How Structured Facilitation Training Can Save Your Arse and Boost Your Career
Structured meetings and workshops positively impact organizations and stakeholders--even permeating cultures. Here are a few straightforward benefits of facilitation training that support structured meetings. Business wisdom demands the application...
Kanban or Scrum: Pick the Right Workflow Tool
Guest post by Christian Golden, Ph.D. In the world of content and product development, Kanban and Scrum are two of the names you’ll hear most often. One difference exists between workflow tools that may help you manage projects by visualizing...
Do NOT Attempt a Design Sprint Without a Professional Facilitator
What is a Design Sprint? Created at Google Ventures, a Design Sprint represents a methodology that helps teams complete a five-day workshop for building and testing some problem-solving product or solution (prototype). A prototype might include a...
Agile vs Waterfall? Don’t Risk Failure By Using the Wrong One
A professional facilitator handles several types of assignments, from planning to design. However, most facilitators must also provide a method for securing the deliverable. Although a different role, the ‘methodologist’ responsibilities make up...
Scope Creep Kills Projects – It Begins in Poorly Facilitated Meetings
Have you ever heard someone say in a meeting “I don’t know why we’re doing this project in the first place?” Odds are, the meeting is being held to advance the project, not re-validate it. The person asking the question has now imposed their agenda...
Make Your Meetings Meaningful – Follow These Four Tips to Build Team Members
Back in the day, when I was in school, I must've heard it several times a week: "Stop talking and get to work!" Being a natural extrovert/Chatty Cathy, I was often in trouble for, well, talking too much. Maybe I've come full circle. Now I'm the one...
Don’t Ruin Your Scrum Sprints — Facilitate Scrum Events Using These Agendas
The Agile mindset demands frequent, and continuing, interaction among its stakeholders. Perhaps more so with Scrum, than other frameworks. From Daily Scrum activities to Sprint Retrospective events held every one to four weeks, Scrum facilitation...
Want To Be Heard? Stop Talking — The Power of Silence by Karen Snyder
You probably don’t believe that silence is one of my favorite tools. Certainly, when I taught a presentation skills class to Johns Hopkins graduate students, they did not expect me to talk about silence! But I did. And at the end of the week, their...
Advanced Real-Win-Worth Screening Method that Supports Strategic Decisions
Previously, we defined 'best' as projects that performed well in an innovation test, focusing on the relative technology and market risks associated with new ideas (e.g., processes, products, etc.). With the Real-Win-Worth framework—designed for...
Facilitation Skills Ensure Quicker and Fewer Meetings that Get Results
Successful leaders have one thing in common: Strong facilitation skills. What are the core facilitation skills (or, facilitator skills)? Which skills do you need to lead a successful meeting? Depending on who you ask, there may be: 6 Essential...
Public Relations Innovation: New Ideas Shaping Service and Community Influence
Alex Osborn, the driving force behind the concept of 'brainstorming,' shared a timeless message with public relations professionals in 1948 that remains just as relevant today. His message is especially pertinent now: while facts and scientific...
Risk Analysis – Method and Questions to Facilitate A Portfolio of Projects
Project portfolios focused on the best opportunities, and accelerate innovation. So how do you build consensus around the term “best”? George Day’s article[1] provides excellent logic to help you drive a consensual view of risk analysis. “The risk...
How to Build Action Plans with Shared Ownership and Accountability
To build an action plan (or, a strategic plan) that transfers ownership and accountability to your meeting participants, begin with the right questions, in the right sequence. Be one of the few facilitators who understand that ownership transfers...
Scrum Master Facilitator Techniques Improve Meetings
Agile's Scrum Master facilitator techniques ensure that business communities get quick and responsive results. Constant feedback helps teams prioritize and make adjustments. A Scrum Master facilitates against impediments and for product owners'...
Meeting Killers: Eight Ways to Kill A Meeting and Your Reputation
Below are eight habits we call meeting killers that every facilitator, or meeting leader, must avoid. Neglect to prepare your participants in advance. Meeting Killers: Have you ever been in a meeting where someone asks: “So, what’s this all about?”...
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With Meetings That Get Results, you’ll learn how to lead meetings that produce clear and actionable results every time. More important, how to avoid the worst possible outcome from any meeting—another meeting!
Developed from over 17+ years of research, delivery, and practice, including 15,000+ hours providing live instruction using Certified curriculum, Meetings That Get Results provides you with the tools and methods necessary to lead meetings that generate clear and actionable results, with deliverables that participants both understand and own.
“An essential handbook for any leader or facilitator of meetings. Especially as we have transitioned to more remote-based collaboration, I value all the tips to lead global team meetings.”
— Sana A. Manjeshwar, Global Principal Ombuds Manager, Chevron