In this intense program, participants spend four days working together not only to learn the fundamentals of creative retreat and meeting design and facilitation, but also to create high-impact creative content segments themselves.
Often called the “boot camp” of creative facilitation training, this program gives students the confidence – tested by constant in-the-moment practice and feedback – to design and lead their own Retreats and Meetings That Work.
What You Will Learn
At the end of this program, you will:
• Know how to plan a meeting or offsite that achieves the group’s desired outcomes
• Expertly employ creative facilitation methodologies to increase meeting and retreat attendees' engagement and focus
• Design an effective meeting or retreat agenda and redesign in the moment when situations change
• Skillfully handle sensitive issues and disruptive attendees
• Learn creative facilitation techniques and exercises available in no other program
• Know how to design your own retreat and meeting exercises that guide attendees to achieving their goals
• Have a peer group of other graduates with whom you can continue to share ideas and concerns
How Is This Program Different from Other Facilitation Certification Programs?
Like other facilitation training workshops, the Creative Facilitation Certification Program helps participants hone their skills in such areas as managing resistant participants, checking for group agreement, making decisions and keeping the meeting focused and on track.
We consider those skills the baseline on which to build much more engaging and creative techniques that emphasize the experiential aspects of meetings and retreats.
This program differs from all others in three key ways.
1. The creative facilitation exercises you will learn in this program were developed by the instructors; you won’t find them in other program or even in other reference books on the subject. They are available to learn and practice only in this program.
2. Participants also learn how to use their own creative abilities to design inventive sessions and individual exercises that will achieve their goals. We teach them criteria for developing new methodologies. They teach these exercises to their peers in the program and receive coaching on how to make them even better.
In other words, Certified Creative Facilitation program graduates will not only have acquired expertise in leading compelling discussions during retreats and meetings, they will also know how to add engaging elements of their own that will give them brilliant results.
3. The program is taught by the co-authors of Retreats That Work, the go-to resources on designing and leading effective offsites and meetings.
Program Instructors
The program is taught entirely by Merianne Liteman and Sheila Campbell, co-authors of Retreats That Work: Everything You Need to Know about Planning and Leading Great Offsites, published by Wiley/Pfeiffer. Both are highly skilled and inventive retreat and meeting designers and facilitators who have led sessions across the US and throughout the world. Their clients have included The World Bank, Roche/Genentech, National Geographic Television, the US Department of State, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Association of American Medical Colleges, among many others.
During the session, participants will receive individual coaching from the instructors to help them focus on their own areas of strength and opportunity.
Certification Program Overview
On the opening day, each person is assigned to a small Learning Group, which will provide support, coaching, and feedback throughout the Experience.
The Learning Group members will work together to design and test exercises and facilitation strategies, and practice with each other. Participants have told us that their Learning Groups have become peer networks that they rely on long after they finish the Experience.
On Days One and Two participants explore the principles of effective creative meeting and retreat design and facilitation, focusing particularly on how to work with difficult participants, how to help groups make decisions and plan for action, and how to design Retreats That Work. Working with their Learning Groups, they develop facilitation strategies to use when faced with challenges.
Participants are up in the front of the room repeatedly, practicing and fine-tuning their skills, both in ideal and difficult situations.
Day Three begins the Design Challenge. Today we’ll explore some of the most creative and complex exercises in Retreats That Work. This day will culminate in the Design Challenge, in which the Learning Groups come up with creative exercises and techniques to address particular concerns of a client that they will be assigned, with plenty of coaching and consultation along the way.
On Day Four, participants will facilitate their exercises, try out new techniques and receive feedback on both design and facilitation skills.
Participants will receive a Certificate of Completion in our Creative Design and Facilitation Methodology.
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