a leadership workshop fit for your needs. Start by dragging and dropping blocks to design your outline. Add minute-perfect timing and instructions to each activity to refine your agenda.

When you’re ready to share with collaborators or participants, export your workshop agenda in PDF, Word, Powerpoint or invite them directly to the session.

Leadership training activities for building a positive work climate

Leaders are role models to their colleagues and organization. Their leadership styles, principles, and values determine the culture that drives their organization’s behavior.

That is why a competitive, paranoid leader can easily create an organization where team members are similarly competitive and less open to collaboration. While a leader who is open and inclusive will create a climate of openness and inclusiveness. How they behave, and what they consider the norm, also affects which kinds of behaviors are enforced and celebrated and which behaviors are punished.

The following leadership activities can help you in recognising important leadership behaviors that result in a productive workplace. They can also be used by leaders to set the stage for team bonding and a great workplace environment with their team. A must for all leaders!

Leadership Envelopes

Leadership games like this help groups translate abstract leadership principles into practical on-the-job behaviors. Participants work in groups to come up with real-life applications of different leadership principles.

The groups conduct multiple rounds of discussion to build upon each others’ ideas, and in the end, evaluate the best ideas to identify the most useful behaviors. This is also a great activity to run with all your team members. Seeing how they consider and respond to different leadership styles can help you focus on the right approach as a leader!

Leadership Envelopes #leadership #issue analysis #thiagi 

Leadership exercise in groups, working with practical leadership principles.

This activity helps groups to translate abstract leadership principles into practical on-the-job behaviours. Participants work in groups to come up with real-life application of leadership principles. The groups take multiple rounds to build upon the ideas of each other, and in the end, evaluate the best ideas to identify the most useful behaviours.

Your Favourite Manager

In this activity, participants take on three different employee personas and list the behaviors of a positive leader or manager and a negative one from the perspectives of those employees. After some individual reflection, participants compare their lists, first in pairs and then in groups. Finally, they collect the ultimate do’s and don’ts for managers and leaders.

Any activity that encourages deep reflection on your own leadership style and those of your role models is a wonderful way to grow. I’ve been especially inspired by how some of my old bosses approach problem solving while I was a team member working beneath them.

My Favourite Manager #management #leadership #thiagi #teamwork #remote-friendly 

Participants work individually, assuming the roles of three different people and brainstorming their perceptions of three most favourite managers and three least favourite managers. Later, they work with a partner (and still later, in teams) to prepare a list of dos and don’t-s for improving employees’ perception of a manager’s style.

Leadership Pizza

This leadership development activity offers a self-assessment framework for people to first identify the skills, attributes and attitudes they find important for effective leadership, and then assess their own development in these areas. This framework is also a great tool to set individual leadership development goals in a coaching process.

We love activities that allow team members to reflect on different leadership styles and assess their own skills and preferences. The visual format makes it easy to share and reflect on leadership styles later too!

Leadership Pizza #leadership #team #remote-friendly 

This leadership development activity offers a self-assessment framework for people to first identify what skills, attributes and attitudes they find important for effective leadership, and then assess their own development and initiate goal setting.

Playing with Status

The best leadership training activities often allow managers to work on their leadership skills while also providing an opportunity to reflect on their leadership style and how it might affect other employees.

Playing with Status is a role playing game where pairs enact a job interview or coaching session and enact different versions of the conversation based on whether each person has high or low status. By experiencing the effect of status on the relationship, would-be leaders can consider how they interact with other members of their team and create a more positive workplace culture.

Heard Seen Respected

Standing in the shoes of others, practicing empathy and ensuring that everyone on a team is able to be heard is a necessity for great leaders and your team in general. In this activity, participants shift between telling stories where they were not heard, seen or respected and then being listeners who do not pass judgment. 

Remember that leadership training should often start with the fundamentals of respect and empathy. If you can’t respect and empathize with your team members, how can you expect them to do the same for you? Keeping things simple with an activity like Heard Seen Respected can be an especially effective option whether you’re working online or offline. 

Team building leadership activities

Every leader has an integral role in the formation of the teams they work with. Whether you are consciously working on it or not, your attitude and actions as a leader will significantly influence team cohesion, communication and the team spirit of the people you work with.

This comes through in small everyday actions, the way you share responsibilities, the way you empower colleagues, and the way you foster a cooperative work environment as opposed to a competitive one.

Sometimes, it can also be effective to run team building activities with your company that are expressly focused on helping teams come together and bond. Try using the following leadership team building activities with new teams, or groups that need to spend a little time getting to know each other better.

Marshmallow challenge

The Marshmallow Challenge is a team-building activity in which teams compete to build the tallest free-standing structure out of spaghetti sticks, tape, string, and the marshmallow that needs to be on the top. This leadership activity emphasizes group communication, leadership dynamics, collaboration, and innovation and problem-solving.

It’s a wonderful game that allows participants’s natural leadership qualities to shine through, and it helps teams have a lot of fun too!

Marshmallow challenge with debriefing #teamwork #team #leadership #collaboration 

In eighteen minutes, teams must build the tallest free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow needs to be on top.

The Marshmallow Challenge was developed by Tom Wujec, who has done the activity with hundreds of groups around the world. Visit the Marshmallow Challenge website for more information. This version has an extra debriefing question added with sample questions focusing on roles within the team.

Blind Square Rope Game

This activity is a tried and tested game that asks teams to communicate well and solve a problem as a team. Not only is this a fun team building activity, but it’s a great way for potential leaders to step up and help their team win!

Start by tying a length of rope into a circle and then instruct participants they will have 20 minutes to turn it into a square, with fifteen minutes to plan their actions and five minutes to implement. Here’s the catch – no one may touch the rope until you begin, and every team member is blindfolded during implementation. This is an effective leadership game that is great with both small groups and larger teams separated into breakouts.

Tower of Power

All leaders need to work closely with other members of their organization in order to succeed. This leadership game encourages groups to work together in order to build a tower with specific (and sometimes tricky!) rules before than reflecting on what worked, what didn’t and what they would do next time.

It’s a wonderful activity for leadership training, as it provides an experiential way to explore leadership concepts, all wrapped in a fun game!

Minefield

When teams work together well, something magic happens. But what elements constitute a high performing team? As a leader, how can you help ensure those conditions are met? In this leadership game, participants must work together to get every team member across an obstacle while blindfolded.

It’s a simple concept that creates a perfect space for exploring how teams operate and the role leaders have within them. Bring plenty of fun obstacles (squeaky toys are best) and encourage groups to think strategically for best results!

Crocodile River

The Crocodile River is a team-building activity in which group members need to support each other in a task to move from one end of a space to another. It requires working together creatively and strategically in order to solve a practical, physical problem. It tends to emphasize group communication, cooperation, leadership and membership, patience and problem-solving.

Crocodile River #hyperisland #team #outdoor 

A team-building activity in which a group is challenged to physically support one another in an endeavour to move from one end of a space to another. It requires working together creatively and strategically in order to solve a practical, physical problem. It tends to emphasize group communication, cooperation, leadership and membership, patience and problem-solving.

Human knot

This is a simple game to help team members learn how to work together (better). It can also focus on the group’s understanding of communication, leadership, problem-solving, trust or persistence. Participants stand in a circle, close their eyes and put their hands into the circle to find two other hands to hold. Then they open their eyes and the group has to try to get back into a circle without letting go, though they can change their grip, of course.

Who are you? The pirate ship exercise

Every member of a group occupies a different position in the team. An effective team leader is one who considers their role and is aware of where employees also stand.

This leadership training activity is an effective method of getting a group to consider their roles with the metaphor of a pirate ship. Start by sharing the image and invite each person to consider which person on the deck they most identify with. Is it the captain, or perhaps is it the person repairing damage to the hull? What follows is an effective conversation on roles within a team.

Collaborative leadership activities

Whether you’re leading a small group or working across a massive organization, part of your role of a leader is to help their team work together more effectively. Removing obstacles to effective collaboration and creating frameworks for better teamwork is something you’ll be doing as a leader.

Use the activities below to develop the skills necessary to facilitate better collaboration and working habits between team members.

Circles of Influence

Effective teamwork is often about identifying where each member of a team can have the most impact and use their skills best. Leaders often need to find ways to identify where to direct their team and consider how different skills and working styles fit together to make a cohesive team. This activity makes it easy to facilitate this process and encourage employees to reflect and be proactive too!

We love that this leadership exercise encourages every team member to take responsibility and action. When looking for leadership qualities in a group and considering who you might want to develop into a future leader, this is also a great place to start!

Team of Two

Whether you’re leading a team of just a few people or hundreds, the reality is that many of your discussions and interactions with the people you will lead will be interpersonal and one-on-one in nature. Developing the skillset you need to solve issues in your team when they arise and finding ways to ensure these conversations are productive is one of the most important things you can do as a leader.

Use Team of Two whether working online or as part of an in-person session to help your working pairs and interpersonal relationships go from strength to strength. By articulating needs and consequences clearly, this leadership exercise helps people communicate efficiently and see the results they need – a must for anyone in a leadership role! 

What I Need From You

One of the most important leadership skills to cultivate is clarity: being clear in what you expect and need from others in your organisation or group is an integral component of high-functioning teams. With What I Need From You, each team member involved in the exchange is given the chance to articulate their core needs to others and respond in a structured way.

This kind of clear, direct action is great at unblocking conversational roadblocks in both large and small groups, and is something all leaders should have in their toolkit.

Generative Relationships STAR

The relationships between the members of a team can make or break the work you do together. In this leadership training activity, leaders learn how to help a group understand their current working patterns and identify possible changes.

Each participant will individually rate the current performance of the group on the 4 points of the STAR compass tool included. Next, small groups will discuss their choices and find points of alignment and disagreement. Finally, the whole team will discuss the first steps they can take to improve relationships and performance for the group.

Team Canvas

When it comes to enabling true collaboration throughout your organization, it pays to involve your team members in helping shape the way you want to work together. Different leadership styles may call for a different approach to this process, but it’s always helpful to see a complete example of how you might define your team culture and working processes.

In this workshop template, you can see a complete agenda for a team canvas workshop. This will take a team through a process of co-creating and defining everything from your goals, values, assets, and rules. Effective leadership often means tapping into group intelligence and enabling your team to take shared ownership of their success. Team Canvas great way of achieving this!

Inspirational leadership activities

Great leaders inspire others. However, there are many different reasons why someone will find a leader inspirational. Developing the skills to inspire team members and lead with this energy is important, whatever your leadership style.

In order to grasp what facilitates inspiring leadership, try the following exercises. You’ll be surprised at how thinking more deeply about your own role models or what your values can help you in all of your leadership interactions!

Leadership Advice from your Role Model

Everyone is asked to think of a role model they look up to and ask themselves: If a young person would ask these role models for leadership advice and what kind of advice that would be.

Facilitate a group conversation where these pieces of advice are shared and contradicting points are discussed and reconciled. Given diverse enough responses, this structured sharing activity might be a good introduction to the concept of situational leadership.

Leadership Advice from Your Role Model #skills #leadership #thiagi #role playing 

This structured sharing activity provides a faster, cheaper, and better alternative to buying and reading a lot of books: You tap into the wisdom of the group—and of their role models.

Living Core Values

The core values of your organization are a great place to look when you want to inspire your team members. Leaders should be involved in defining and exemplifying their core values and also helping create space for the team to share how they’re living those values. The result is an inspiring leadership exercise that allows a leader to help the group celebrate their wins and also suggest places for improvement.

Start by choosing one of your core values and asking activity participants to share a story of how they have been practicing this core value. After sharing, ask the team to reflect on what inspired them from the story. As with any leadership development game, be the first one to share a story to help guide the discussion. Running this exercise will not only help inspire a team to greater heights but also surface any areas that need improvement – it’s a great method to have in your leadership toolbox!

Campfire

Throughout human history, stories have been a consistent source of inspiration. Whatever your leadership style, finding time to share more about your own story and create space for others to share theirs can be massively useful as a leader.

In Campfire, start by creating a selection of 10-20 sticky notes relating to a concept you wish to explore with the group. Put these on the wall and then invite your group to review them and consider stories they might tell related to one of those words. Start the storytelling session yourself and think about how you might inspire and elicit further stories from the rest of the team before passing the torch to the next person around the campfire!

This is a great activity to run during leadership training or when team building. Creating safe spaces for people to share their experiences is a leadership skill you absolutely want to cultivate and practice!

Letter from the Future

Leaders are often called upon to inspire their team members about the future of their product or organization. Employees who are excited about where you’re going are more likely to work together well and be energized to see results. This activity is useful for helping inspire a team, or even just to inspire yourself as a leader and get your vision for the future down on paper!

Begin by asking your team to speculate on what the world will look like in five years. Next, ask them to write a letter from the future detailing what the group has accomplished in that time and how they overcame any challenges.

Share the results to inspire the group for what you might accomplish and also start creating plans for how you’ll create your desired future. You might even find that running this activity solo is effective when thinking about how you want to develop as a team leader!

Leadership activities for personal development

A good leader is one who helps uplift and upskill the members of their team. These leadership activities are designed to help you encourage participants to be more autonomous, take initiative and work on their personal development.

If you’re new to a leadership role or trying on various leadership styles, these can also be great activities to practice on the road to leading a team. Growth and development is a vital aspect of employee happiness and fulfilment – be sure to bring ideas for enabling others to your leadership role.

Roles in a meeting

Learning by doing is an important aspect of effective leadership. Sometimes, you have to try something new and approach the task with an open mind while working to the best of your ability. This simple method is a great way of encouraging participants to take an important role during a meeting and also take part in developing and refining those roles.

If you’re running a leadership development program and want to start upskilling participants, this is a great way of delegating some simple leadership roles. Plus, it helps encourage the group to contribute and engage with how a successful meeting is put together too!

Alignment & Autonomy

One of the most impactful things a leader can do is get out of a team’s way and allow them to perform more autonomously. Doing so effectively means people can take ownership of their work, be more invested, and develop their skills too. But how can you do this without creating chaos or misalignment?

In this activity, you first help every team member align on your goals and then reflect on where they can take more ownership and be more autonomous in their work while still contributing to the goals of the team. Not only is this a great way to help your team develop, but it also takes work off your plate as a leader and can enable you to get out of the trenches if necessary.

15% Solutions

One of the biggest barriers to personal development is being overwhelmed by what you need to do to achieve your goals. As a leader, you can help your team by enabling them to take the small, important actions that are within their control.

Start by asking participants to reflect on where they have the discretion and freedom to act and how they might make a small step towards a goal without needing outside help. By flipping the conversation to what 15% of a solution looks like, rather than 100%, employees can begin to make changes without fear of being overwhelmed.

The GROW Coaching Model

The best leaders are often great coaches, helping individual team members achieve their potential and grow. This tried and test method is a wonderful way to help activate the development of everyone from a new start to an established leader.

Begin by teaching your mentee or group the GROW acronym (Goal, Reality, Obstacles/Options, and Will.) and guide them through a process of defining each section and collectively agreeing on how you’ll make progress. This is an effective leadership activity that is great for leadership training and is equally useful when it comes to help any team member grow.

Decision-making leadership activities

An important aspect of leadership development is learning how to make informed and intelligent decisions while also ensuring you listen to your team. A leader who bulldozes their team into a decision without first listening to their expertise is not going to make their team feel valued.

The outcomes of uninformed decisions are often poor or frustrating for those involved too. While leaders are justifiably responsible for making final decisions, it’s integral to find methods to do so in a well-reasoned way.

These leadership activities are useful when it comes to making good decisions while involving your team members in the process and developing a leadership style that creates space for others.

Dotmocracy

When solving problems as a team, it’s common to have various options for moving forward. As a leader, it often falls to you to make the decision for which solution or direction to pursue. But how can you do that while also creating space for the opinions of your team to be heard?

Dotmocracy is a tried and tested facilitation method for making informed decisions with the help of your team. After presenting the available options, give everyone on your team a number of dots to indicate which option they prefer. You’ll want to adjust the number of votes based on the number of options there are to choose from. A good rule of thumb is to have fewer dots than there are options, giving just a few for every team member.

Leaders want to be on hand to break any ties and to facilitate discussion around what is chosen, but when it comes to making decisions with your team, this method is hard to beat.

Impact and Effort Matrix

The hallmark of a good decision making process is transparency. Leaders should know why a decision is made and should be able to clearly explain their thinking to team members. As such, the best decision making activities make the process open and easy to understand.

Start this activity by creating a 2×2 matrix and then place possible options on the matrix based on the expected impact and effort it would take to achieve them. This makes it easy to prioritize and compare possible decisions while also including team members in the process.

An inclusive leadership style means bringing your own knowledge to the table while also listening to the opinions of the team. When running this activity, be sure to combine these aspects to ensure items are placed in the appropriate place on the matrix.

Level of influence

Making the right decision is often a process of weighing up various factors and prioritizing accordingly. While there are many methods for doing this, being an effective leader often means making this as simple as possible.

We love this decision making activity because it asks the group (and its leader!) some simple questions to narrow down possible options and makes it easy to prioritize too. Start by asking the level of influence a team has to make possible actions happen and ranking them accordingly.

Next, choose those items that you have the most influence on and then prioritize the ones you really want to happen. This simple, two-step process is a great activity for leadership development as it is something any leader can use with ease!

Fishbone Analysis

Making good decisions requires a complete knowledge of the problem at hand. For leaders who may no longer be on the frontlines of their department, it’s important to surface insights from their team and understand the root cause of any problem before making a decision.

In this leadership activity, start by choosing a problem area and adding it to the head of the fish. Next, brainstorm ideas that might cause the problem and add these as categories to the skeleton. Brainstorm on each of these categories and ask why is this happening in order to dive deeper and fully understand the issue at hand before making an informed decision as a group.

Leadership exercises for setting team values

Usually, the values of a leader are mirrored in the organization. If shortcuts are common practice for the leader, then she will see shortcuts made by her team members all across their projects. But if learning and self-improvement are important to the leader, then this will be a good foundation for these values in the whole organization, too.

To be more aware of your own values as a leader and then bring these ideas to your team, try these leadership exercises!

Explore Your Values

Explore your Values is a group exercise for thinking on what your own and your team’s most important values are. It’s done in an intuitive and rapid way to encourage participants to follow their intuitions rather than over-thinking and finding the “correct” values.

It’s a good leadership game to use to initiate reflection and dialogue around personal values and consider how various leadership styles might chime with some values more than others.

Explore your Values #hyperisland #skills #values #remote-friendly 

Your Values is an exercise for participants to explore what their most important values are. It’s done in an intuitive and rapid way to encourage participants to follow their intuitive feeling rather than over-thinking and finding the “correct” values. It is a good exercise to use to initiate reflection and dialogue around personal values.

Your Leadership Coat of Arms

In this leadership development activity, participants are asked to draw their own coat of arms symbolising the most important elements of their leadership philosophy. The coat of arms drawings are then debriefed and discussed together with the group.

This activity works well with equally well with leadership and team members. Creating a visual representation of what you stand for in the form of a coat of arms can help create a memorable asset you can refer to and rally behind in the future.

Your Leadership Coat of Arms #leadership #leadership development #skills #remote-friendly #values 

In this leadership development activity, participants are asked to draw their own coat of arms symbolising the most important elements of their leadership philosophy. The coat of arms drawings are then debriefed and discussed together with the group.

After the exercise you may prepare a coat of arms gallery, exhibiting the leadership approach and philosophy of group members

Team Purpose & Culture

Ensuring all group participants are aligned when it comes to purpose and cultural values is one of the jobs of a leader. Teams and organizations that have a shared and cohesive vision are often happier and more productive and by helping a group arrive at these conclusions, a good leader can help empower everyone to succeed.

Even with multi-discipline teams and organizations with different leadership styles, this method is an effective way of getting everyone on the same page. This is a framework you’ll likely use again and again with different teams throughout your career.

Leadership communication activities

Leaders are usually viewed as the parents of the organization. It is expected from them that they take care of their people and make sure that proper norms and rules are followed. One of the key areas where a leader has a large influence is the style and amount of communication between people.

Active Listening and giving effective feedback are critical skills to have as a leader but are also crucial for your team members. In fact, the issue that leaders rank as one of the biggest barriers to successful leadership is avoiding tough conversations, including giving honest, constructive feedback.

Develop good communication practices with the following leadership games and activities.

Active Listening

This activity supports participants in reflecting on a question and generating their own solutions using simple principles of active listening and peer coaching. It’s an excellent introduction to active listening but can also be used with groups that are already familiar with this activity. Participants work in groups of three and take turns being “the subject” who will explore a question, “the listener” who is supposed to be totally focused on the subject, and “the observer” who will watch the dynamic between the other two.

Active Listening #hyperisland #skills #active listening #remote-friendly 

This activity supports participants to reflect on a question and generate their own solutions using simple principles of active listening and peer coaching. It’s an excellent introduction to active listening but can also be used with groups that are already familiar with it. Participants work in groups of three and take turns being: “the subject”, the listener, and the observer.

Trust battery

Every time you work together with someone, your trust battery – the trust you have towards a certain person, or the ‘emotional credit’ that person has in your eyes – either charges or depletes based on things like whether you deliver on what you promise and the social interaction you exhibit. A low trust battery is the core of many personal issues at the workplace.

This self-assessment activity allows you and your team members to reflect on the ‘trust battery’ they individually have towards each person on the team and encourages focus on actions that can charge the depleted trust batteries.  It also works great when promoting virtual leadership and working with online teams!

Trust Battery #leadership #teamwork #team #remote-friendly 

This self-assessment activity allows you and your team members to reflect on the ‘trust battery’ they individually have towards each person on the team, and encourages focus on actions that can charge the depleted trust batteries.

Feedback: Start, Stop, Continue

Regular and constructive feedback is one of the most important ingredients for effective teams. Openness creates trust, and trust creates more openness. This is an activity for teams that have worked together for some time and are familiar with giving and receiving feedback. The objective of Start, Stop, Continue is to examine aspects of a situation or develop next steps by polling people on what to start, what to stop and what to continue doing.

For those in charge of online leadership, it’s vital to find ways of having difficult conversations in constructive ways virtually – try this method when working to resolve issues with your distributed team!

Feedback: Start, Stop, Continue #hyperisland #skills #feedback #remote-friendly 

Regular, effective feedback is one of the most important ingredients in building constructive relationships and thriving teams. Openness creates trust and trust creates more openness. Feedback exercises aim to support groups to build trust and openness and for individuals to gain self-awareness and insight. Feedback exercises should always be conducted with thoughtfulness and high awareness of group dynamics. This is an exercise for groups or teams that have worked together for some time and are familiar with giving and receiving feedback. It uses the words “stop”, “start” and “continue” to guide the feedback messages.

Reflection: Team

All leaders know the value of structured and considered reflection. Teams that take the time to reflect and improve are those that can grow and by creating an environment of reflection, team leaders and managers can help their group move forward together.

This method is effective for both offline and virtual leadership development. It helps a group progress from individual reflection through to full group discussion in a way that encourages constructive thought and minimizes potential frustration or antagonistic conversation. 

Leadership conflict resolution activities

One of the most important leadership skills you’ll want to develop is the ability to mediate and resolve team conflicts. Even the most connected and effective teams can run into conflict and it will fall to managers and team leaders to help get things back on track.

Even for established leaders, navigating conflict can be difficult! These leadership development activities are designed to help groups manage and resolve conflicts more effectively.

Giving leaders a framework they can trust and use with their team right away is always a good use of time, and we’d recommend teaching these methods to all new leaders!

What, So What, Now What?

It’s easy to get lost in the woods when it comes to managing conflict. Helping a group see what happened objectively and without judgment is an important leadership skill, and this framework helps make this process easy.

Start by working with the group to collect facts about what happened before moving towards making sense of them. Once everywhere has been heard and given space to process these facts, you can then move towards suggesting practical actions. By following this kind of framework, you can manage a conflict in a pragmatic way that also ensures everyone in a group can contribute.

Conflict Responses

All of us can be guilty of handling conflicts in a less than ideal manner. Part of developing as a leader is identifying when something didn’t go well before finding ways to do things better next time.

In this leadership activity, ask the group to provide examples of previous conflicts and then reflect on how they handled them. Next, ask everyone to reflect on how they might change their behavior for a better outcome in the future. As a leader, use this opportunity to lead the way and be honest and vulnerable. It’s your role to provide a model for interaction and its always worthwhile to see how you can do better as a people manager dealing with conflict too!

Bright Blurry Blind

Finding opportunities to reframe conflict as an opportunity to solve problems and create clarity is a very useful leadership quality. Often, conflict is a signifier of a deeper problem and so finding ways to surface and work on these issues as a team is a great way to move forward and bring a group together too.

In this leadership activity, start by asking the group to reflect on the central metaphor of bright to blind issues or topics, based on whether the problem is out in the open or unknown. Next, invite small groups to ideate on what issues facing the team are bright, blurry, or blind and then discuss them as a group. By working together to illuminate what is blurry or blind, you can create a one-team mentality and start resolving problems that can lead to conflict too.

The Art of Effective Feedback Workshop

All leaders will need to give effective feedback in order to help their team develop and do great work. The best leaders also solicit feedback from their direct reports and use this is an opportunity to grow. But how can you teach these feedback skills and help leaders develop this important skill?

Check out our Effective Feedback Workshop template for a complete agenda you can use to develop this leadership skill. You’ll find a ready-to-go workshop with a guide and PowerPoint presentation you can use to help anyone in a leadership role give and receive better feedback.

Workshop design made easy

Designing and running effective workshops and meetings is an important leadership skill; whether it’s staying organized and on time during your daily stand-ups or planning more involved sessions.

With SessionLab, it’s easy to create engaging workshops that create impact while engaging every member of your team. Drag, drop and reorder blocks to build your agenda. When you make changes or update your agenda, your session timing adjusts automatically, saving you time on manual adjustments.

Collaborating with stakeholders or clients? Share your agenda with a single click and collaborate in real-time. No more sending documents back and forth over email.

Explore how you and your team might use SessionLab to design more effective sessions or watch this five minute video to see the planner in action!

Now over to you…

I hope you have found some useful tips for leadership development workshops above. Now we’d love to hear from you!

What are your favorite leadership workshop ideas and training exercises for leadership development? Did you incorporate any of them into your facilitation practice?

Have you tried any of the activities above? Let us know about your experiences in the comments.

These activities create space for fun and play in big teams, whatever your environment. In this post, we’ll share our favorite large group games alongside tips for running them too!

Whenever you design a session, you’ll want to consider the number of participants so you can plan activities appropriately. With very large groups, it gets harder to involve everyone, but it’s important that you do. Research has proven that play is vital not only at home or in the classroom, but at work too!

These large group games are designed to help you encourage play, connect and team build with groups of twenty or more people. They are also easy to run in parallel in smaller groups and are designed so that everyone can easily organize themselves easily.

We’ve categorized them for the following purposes, so you can find a suitable activity whether you are running a specific event or are looking for ideas for large group games you might use in the future!

Group games for breaking the ice

Do you need some large group games to get people moving and raise the energy level in the room? Or an activity that helps to break the ice and get participants comfortable talking to each other?

Consider these exercises and group activities for kicking off your next training workshop or large group team building session. They’re great to get large groups comfortable with one another in a fun, playful way.

Rock-Paper-Scissors Tournament

This is fun and loud energizer game based on the well-known “Rock, Paper, Scissor” game. People play against each other in pairs until the first win. But instead of the losing players becoming eliminated from the tournament, they become a fan of the winner, and they cheer for them as the winner plays against a new opponent. You repeat the process until there are only two players left with a huge fan base cheering for them. The last two players have to play until one has won twice.

As this group activity tends to get loud, it’s best to play it somewhere outside. The great thing about this game is that it works whether you’re looking for a small group activity or large group game – it scales very easily and requires very little preparation!

Doodling Together

Doodling Together is a fun and creative game where the group gets to collaboratively draw postcards through a series of instructions as participants complete the postcards started by others. You can simply use this technique in parallel groups as the instructions are easy to follow.

It is a great group activity to establish creative confidence, collaborate effortlessly and build capacity for working together as a workshop group. Large group games rarely have the potential to be more hilarious and creative!

Bang!

Bang is a group game, played in a circle, where participants must react quickly or face elimination. One person stands in the middle of the circle as “the sheriff”, pointing at other players who must quickly crouch while those on either side of them quickly “draw”.

This is a good activity to generate laughter and it can also help with name-learning for groups getting to know each other. For a party or event with more than 30 people, it is best to play it in parallel groups. If you’re looking for energizers for large groups, this is one of the best group games to help get people excited and raise their energy level.

3 Question Mingle

In this group game, every participant creates three thoughtful questions that they want to ask other group members to get to know them better. People start to mingle to ask and answer questions in pairs. After asking a question and listening to the answer, they hand over that question. Thus, in each one-on-one meeting, participants will swap one question each.

This allows your team to learn interesting facts about each other and works with a group size of up to 50-60 people. A more thoughtful group game, 3 Question Mingle is great whether you’re working with internal teams or at a conference where you’re trying to encourage participation.

Group Order

Help teams get to know each other better with this fast, simple ordering game. Start with everyone standing and milling around your space and ask them to organize themselves into a line based on a criteria such as height, number of pets, time at your company or something else entirely! Helping friends learn something new about each other while getting into a line is a great addition to a team building session, and can help kick-off any group event.

Though the number of people playing is dependant on available space, I’ve found this quick game a hit, especially playing with ideas and ordering criteria that are a little outside of the box!

Icebreaker: The Group Map

Large group icebreakers are a wonderful opportunity to get to know each other and share a little about yourself with the team. This game invites participants to imagine the available space as a map of the world and place themselves where they are from.

This first step is often energetic as people try to find their relative geographies and move around the space. Next, ask your team to reflect on where they are from and then share some positive memories or experiences from that place. As with any large group activity, it’s helpful to go first and demonstrate the kind of thing people should share and set things off in a fun, light mood.

Apple, Orange and Banana!

Complexity isn’t your friend with a large group. Sometimes, all you need is a quick game with simple instructions in order to get things kicked off!

Apple, Orange and Banana! is a fast, active energizer that is great for teams of any size. Start by asking the group to form a circle and put their hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them. Next, ask everyone playing to jump forward when you say apple, jump back when you say orange and then jump and turn 180 degrees to put their hands on the shoulders of the person who has behind them. Work up to combining multiple commands to keep your team on their toes and generate lots of laughter too!

One Word Method

Some of the best games for playing with big groups of people are the simplest. This word game invites everyone in the room to contribute a single word to a collective sentence that grows as you go round the group.

I love running this game with kids and adults alike, and it’s really fun to see how things change as every player contributes a word. It also scales well with any number of players and it’s easy for people to learn and improve at with repeated turns. If you’re looking for a hilarious way to spend time with others without a need for equipment, this is a guaranteed hit where everyone wins!

Team building games for large groups

Facilitation techniques that help build team spirit, encourage teamwork and are suitable for running with lots of people are important to have in your toolkit.

These large group games put an emphasis on fostering trust and openness for better collaboration and managing team dynamics effectively. You could use them to initiate meaningful conversation or engage your party in engaging tasks where they work together in order to win.

Working together towards a common goal is often essential to increase cohesion within teams and you should definitely include such activities in a team building or development workshop. They’re also great for bringing a sense of play and fun to proceedings and encouraging everyone in your team to get involved.

Draw your Coat of Arms

This group game helps group members to get to know each other better through a creative drawing exercise: Each participant draws their own coat of arms – a design that is unique to themselves, representing important characteristics, achievements and values of its owner.

If you want to direct the focus of this game then you can instruct your team to the best question to answer in each segment of the Coat of Arms. (E.g. What is something you are very good at? What is something your colleagues don’t know about you?).

When people are finished drawing, they present their work to in their group. The presentation part is practical to do in smaller groups. And whether you have a small or large group, you can arrange a neat Coat of Arms gallery by sticking all the drawings on the wall of the workshop room. Large group games where participants have something to show at the end can be especially effective and can really set the stage for a productive, interactive workshop.

Marshmallow Challenge

In eighteen minutes, teams of 3-5 people must build the tallest free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow needs to be on top.

Since the instructions are fairly simple, it is easy to scale this activity up to 20-30 groups playing in parallel and competing who builds the highest structure. It emphasizes collaboration, group communication, leadership dynamics and problem-solving strategy – everything you want in your large group games. Also, there are marshmallows. All group activities are better with marshmallows!

Helium Stick

The Helium stick group activity gives a simple challenge to teams that require teamwork and coordination to manage. People are lined up in two rows facing each other, 5 to 10 people per row, depending on the length of the sticks you have for the game. Participants point with their index finger and hold their arms out in a way that a stick can be horizontally laid on their index fingers.

The task is to lower the stick to the ground while everyone’s index fingers stay in contact with the rod. Why Helium Stick? Often, the stick will rise first, like helium!

You can easily scale this activity for larger teams, just have as many sticks as the number of lines you will create, and the sub-groups will compete against each other who manages to lower their stick first. A gentle sense of competition can be great for bringing people together – try mixing teams if you’re working with multiple departments and encourage people who don’t normally interact to work together in this group activity.

History Map

Creating something collaboratively is a wonderful way of building team spirit with a large group or party. When we find time to reflect on our shared history and create something tangible as a result, even better!

Begin by rolling out a large piece of paper and draw a timeline representing a shared project, experience or the history of your group. Next, instruct everyone to use the materials provided (colored pens, pencils, even collage materials!) to add memorable experiences and moments to the timeline. History Map is a great activity to run with any number of people, though be sure you bring enough materials for everyone to get involved!

This activity works great on an online whiteboard, and be sure to encourage your virtual team to use GIFs and videos to illustrate the map further! Debrief by going round your team and inviting commentary and reflection.

Cross the Circle

While group discussions can be an effective way of helping bring everyone together, this can be time-consuming and unwieldy, especially with large groups. This activity is a fast, playful way to uncover commonalities and bring everyone together.

Begin with all the players around a circle except for one, who stands in the middle. The person in the middle then makes a statement such as “Cross the circle if you can speak a second language,” or “Cross the circle if you’ve worked here more than three years.” Instruct those who match the statement to cross the circle, though the last person to cross must then stand in the middle and make a new statement.

Continue this game as time allows, and try to give everyone a spot in the middle of the circle! It’s always interesting to note what everyone asks, and this approach allows the team to learn something new about each other too,

Egg drop

This classic group activity is a proven method of bringing a team together for a shared goal while also generating some laughs. Split your participants into two or more teams and provide each team with an egg, a heap of straws, tapes and any other crafting material you wish. Next, ask each group to create a structure that will allow the egg to fall over 7 feet without breaking. To add complexity, add some additional rules for building the structure, a time limit or some other constraint.

When designing a session for groups of more than 20 people, it pays to be organized.

In SessionLab, it’s easy to create a structured agenda for any group event or workshop. Add an opening section, core group activities and closing exercises to build your session in minutes.

Add clear timings and instructions for every activity to stay on track. Need to make changes on the day? Your event timing will automatically adjust so you’ll stay organized, whatever changes!

Party games for large groups

Classic party games are a great way to bring people together, even outside of a party environment. A sense of familiarity can help rouse any hesitant participants and they’re a proven method of helping people having fun.

While all of the games in this post could be used in a party setting, these large group party games are especially conducive to a party atmosphere. Whether at work, home or some other gathering, bring these party games to help engage any large group.

Wink Murder

Inspired by the classic party games Werewolf and Mafia, Wink Murder is a fun game that asks an assassin try to “murder” other players by winking at them.

First, get the group in a circle. Next, get a folded piece of paper for each player and put a cross on one of them. Distribute the papers and let the group know that whoever gets the cross is the assassin. While they attempt to wink and murder the other team, the other players must guess who is the assassin and accuse accordingly. If they guess right, they win. If they guess wrong, they are out of the game.

Snowball

When you bring a large group together, there is almost always a period where everyone is feeling out the room and getting to know each other. Combining this stage with a fun, light activity is a wonderful way of breaking the ice and energizing the team too!

In Snowball, start by asking players to write the answer to five questions relating to a topic of your choosing on a piece of paper. Then, instruct players to join you in a circle in the middle of the room and crumple up their papers into a ball and get ready: you are about to have a snowball fight!

After play has gotten a bit rowdy, stop the game and invite each person to pick up the snowball closest to them. (Pick up another one if someone finds their own!) Finally, ask people to find who wrote the answers on the snowball they’re holding, have a quick chat, and then introduce them to the group!

Human Knot

Solving a puzzle as a team is a great way to bring a large number of people together. In this large group party game, start by organizing people into groups of 7-16 people and ask them to stand in a circle where they are close enough to reach and touch other players. Next, ask each person to close their eyes and connect hands with two other people. Have everyone open their eyes and try to untangle the human knot without breaking the chain.

This activity asks people to engage their problem solving skills while also getting to know each other better! It’s a fun game that scales well to very large groups with multiple human knots being played simultaneously.

What are you doing?

Improv games are a great way to introduce a sense of fun and creativity to any gathering. This group activity asks that a volunteer enters the centre of the room and starts miming an action.

When someone is ready to guess what the action is, they enter the circle and guess the action. The first player then comes up with another action the next player must perform and whispers it to them. They then mime that action for the rest of the group to guess. Encourage participants to be creative in the actions they mime and give to other players and hilarity will often ensue!

Charades

Charades is a classic game for both large and small groups for good reason. It’s fun, easy to teach and often brings a party together around shared jokes and memorable moments.

In a live setting, hand out paper and pens and ask each person to write words that they think would be fun or challenging to act out. Players then draw a a word at random and act it out for the rest of the group to guess.

Below, we’ve also included a version you can use to guess and have fun with teams online. You can replicate the act of writing down prompts using your online whiteboard and have people guess on webcam for a fun alternative that works great in gallery mode, even with groups of more than 20 people.

Active games for large groups

Most teams can benefit from getting away from their desks, standing up and having fun as a group. These activities involve lots of physical activity, running, and movement and can be run in a variety of spaces. There’s some crossover with the outdoor games you’ll see below, but these games can also work great in smaller spaces too!

Whether it’s for a party, team-building session, school event, or conference, try adding one of these ideas to your agenda when you need a burst of energy and physical activity in your schedule.

Giants, Wizards, Elves

This fantasy inspired game where points are awarded to Giants, Elves and Wizards is a fun one to bring to any party or event. To start, split your group into two teams. Each group forms a circle and decides what character they are going to all play for that round. Next, each group stands in a line facing each other and on the count of three, act out the role they have chosen.

Giants put their hands above their heads and roar. Elves put their hands over their ears to make them appear more elvish and make an elvish noise, while Wizards put their hands out as if casting and spell and making a buzzing noise.

When you face off, remember that Giants beat Elves, Elves beat Wizards and Wizards beat Giants. The winning team then has the chance to tag the other team before they get to the safe zone. Everyone who is tagged joins the winning team and you can repeat the game until only one team remains!

Spy

Start by getting all the players to stand in a circle. Tell them they are all spies, and that the aim of the game is not to be caught by the spy catcher. Ask them to silently guess who they believe is the spy catcher and to select one other person who will be their bodyguard. Do this without telling anyone! Next, ask participants to run around and try and position themselves so that their chosen bodyguard is between them and the spy catcher.

This is a great game to get people and energized, and it’s fun to debrief too! Especially if friends may have accused others of being a spy in order to win! Players might try and guess who they thought the spy catcher was or talk about how even a few simple rules can create utter chaos.

Human Machine

Improvisation and silliness combined with physical activity is a sure-fire way of getting a large group engaged in the fun! Start this game by explaining that each team will collaboratively create a machine using their bodies. Choose one person to start by improvising the sounds and movements of a part of a machine or robot. Everyone else observes and then one by one, they join the machine and improvise another part.

This can also be a fun game to play with two teams in tandem, or by briefing the players to create a collaborative machine with a particular purpose, such as generating power or cooking a complex meal. This game is best when played with large teams where the machines can become big and very energetic. Just make sure you have enough room!

The Viking

When looking to engage your team in physical activity, why not take a leaf from the pillaging toolkit of our favorite Nordic invaders? We’ll stop short of any actual raiding, but this game encourages participants to shout Norse words and physical actions to build energy as a team.

Start with everyone standing in a circle. One person begins by shouting the word “Mjolner!” and air punches to the left or right to transfer the role of Viking. Play proceeds loudly and actively, as players respond with different words and by throwing the role of Viking around the room. This is a playful game that works to bring a lot of noise and energy to big teams!

Dance, Dance, Dance.

No prizes for guessing the subject of this active game! Start by organizing everyone into groups of three to five people. Instruct the group that when you start playing a song, one player in each group becomes the leader and starts dancing. Everyone else must follow their moves. When the music changes, another player must then start dancing and lead the group.

This is a fun game to play with friends and for warming up new teams alike. For bonus points, invite participants to contribute a song to a shared playlist before your session so they recognize their favorite song as you go or can guess who contributed what track! I also like to award points after every round for the most exuberant or creative dance moves though when the goal is to have fun, every player wins!

Red Ball

In this improv game for large groups, participants are asked to pass imaginary objects around the circle, beginning with a red ball and ending up with objects like the keys to a Ferrari, a wriggling cat, a sleepy baby and more.

What begins as a quiet group game can quickly become a hotbed of creative chaos that encourages the group to act out the passing of various objects with energy. You might even give the group the opportunity to choose what to pass around next and give players points based on how they correctly (or incorrectly!) handle what’s given to them.

Fun outdoor games for large groups

When the weather allows, it’s great to take your team outside to play group games in the fresh air. These activities benefit from the outdoor setting as they require space to be run effectively.

Some of these games include asking your group to spread out, and a few of them have a bonus angle of including natural elements that can take advantage of your setting too. These are great games to play with young people and adults alike and always help raise the level of group energy!

Blind Square – Rope Game

Seemingly simple games are a wonderful way to engage large teams. We love that this activity encourages everyone to work together towards a common challenge while helping bring individual skills to the surface.

In this outdoor-friendly activity, begin by explaining that all a team has to do is make a length of rope into a perfect square. They have fifteen minutes to plan what they are going to do before everyone is blindfolded and play can commence. It’s so fun to see plans form and fall apart, and this activity works with kids and adults perfectly. Just remember to bring enough blindfolds for everyone! With especially large groups, separate into two teams and see who can create the most perfect square!

Spider Web

Games you can play outdoors with your team are great ways to enjoy the weather, spread out, and also be closer to nature while teambuilding.

This activity requires two ropes, some strong poles or trees, and a supervisor for each team playing. Safety and fun go hand-in-hand when it comes to large groups! Start by tying your ropes from one tree to the other to form a rectangle. Connect string between the top and bottom to form holes in a variety of shapes and sizes. Next, instruct your team that the aim of the game is to get all the members of the group through the web without touching the string or knocking the web.

This is a great game for encouraging players to work together and problem solve in the moment while also having a lot of fun!

Crocodile River

Getting outside is a wonderful way to break up a team-building session and put people into a new frame of mind. This can create a great foundation for setting hypothetical challenges such as trying to cross a treacherous river as a group.

This game asks two teams to work together to collect planks and get everyone in their group across the river. The challenge is that the planks are magic, and sink when not in contact with a person. We love that this game encourages collaboration and critical thinking, while also being fun enough for a party of adults or kids to engage and have fun as a group.

Equilateral Triangles Collaboration

This large group game is a great way to introduce the topic of collaboration in an approachable and fun way. Get all your players standing and start by explaining that everyone in a group should choose two people with whom they will form an equilateral triangle but they do not say who those people are. Next, everyone’s goal is to move around and form that triangle with the other players without verbally communicating.

This game can end up with some hilarious outcomes as your group maneuvers around while aiming to get in sync with one another! It also has some very teachable lessons about clear communication and team alignment you can slot into a larger workshop or conference program. I often like to play a second round to help my team see if they can do better and apply the lessons from the previous round.

Flamingo & Penguins

Getting outside is a great opportunity for movement and running around. Whatever the age of your group, players often benefit from the extra energy and fun of trying to catch other players and

The instructions for this game are simple. One player starts as a flamingo who must then chase the penguins and give them a little peck on the head to make them a flamingo. The last person to be a penguin is the winner!

Demonstrate how each role moves – one arm is raised to imitate the Flamingo‘s head and it lifts its knee with slow, swinging movements, while a Penguin is walking with waddling, fast, small steps – and then send the group on their way!

Stress Balls

Passing information from one person to another in a very large team can be difficult, whether you’re working with adults or kids! Stress balls is a fast paced game where everyone playing gets to practice their communication and teamwork skills in order to win.

Start by getting your team into a circle and as them to throwing a ball around to represent the movement of a message. Run consecutive rounds and increase speed, more balls and rules that reverse direction to keep everyone on their toes. I love using this game to teach some lessons about team communication while also generating energy and laughter!

Near and Far

Warming up a group of more than 20 people at the same time can be a challenge. In this energizing group game, get everyone outside and invite them to silently choose one person to stay close to and another to stay away from. Next, ask your team to start playing, using the near and far rules to move around the space without talking. You’ll quickly notice some interesting dynamics and perhaps a bit of chaos as people try to figure things out!

Near and Far is a wonderfully simple game you can use to teach the importance of communication and connections while having fun and being active. Perfect for a large group session with both new and established teams.

Large group facilitation techniques

Quick games like charades are undeniably effective at getting things rolling, and fun group activities are essential for getting a team engaged, but what if you need to go deeper?

There are dedicated facilitation methods that work really effectively if you need certain conversations to happen in large groups. The techniques below can be used as core group activities for planning and facilitating group workshops with your team. They tend to have only a few guiding principles and rules, which allows smaller groups to organize and manage themselves during a workshop.

Open Space Technology

Open Space Technology – developed by Harrison Owen – is a method perfectly suited for organizing and running large-scale meetings where participants self-organize themselves to find solutions for a complex issue. There are only a few rules guiding the structure of the event, and the agenda is created by the teams attending.

It is a great method for tackling important and complex problems where the solutions are not obvious. The technology can even accommodate hundreds of people!

Open space group activities can be incredibly productive, though remember that there is a degree of self-determination here, and the individual groups in the open space are only as good as their members and the set-up of the session. If you’d like to see a complete open space workshop agenda, you can find an example template here.

World Café

World Café, developed by Juanita Brown and David Isaacs, is a simple yet powerful method to host large group dialogue and is well known among this style of group activity. Facilitators create a cafe-style space and provide simple guidelines for the groups of people to discuss different topics at different tables. Participants switch tables periodically and getting introduced to the previous discussion at their new table by a “table host”.

The structure of this method enables meaningful conversations driven completely by participants and the topics that they find relevant and important. World Cafe works great when slightly informal, with a relaxed cafe-style atmosphere. Group activities like this benefit from the setting of the right tone – make sure to get this right and brief your team before you begin!

Conversation Café

While the World Café is a structured process to encourage the cross-pollination of ideas in a large group, the Conversation Café is structured to begin a dialogue regarding a provocative or complex question. So, here the team members do not switch tables but participate in four rounds of conversation with taking different approaches to exchange opinions and discuss the same topic in depth.

This more focused group activity format helps to build trust and connection between teams and is therefore well-suited to handle controversial or difficult topics among diverse participants. Again this method is very practical when dealing with large groups by setting up parallel discussion groups.

1-2-4-All

This is an idea generation method that is really easy to scale into large groups, yet still allows every participant to actively take part in the process. You split your team into groups of four, share the challenge or question that people should focus on, then kick off the following sequence of activities in the parallel groups: at first, silent self-reflection by individuals, then generate ideas in pairs, and then share and develop further the ideas in the circle of four people.

At the end of the process, the best ideas from each group should be shared with the whole audience. This method allows you to leverage the whole group’s intelligence and ensure everyone will be included. We love this activity as it allows any number of people to contribute without difficulty!

Dot voting

Dot voting – or ‘dotmocracy’ – is a method for prioritizing options and making decisions by a group. Every participant receives a set of colorful sticky dots and they place them next to the ideas they find best – the ideas need to be written on post-its or on a board before the voting starts.

There are different variations: you may give multiple dots to people and they can choose how many dots they assign to each option they like. This tool quickly helps a group to recognize – without spending time on discussions – which options are the most popular. Using group activities that are time efficient can help ensure you cover everything in your agenda.

One thing to watch out for is group bias. The more voting dots an option collects during the process, the more appealing it may become to get further votes from the participants who still have to assign their dots. For this reason, it is wise to use dot-voting not as a final instrument to select the best option, but as an indicator of which few options are the most popular.

Curious to see how this activity fits in a complete process? Check out our Design Sprint 2.0 template for inspiration.

Large group activities for closing a session

So you opened your workshop with large group games that were fun and inclusive, and then included group activities that got the group talking and making important decisions. How then, should you finish the day? What group activities help a team reflect and come away from a workshop with a sense of accomplishment?

The below facilitation techniques will help to effectively close a large group session with any number of people. They are simple, time-bound and allow every group member to share their opinion and find the key takeaways after a workshop or event.

Remember that you should close a session with the same attention and enthusiasm you started with. Group activities such as those below help ensure the energy and success of the session are carried forward and followed up upon.

One-breath feedback

‘Feedback’ has a quite controversial perception. Have you ever met this situation? Someone is asked to present back after a group session and it gets unfocused. It goes on long it’s off the point and people start losing concentration It’s sometimes known as ‘death by feedback’ and can change a group’s perception of the entire session.

This team activity helps to maintain attention and forces everyone to stay concise during a closing round with a natural limit: You are only allowed to share your opinion with just one breath – that is usually no longer than 30 seconds for most people.

In case you have a large group, it works most effectively if you split up the group into circles of 10-15 participants, in order to keep the feedback round under five minutes. Remember that group activities that are timeboxed in this manner can help keep the energy up and ensure you cover everything you need to in time.

Feedback Mingle

Feedback Mingle is a great closing group activity to generate positive energy in any team. At the end of the session, group members are invited to give feedback to every other member of the group via post-it notes. You can use prompt questions to direct the feedback, such as “What I appreciate the most about you…” and “My challenge to you going forward is…”.

After people finished writing a post-it note to everyone else in the group, invite them to mingle and deliver the feedback to each other. The feedback should always happen one-on-one, shared verbally. If you have larger groups, create smaller groups of people who worked together on group activities during the event.

Letter to Myself

You can use this group activity at the end of a workshop or training program to inspire future action. Participants write and send a letter to their future self, in relation to how they will apply the insights and learning they got during the course. For instance, you may ask them to focus on a simple question: “What will I achieve by a certain date?”

When explaining the task, tell the group that you will post the cards/letters in X number of months, and that they should take that into account when writing. You can define the timeframe with the group. Since participants reflect individually in this activity, there is no limitation to scaling this exercise in larger groups.

Designing large group events made easy

Running any event or activity with large numbers of people is a lot to handle. A well-structured agenda is key to facilitating with confidence and staying organized.

With SessionLab, it’s easy to build effective, engaging sessions for groups of any size. Drag, drop and reorder blocks to build your agenda. When you make changes to the plan, your session timing adjusts automatically.

When you’re ready to share your group event with participants and clients, you can invite them to collaborate or create a professional printout to help. you keep on track during the session.

Explore how to use SessionLab to design effective workshops and meetings or watch this five minute video to see the planner in action!

Now over to you…

When you run a group activity that generates energy, laughter and connection in your team, it can have a profound effect on the whole team. I hope you have found some useful tips for running large group games and workshop activities above. Now we’d love to hear from you!

What are your favorite facilitation techniques and games that work well with large groups in workshops, meetings or training sessions? Have you tried any of the methods or group activities above? Let us know about your experiences in the comments.

Want to see even more games and activities? Check out the SessionLab library of facilitation techniques for inspiration and proven methods you can use to improve your meetings, events, and workshops.