The return-to-office conversation has been top of mind for many as more and more companies call employees back to work in person. Rather than simply telling people to return to the office without any structure or intention, let’s instead think about the best way to accomplish the work to be done. Here’s a workshop format for team leaders and managers who want to handle this next chapter with intention.

Helping teams make decisions can be a complex process when there are various group dynamics, cultural quirks, and political intricacies at play. But it doesn't have to be. Let’s explore a few essential facilitation techniques that empower groups to harness their collective wisdom, navigate challenges, and arrive at well-informed decisions.

Want to cultivate a more dynamic, engaged, and successful organization? Who doesn’t! One of the most impactful ways to achieve this goal is to take a more intentional approach to innovation. Learn the benefits of doing so, and three different workshops formats that will jumpstart the process for you team.

If you’re looking for a more meaningful and actionable way to wrap up meetings, take a look at these 5 options for closing your next session. They’re organized based on the scenarios meeting leaders and facilitators often find themselves in, with practical advice for each.

Constraint is critical to making sure ideas come to fruition. When we stop perceiving it as a barrier to success and instead embrace it as a necessary component to innovation, only then can teams tap into their best creative ideas — the ones that move the needle for the business, and provide deep value to the customer. Here are three ways to lean in.

Most workshops follow a common arc from beginning to end, with five very distinct chapters along the way. Understanding these chapters and the goals for each can be helpful in narrowing down or honing in on the right activities to use to help achieve the desired outcomes for your workshop. Take a look at the chapters and a few example methods to make the planning part of your job a lot more straightforward.

Did you know that most people agree de-titled introductions are preferred when kicking off workshops and meetings? Here’s why it’s so powerful, and the benefits it brings to the workshop space.

When facilitating teams embarking upon strategic work, one of the most important alignment exercises you can cover is defining what success looks like. My go-to is the playing field method, where success is defined by the participants in terms of good, better and best. Those milestones can refer to interim goals that happen en route to a home run, or different versions of success that range from most realistic to most ambitious. Here’s how to do it.

You know that really long follow-up email that goes out after most meetings? This exercise aims to eliminate it by asking teams to align on what should happen next before they leave the room. Try my Time Horizons activity at the end of any strategic workshop, Design Sprint, or big meeting as a way to organize what will happen next, and who will be responsible for doing it by when.

Assets and liabilities is an exercise I often facilitate with teams to take an inventory and drive a shared understanding of what’s working for and against the team. It’s super straightforward and something you can include in many endeavors, from strategic planning workshops and idea-generation sessions, to prototyping workshops.

Customer interviews are an opportunity to put a prototype in front of real people to learn what is and isn’t working so you can adjust accordingly. In order for it to work, you need to get the right information from your interviewees. This downloadable guide will help you understand how to craft questions that will get the right information flowing.

Should we default to in-person meetings as pandemic restrictions ease, or should virtual meeting spaces remain as ubiquitous for their ability to increase collaboration and accessibility? To answer that question, let’s look at the pluses and minuses of remote, in-person and hybrid workshops, according to Steph Cruchon and me.

Engaging your team’s creative prowess is key to unlocking new ideas and uncovering solutions. To help them get there, your workshop design should include activities that encourage people to feel empowered when drawing, or suss out if an idea is worth exploring further, or get unstuck when new or different ideas just aren’t coming naturally. Here are three sketching exercises I like to use for design workshops, and that you can borrow for your next session.

What kicks off a day of collaborative work on a good note? How do you create a sense of camaraderie amongst colleagues or perfect strangers? The truth is simple: icebreakers. I know there’s a perception that they’re old school, or fluffy, or even cheesy. But that’s only if you aren’t using them correctly. Here are three common scenarios in which icebreakers are particularly helpful, along with specific examples so you can copy and paste them into your next session.

The most fruitful teams know their purpose, what their responsibilities are, and have a sense of camaraderie with their colleagues. When these dimensions align, people perform better (which is good for both them and the company alike). But how do we get teams to get along? Cooperation doesn’t come at the snap of a finger — it’s cultivated with intention and is the precursor to everything else.

When teams are stuck in the weeds it’s usually not because any one person failed to do their job, or because the group isn’t capable. It’s simply because the team doesn’t have the right tools to unlock the answers. This is why it’s so critical to bring in reinforcements when you’re having trouble accelerating a project or idea.

How a Strategic Planning & Roadmapping Session helped an essential program adapt and evolve in a very short amount of time to support the growth of the business.

Struggling to make progress, launch a new idea or hit business objectives? There’s usually a solution, and it often takes a workshop or planning session to lead you and your team to it. To get started, take this quiz to find out which workshop option is right for your business.

What happens when a company outgrows its name? It’s kind of like walking around in someone else’s clothes: people get the wrong idea about who you are and what you stand for. And that’s not good for business. Here’s how do you rename an entire organization in one day.