This Is Service Design Methods

Chapter 4. Facilitation Methods

Methods that help keep workshops engaging, relevant, and productive

1. Three-brain warm-up

2. Color-chain warm-up

3. “Yes, and …” warm-up

4. Red and green feedback

Facilitation is a higher-level task which sits above other activities such as research, ideation, and prototyping. A workshop or project consists of a mix of methods from the other Chapters, bound together by facilitation activities. As such, it’s impossible to express facilitation as a method worksheet, except in the case of some specific activities like activation exercises and feedback techniques.

This short Chapter includes one useful feedback technique, plus a few great warm-up activities which can be useful in many workshop or meeting situations. They can energize and focus teams, and help reinforce safe space by letting people have fun failing together. But remember that many service design activities are great activators themselves. It’s often better to have a design activity that energizes, instead of an energizer that distracts. When content meets engagement, you are on the road to success.

For more on how to select and connect these methods, see #TiSDD Chapter 4, Facilitating workshops. You might also want to look at the section on dramatic arcs in #TiSDD Chapter 3, Basic service design tools.

Key questions for planning your facilitation approach

Consider the following key questions ...