What is it?

The skill of facilitation can be split into two parts:

1) BEFORE: Everything you do when designing and preparing your event

2) DURING: Guiding the participants through your event

The Facilitation Design is a document you make before the event when you start designing.

You can make one on paper, but usually, it is created in a digital format.

What does it look like?

Every experienced facilitator has their own format, but every facilitation design looks a bit like this:

You find columns for the name of the segment, start time, end time, and some comments.

You can add extra columns based on your own preference and facilitation style (for example: ‘materials needed’)

Why should you create one?

Creating a Facilitation Design will help you:

1) be more deliberate about building your event

2) do detailed time calculation

Being more deliberate about building your event will help you think: how does this segment set the stage for the next segment to create a logical and effective flow.

Doing detailed time calculation will not only help you make sure everything you planned actually fits but will also help with time management during the event.

Pro Tip

Write down any feedback and learnings in your Facilitation Design and store them. This enables you to look up old design, see what worked well and what did not… 🙂