Facilitation Resources

A collection of resources related to facilitation practices and techniques.

Here is a collection of resources I use in my facilitation practice. These resources support facilitating participatory and self-organizing processes at scales ranging from tiny groups to large conferences. I use some of these tools directly and others as inspirations to design and create my own methods.

The first section provides links to participatory group processes that are inclusive and self-organizing to varying degrees. The process architecture and maps section contains links to sites whose worldviews can inform process design, from single meetings to large-scale change. The following three sections cover more specific tools useful for particular purposes, and finally, the last section contains links to sources of ongoing inspiration.

Taken together, this page could be said to form my facilitation manual. I hope it serves you as well. If you find these resources helpful or have questions, leave me a little “hello!” note at the bottom of the page. I’d love to hear from you.

Start Here

• The Chaordic Stepping Stones. A planning tool I use to guide groups through an organized conversation about design.
• Simple meeting design. A simple redux of the above tool, suitable for immediate and urgent design needs.

Group Process Methodologies

• Open Space Technology– My collection of resources relating to this transformative approach to group work and leadership.
• Open Space World – The online home of the global Open Space Technology community.
• The World Cafe – The basic form of a powerful dialogue process.
• World Cafe supply list. An excellent article on supplies needed to host a World Cafe.
• Conversation Cafe – Resources to support cultures of conversation.
• Pro Action Cafe – an action-oriented method developed by the Art of Hosting community
• Collective Story Harvest – a powerful method for having whole groups chart collective learning
• Bohmian Dialogue – Thinking on the underpinnings of David’s Bohm’s Dialogue process.
• Basics for calling a circle – From Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea, developers of PeerSpirit Circling
• The Ultimate Guide to Anecdote Circles – Working with stories.
• Future Search. A conference architecture for exploring what comes next.
• Core Art of Hosting practices– a collection of the core practices used within the Art of Hosting community
• The Art of Harvesting – phases in the practice of harvesting from conversations that matter.
• Transformative Scenario Planning Methodology from Geoff Brown and REOS Australia

Process architecture and maps

• Strategic Design for Complexity – a guide from Cameron D. Norman
• Design Sprint Methods – a nice collection for running linear participatory design sprints
• A primer on Social Labs – from work championed by Zaid Hassan.
• Idea Navigators Innovation Lab Guidebook. A resource we created for running an innovation lab with consultants.
• A Pattern Language for Group Process – A collaborative project to map the essential patterns of life-affirming group process.
• A Wise Democracy Pattern Language. A collection of patterns and resources to support good civic dialogue.
• Civic Engagement and the Restoration of Community – An excellent resource from Peter Block on changing the nature of the conversation within community.
• Meg Wheatley’s Principles for supporting healthy community.
• Appreciative Inquiry by David L. Cooperider and Diana Whitney. An introduction to Appreciative Inquiry and its uses. (.doc)
• The Appreciative Inquiry Commons – The online home of the appreciative inquiry practitioner community.
• Theory U – A map for learning from the emerging future.
• Systems Thinking – Tools and underlying philosophy of systems thinking approaches.
• Places to intervene in a system, the classic essay by Donella Meadows.
• A white paper on designing participatory community engagement – My current thinking on designing and implementing the next level of consultation processes.
• Outcome mapping. Participation in planning, evaluation and monitoring.
• Collective Narrative Methodology for creating a narrative from many pieces of data produced in dialogue.

Suites of Tools

• Nearly 400 methods for participatory public deliberation and engagement from Participedia.
• Depolarizing Conversations Toolkit from the Alaska Humanities Forum
• Methods and Tools for co-producing knowledge from the Swiss Academy of Sciences
• Facilitations Toolkit from Seeds for Change
• Futures Toolkit from the UK Government Office for Science
• Multi-Stakeholder Partnership Tool Guide from the Centre for Development Innovation, Wageningen University and Research.
• Theory of Participation Methods from the ICA:UK website
• Workshop Templates for Mural, Miro and in-person meetings from Facilitator School.
• National Equity Project Resources and Tools for facilitating equity work
• Cynefin.io, a broad collection of methods and perspectives on complex facilitation
• Hyper Island has curated more than 100 facilitation methods for all kinds of things
• Tamarack Institute Resource Library. Specializing in tools for collective impact, engagement, and systems change.
• Participatory Narrative Inquiry, an approach by Cynthia Kurtz
• Dialogic Organizational Development Resources from Gervase Bushe
• An extensive list of Evaluation Resources from Better Evaluation
• Facilitation resources and tools for participatory processes from Seeds For Change.
• Community Tool Box from the Centre for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas
• Reflection toolkit. A large sample of good reflective exercises for group work.
• Developmental evaluation resources. An excellent collection of resources for adaptive evaluation in complexity
• Liberating Structures. A pattern language and collection of 33 tools for participation.
• Human Systems Dynamics methods for working with groups in complexity.
• Cognitive Edge facilitation tools for working in complexity
• My colleague Viv McWaters shares her tools here. Lots of improv games here and meaning-making exercises.
• Art of Hosting tools and resources from Toke Moeller and Monica Nissen
• International Association of Facilitators Methods Database – Free to register, hundreds of process outlines.
• Theory U tools – A set of exercises and tools for working with Otto Scharmer’s Theory U.
• The Questioning Toolkit – Resources for developing questions.
• The Art of Powerful Questions. A brilliant guide to creating and working with powerful questions. The basis for all good participatory design.
• Mindmapping – A list of links to mind mapping sites. I often use mind mapping to record conversations and dialogue on flipcharts.
• Visual facilitation tools – Steven Wright’s collection of software and resources to help lift the conversation off the page.
• Visual facilitation tips from my colleague Sam Bradd.
• Strategic Questioning (.pdf) – A great resource by Fran Peavey on the power of using strategic questions to create movement
• Non-violent communication – An introduction to an effective process for communicating needs and facilitating peace.
• Scenario Planning Resources – Tools for developing and prototyping futures.
• Strategy Tools for Community Planning – From the community problem-solving team at MIT.
• The New Dynamics of Strategy – Complexity-based strategic work using the Cynefin framework
• Action Research Resources – for learning while doing.
• A vast collection of resources for facilitation, community building and consensus decision-making – collected by Kavana Tree Bressen
• A Handbook for Formal Consensus Decision Making – by C.T. Butler and Amy Rothstein
• The Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision Making – The original classic guide to getting somewhere. Buy the latest edition here.
• Resources on enacting participatory values from Community At Work
• Facilitation tools: helpful, discrete little processes to run.
• Change Management Toolbook. A comprehensive collection from Holger Nauheimer
• Resources for facilitating social change conversations geared towards philanthropic organizations, from FSG

Tools for embodying learning

• Training Games – From the Thiagi newsletter.
• The Encyclopedia of Improv Games – Hundreds of ways to engage and play.
• Pointless Games – Bernie DeKoven’s games to play just for fun.

Specific Exercises

• The Work of Byron Katie – a tool for freeing ourselves from thoughts that imprison us. Resources provided by Caitlin Frost.
• Dynamic Facilitation process skeleton – A method of honouring and working with group energy to support “AHA” moments.
• The Art of the Focused Conversation – Overview of ORID, an excellent tool for focusing conversations and leading into dialogue.
• Jack Martin Leith’s Idea Generation Methods – From archive.org, a great collection of tools for creative group work.
• Creativity Techniques – Basic processes for new perspectives and ideas.
• Polarity Management: A Summary Introduction by Barry Johnson. A handy summary of a tool I use to help groups move beyond either/or thinking (.doc)
• The Interview Matrix – Instructions and forms for using a powerful brainstorming and dialogue tool (.pdf)
• Five to Fold—a consensus-based decision-making process from the Genuine Contact community.
• ORID, a process for structured participatory decision making
• Convergent Facilitation. A walkthrough of a straightforward interest-based decision-making process.
• The Art of Powerful Questions. A guide to designing good questions.

Inspiration

• Art of Hosting – Resources and knowledge for practicing inspired hosting.
• Sandy Heierbacher’s list of great dialogue and deliberation resources.
• A List Of Books In My Library – Inspired advice and other resources
• Facilitation posts from my weblog.

If you like this page or have questions about using these resources, drop me a quick line to say hi!