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DESIGN YOUR FACILITATION STRATEGY

Gain confidence in leading productive and collaborative meetings for high-performing teams

Play Video about Malarie Juricev mid-sentence looks straight ahead. A yellow box to the left reads "Get to know your instructor: a look inside the course" above an image of the course badge.

2025 Dates Coming Soon

Meetings are a critical piece of the workplace communication stack. However, the overabundance of ineffective meetings is sapping productivity and clogging calendars at too many organizations today. 

If you want to learn how to successfully lead meetings that boost collaboration and productivity while using time effectively, then this course is for you. Design Your Facilitation Strategy introduces you to the skills needed to plan and lead meetings that get the job done and that people want to attend. You’ll learn how to run meetings in a way that’s both informative and engaging. Plus, we’ll share methodologies that can be applied to weekly meetings, as well as multi-day workshops.  

Why Learn How to Lead Effective Meetings

Learning to lead effective meetings is a critical professional skill built on expert communication and people skills. This is a leadership skill that will make you stand out in your organization or boost your career prospects. And who doesn’t want to have a reputation for being a person whose meetings people look forward to?
 
The positive impact from reducing meetings across your organization will be increased engagement, collaboration, and productivity ultimately leading to a notable improvement in employee satisfaction. 

Why Take This Course

  • Plan a meeting considering your audience including who to invite and why, and the appropriate time and preparation needed
  • Design for your environment — whether it’s virtual or face-to-face — and create a meeting that boosts engagement, makes good use of time, and achieves the desired results
  • Lead well-structured meetings that improve participation and allow all voices to be heard
  • Build your meetings on a foundation that incorporates highly engaging visuals and collaborative methods to increase productivity

This course is for leaders and managers who want to:

  • Get results from collaborative, high-performing teams
  • Lead teams that are engaged and collaborate better together
  • Use meeting time more effectively and efficiently
  • Connect their audience to a larger organizational purpose
  • Learn fun, innovative methods to increase participation
  • Keep meetings on track when conversations or questions derail the agenda
  • Leave each meeting with clear outcomes

Throughout this course, we’ll provide you tools and resources that’ll help you close the gap between the meetings you want to create and the meetings you have time to create.

Course Features and Benefits

Desktop screen showing the Design Your Facilitation Strategy course map, an iPad with image of instructor Malarie smiling, laptop showing a MURAL board shared over a Zoom call, two worksheets, a workbook cover, and a certificate of completion.

While the course is fully virtual and will be delivered via Zoom and MURAL, you’ll be able to connect with and learn from fellow participants. The group will be divided into small cohorts, with whom you’ll be working and discussing, in addition to the full-group activities and discussions.

About the Learning Experience

This hands-on course is led by an expert meeting and workshop facilitator. Instructions are primarily provided through on-demand video content to fit your busy schedule, while three hands-on live-instruction workshops will give you the opportunity for real-time guidance, collaboration, and practicing key skills.

This course is fully virtual and will be delivered via Zoom and MURAL. You’ll connect with and learn from fellow participants as well as your course instructor. In addition to the full-group activities and discussions, the group will be divided into small cohorts for further collaboration.

Added Bonus

This course is designed to be an open and collaborative environment where you and other learners will be able to see each other’s work. You will benefit from the rich discussion, support, and inspiration from other professionals attending the course. 
 
Plus, each course registrant will have the opportunity to book a 30-minute consultation with your course instructor to review your specific challenge. This focused one-on-one time will allow you to get more in-depth feedback to sharpen the effectiveness of your meetings and maximize their impact on your intended audience.

Ongoing Benefits

  • Lifetime access to course portal and materials including MURAL template
  • A library of methods to use in your daily practice
  • Access to new tools, bonus content, and course updates as the course evolves

BEFORE DAY 1

Prework

  • Identify a challenge or opportunity regarding a meeting or workshop session that involves multiple stakeholders. You’ll use this scenario throughout the course to work through the design process and be ready to lead it by the course’s end.
  • One 30-minute new learner orientation.

DAY 1

Preparation is the key to success

  • Explore what makes meetings good (or bad)
  • Key elements of preparation, set up, and execution
  • Identify common scenarios and templates for each

Purpose and people

  • Defining purpose and objectives
  • Knowing your audience
  • Session design canvas and core principles

DAY 2

Design for success

  • Structure for ideation and alignment (what we call the double-sided pencil)
  • Activity method library

Building your session strategy

  • Plotting the methods
  • Mapping to the audience and objective

DAY 3

Strategy validation and logistics

  • Refinement Checklist
  • Accessibility Lens
  • Detailed sequence of activities

Create a detailed guide

  • Present your plan and live feedback
  • Build your detailed guide (Run of Show)
  • Course wrap-up

Your Instructors

Malarie Juricev headshot

Malarie Juricev, Director of Consulting

As Director of Consulting at TiER1 Performance’s XPLANE Studio, Malarie leverages her 20+ years of expert facilitation experience to design and lead discovery workshops for our clients.

Malarie is passionate about modeling and sharing the power of effective facilitation, which she sees as a balance of preparation and agility. She champions a digital-first mindset and the power of virtual collaboration technology as a way to create a truly inclusive environment for all participants.

Marvin Gaviola headshot

Marvin Gaviola, Associate Creative Director

Marvin is a world-class visual thinker with over 20+ years of experience honing his facilitation, design, and system thinking chops as part of TiER1 Performance’s XPLANE Studio team.  

As a facilitator, Marvin is eager to share his wisdom and expertise. He is well-known and loved for his sense of humor and his keen attention to detail, often seeing connections others overlook. If he had to distill his skills to one superpower, it would his curiosity; he dives deep to find the best solutions.

What Our Learners Say

James Thomas headshot in black and white

However experienced you think you are, you will come away from the Design Your Facilitation Strategy course with both an increased sense of confidence, and a new way of approaching this vital skill!

—James Thomas, Founder, Four Forces Consulting Limited

FAQ

Q: Why should I trust XPLANE?

A: Learning how to lead effective and productive meetings can be challenging and complex. To navigate this maze, you need to combine people skills with the ability to prepare and execute a successful meeting structure.

With over 50 years of combined facilitation experience, our instructors have successfully led countless highly interactive, engaging, and effective meetings and workshops for clients across a variety of industries and organizational sizes throughout the world. 

Their unique teaching style combines their extensive experience with empathy, humor, and a deep care for your success. 

By the end of this course, you will be able to hold meetings that people enjoy attending and produce real results that benefit your organization.

Q: I’m super busy. How many hours will I need to invest? What are the estimated course hours and assignment time? 

A: Our course is built to fit your busy schedule. It includes:

  • 60 minutes of asynchronous video content that is available to view at your own pace.
  • 6 hours of live workshop sessions that are spread out over three nonconsecutive days (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) for 2 hours each day.
  • The opportunity to practice key skills and get instructor and peer feedback during the live workshop sessions.

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