Workshop Facilitation 101

Summary: By following a set of simple facilitation principles and using standard tools and activities, anybody can grow into a confident workshop facilitator.

Facilitation is core to all successful UX workshops . However, facilitating workshops can feel daunting, especially at first. What does it mean to facilitate? What are your goals as a facilitator? What should you pay attention to? These are natural, first questions to ask as you begin your journey as a facilitator. This article walks you through the fundamentals of workshop facilitation.

Let’s start with the definition of facilitation.

Definition: Workshop facilitation is the act of providing unobtrusive, objective guidance to a group in order to collaboratively progress towards a goal.