Friday, November 28, 2008

What's In a Facilitator's Survival Kit?

I have several other blog posts that are queued up, but as I left the office yesterday to come to Zurich to facilitate a 2 day stakeholder dialogue, I noticed the following - A facilitator can run an interactive and exciting event with only the following few items (with flipcharts in the room a given):

  • Markers: 1 very thick for making templates (black), 4 regular (different colours for Carousels)
  • 1 small stack of meta-plan cards (different shapes and colours for note taking, ideas generation, question gathering, time keeping, room signposting...)
  • 1 Roll of masking tape (the obvious)
  • 1 deck of playing cards (Pick a card: for dividing groups, selecting speakers, identifying rotation order)
  • Selection of sticky dots (different colours for voting, prioritisation, designating teams and tables)
  • 1 whistle (train whistle of preference: to get people's attention, to change rounds, to start action)

  • 1 ball (for self-facilitation of reflection, for teambuilding games, for stress relief)

Have facilitators survival kit, will travel. It can take almost any last minute agenda change in style...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I always include batteries for any remote-controls, spare bulbs for overhead and multimedia projectors, a small first-aid kit for papercuts, a sealed box of tylenol, which usually remains sealed, post-it notes, and a rubber-chicken stress ball, which I have seen trainers toss around the room during intros.

Gillian Martin Mehers said...

Hi and thanks for this addition! I am sure that most of the time one might not need the batteries for example, but if you do and you don't have them, it is a disaster! Thanks for adding to the list!