Facilitators’ Community

Too many facilitators utilize the same exercises and tools in doing their work. The result is that the participants are often weary and skeptical of approaches which they’ve used with mixed success in the past. I estimate that 50% of the work I do requires creating an approach/method virtually from scratch. What has been your experience and how do you go about fitting the methodology to the client engagement?

I found an interesting comment on Design For Civilized Society on when and how to choose a methodology.

Share with us the ‘tools’ of your trade. What exercises, methodologies, approaches, etc., do you use and why? When do you not use a particular tool?

In choosing a methodology, I am strong advocate of engaging participants ‘visually’. Check out this website for a fascinating treatment of the topic and then share your use of Tools and Methods here.

As a subtopic, share with us any tools or methods that you’ve found effective in distance or teleconferenced meetings.  I found a lot of pointers on the Virtual Events blog including a number of blogs on Virtual Events.