Become a More Innovative Facilitator

Design and Facilitate Sessions That Are More Engaging, Creative, and Human-Centered

This course is based on a live two-part virtual workshop series where participants learned how to become more innovative facilitators while developing ideas (using design thinking) for a real session, workshop, retreat, or meeting they wanted to create.

Across two 90-minute workshop recordings, you’ll experience the process as if you were part of the live group. You’ll see how to build connection, use storytelling, apply design thinking mindsets, experiment with creative facilitation techniques, and begin designing your own interactive session.

This is not a course about adding more slides to a presentation.

It is about learning how to create meaningful group experiences where people connect, reflect, contribute, and leave with new insight and energy.

Who This Course Is For

This course is ideal for:

Facilitators, trainers, coaches, consultants, educators, team leaders, retreat designers, and anyone who leads meetings, workshops, or group learning experiences.

It is especially useful if you want to make your sessions more interactive, creative, story-based, and participatory, whether you facilitate online, in person, or in a hybrid environment.

What You’ll Learn

In this course, you’ll learn how to:

Create stronger connection and community in a group setting

Use storytelling and personal objects to spark reflection and conversation

Apply design thinking mindsets to facilitation and session design

Move beyond PowerPoint-driven presentations

Use simple creative activities to increase engagement

Design a session around your audience, purpose, and desired outcomes

Use storyboarding to plan the flow of a workshop or retreat

Prototype and test facilitation ideas quickly

Use virtual tools like digital whiteboards and breakout rooms more creatively

Build confidence experimenting with new facilitation approaches

Course Format

This course includes recordings from two live virtual workshops. You’ll watch Darin facilitate a real group through interactive activities, reflection exercises, breakout conversations, whiteboard work, and session design challenges. Rather than simply reading or hearing about facilitation techniques, you’ll see them modeled in action.

Learn how to create the conditions for connection, trust, creativity, and participation. This session shows how an innovative facilitator opens a group experience in a way that feels human, energizing, and engaging.

Learn how to move from facilitation inspiration to session design. This session introduces a practical way to clarify your audience, shape your session flow, and begin prototyping a more interactive workshop, meeting, or retreat.

Below is the info we used to describe this program when we offered it live. (We may also run another live version of this program in the future. Reach out to us at darin@innovationcourses.org to express your interest.)(This course is an example of a special resource we include in our innovative workshop design and facilitation coaching program.)

Transform into a virtual facilitator, creator, and leader who helps others engage in a digital era. Learn through a virtual mini-retreat series that helps you to develop your own facilitation experience.

Virtually join our collaborative leadership development mini-retreat led by Darin Eich, author of Root Down and Branch Out: Best Practices for Leadership Development Programs and Innovation Step-by-Step. This is a human-centered virtual event with the feel of a retreat, not a passive webinar.

You'll get the chance to hear stories, reflect, connect with others, and get re-engaged to your purpose to begin a new journey.

Follow along with the recordings from a series of 2 hour mini virtual retreat sessions to learn virtual facilitation. You'll see activities that allowed people to share their experiences and current challenge and get insight from others. See activities that engage and allow participants to connect in pairs and small groups as well as hear stories in the larger group. You’ll get to focus on challenges important to you and receive and share insight with others.

You’ll learn virtual facilitation and leadership in our new era through being a part of it. You also will be guided through designing your own virtual session you can facilitate in your work.

Included in this innovative virtual facilitation program:

• Practical strategies to apply the high-impact leadership development actions in virtual programs or shorter workshops
• Learn-by-Reflecting as we work in zoom breakout rooms and use powerful tools like collaborative whiteboards
• Innovative experimentation of promising new activities in the virtual mini-retreat concept
• Connecting with other awesome professionals in the organization culture space
• Access to new ideas, tools and resources for a new era
• And most importantly, an opportunity to reflect and reconnect with your purpose.

To keep learning, you may also want ongoing access to more self-paced virtual facilitation workshops (or our Innovative Facilitator Train-the-Trainer Certificate Program) to help you design and lead innovative virtual experiences for your colleagues and clients.