lessons

We forgot the chili. (Everyday lessons for facilitation and strategic planning)

barbara pedersen business, business planning, consulting, Conversation, design, Dialogue, Discussion, facilitation, holidays, in-person facilitation, lessons, Life Work Balance, nature, outdoors, Planning, process, Simplicity, stories, storytelling, strategic planning, summer

My husband and I have camped and hiked for five decades in mountains, prairies, and woodlands. We’ve stayed in backpacking tents, tent trailers, and motorhomes. We consider ourselves experienced campers. Yet a few small mistakes on a recent three-day camping

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Post-it notes are great!

barbara pedersen Belonging, business, business planning, complexity, consulting, Conversation, design, Dialogue, Discussion, feedback, Fun, in-person facilitation, Inclusion, intersectionality, lessons, listening, nonprofit, Planning, reading, Simplicity, strategic planning, team building, team work, Trends

Post-it notes (and index cards) on a wall sometimes get a bad rap as a facilitation method. It’s not deserved if they’re facilitated properly using a process such as the Technology of Participation (ToP) Consensus Method, which follows patterns of

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“If we hadn’t done that, I couldn’t have done this.”

barbara pedersen business, business planning, collaboration, complexity, consulting, Conversation, Discussion, facilitation, in-person facilitation, Inclusion, lessons, listening, online facilitation, Planning, process, reading, Simplicity, storytelling, strategic planning, team building, team work, Visual facilitation

“That” was a Historical Scan activity; “this” was goal setting during a strategic planning session. The individual who said this pointed to the wall chart showing four decades of their nonprofit organization’s history and said that knowing their history helped

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Nodding while facilitating and the unexpected consequences

barbara pedersen Belonging, business, collaboration, complexity, consulting, Conversation, design, Discussion, Diversity, Equity, facilitation, feedback, fierce conversations, hybrid sessions, in-person facilitation, Inclusion, Indigenous people, intersectionality, lessons, listening, online facilitation, Planning, process, silence, strategic planning, Talking, team building, team work, technology, virtual, virtual facilitation, Visual facilitation

I nodded while facilitating and learned a lesson I won’t forget. Some time ago, I facilitated a small online focus group to gather community input for a nonprofit initiative. As I listened carefully to each participant, I unconsciously nodded my

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