Laura van Valen
Facilitation & Group Dynamics
Laura brings warmth and precision to the art of facilitation. With a background in organizational psychology, she helps facilitators navigate group energy, resistance, and the human moments that make or break a workshop.
33 articles by Laura van Valen
10 Golden Rules of Workshop Facilitation
Ten facilitation principles for every workshop: own the process, agree the outcome first, protect time, state the decision rule and close with owners.
Premortem Workshop Agenda and Facilitation in 45 Minutes
How to run a 45-minute premortem: the agenda, the exact question to ask, turning causes into owned mitigations, and when the exercise turns into blame.
How to Design an AI Adoption Workshop: Agenda, Methods, and the Decision It Must End With
A half-day AI adoption workshop in five phases, with a facilitation method for each and the signed decision, owner and date it must end with.
Graphic Recording in Virtual Workshops: A Practical Guide
A practical guide to graphic recording in virtual and hybrid workshops: tools, setup, knowledge-wall formats, and when to hire a professional vs. doing it yourself.
Scenario Planning: Facilitating the 2x2 Critical Uncertainties Workshop
A step-by-step facilitation guide to the 2x2 critical uncertainties scenario workshop: defining focal questions, ranking drivers, selecting axes, building narratives, and stress-testing strategy.
Dot Voting: The Fastest Way to Prioritize in Workshops
Dot voting explained: how to run it, prevent anchoring bias, use digital tools, and know when a different prioritization method will serve your team better.
Stakeholder Mapping: How to Identify and Manage Workshop Stakeholders
Stakeholder mapping for workshop facilitators: the stakeholder map method, the power/interest grid, design implications, and handling difficult stakeholders.
How to Use the SWOT Analysis in a Workshop Setting
A facilitation guide for SWOT analysis workshops that end in decisions: preparation, session structure, common mistakes, the TOWS matrix and useful variations.
How to Run a Brainstorming Session That Actually Works
How to run a brainstorming session that produces results: ground rules, warm-ups, five techniques, and the facilitation mistakes that kill good ideas.
Team Health Check Workshops: How to Make Them Honest
Team health checks only work if people tell the truth. Use anonymous input and score-gap analysis, and facilitate honestly when leadership is the problem.
Real-Time Adaptation: The Promise and Reality of AI During the Workshop Itself
What AI can do during a live workshop today, like transcription, poll synthesis and action-item capture, and why a real-time AI co-facilitator is not here yet.
The Ethics of AI in Group Process: Transparency, Consent, and the Question Nobody Asks
Should participants know their workshop was AI-designed? The ethical stakes of disclosure and consent, and where algorithmic facilitation reaches its limits.
The Professional Facilitator's 8-Phase Workshop Planning Process
The 8-phase planning process experienced facilitators use: intake and scoping, objective sharpening, participant analysis, timing architecture, contingency design.
How to Run a Design Thinking Workshop in 3 Hours
A step-by-step guide to running a focused design thinking workshop, from empathy mapping to a prototype in a single morning.
ChatGPT Prompts for Workshop Planning: What Works, What Doesn't, and What's Missing
ChatGPT can draft agendas and write learning objectives, but it can't read the room. A look at what works, what doesn't, and when to reach for something better.
Team Offsite Agenda: One-Day and Two-Day Templates
A one-day and a two-day team offsite agenda with timings, session purposes and outputs, plus the energy arc and the five facilitation mistakes that waste the day.
Pattern Libraries: What Happens When AI Has Seen a Thousand Workshop Designs
AI trained on thousands of workshops can spot patterns human designers miss. On evidence-informed workshop design and its tension with facilitator intuition.
The Facilitator as Editor: A New Mental Model for AI-Assisted Workshop Design
AI tools shift workshop design from blank-page creation to editing drafts. How facilitators are redefining their expertise as curators and editors.
Pre-Work That Actually Gets Done: How AI Changes the Participant Preparation Game
Most workshop pre-work goes unread. AI enables personalized pre-briefs and adaptive questionnaires that participants complete before the session starts.
Six Facilitation Frameworks Worth Knowing (And When Each One Fits)
Six facilitation frameworks, from ORID and Liberating Structures to Open Space and Design Sprint, and when to use each by group size, length and problem.
The Workshop Planning Checklist You'll Actually Use
A workshop planning checklist from intake call to post-session handoff: objectives, stakeholder pre-interviews, methods, timing, room setup and follow-up.
The AI Advantage the Internal Coach Didn't Ask For
How AI-assisted planning helps internal coaches with their specific problem: doing more with less time, across more teams, at a consistent quality.
The Repeat Offenders: Designing for Teams You've Facilitated Six Times Before
How to evolve your approach for teams who already know your playbook, using what you know about them without becoming predictable.
Workshop Fatigue Is Your Fault (And Also Not Your Fault)
Is the groan at the calendar invite a design problem or a culture problem? How to tell, and what to do when workshops stand in for decision-making.
Pricing Your Prep: The Facilitator's Quiet Dilemma
The tension between thorough preparation and client perception of value. How to scope, communicate, and price the design work behind the workshop day.
What Participants Remember (And What They Don't)
Participants forget much of a workshop's content soon after it ends. Reframing design around what actually persists and why follow-through matters more than the session.
The 90 Minutes Before the Workshop That Determine Everything After
The pre-workshop routine of experienced facilitators: room setup, stakeholder alignment, materials check, and the mental state you walk in with.
The Difference Between a Good Facilitator and a Great One Is Mostly Invisible
The micro-decisions that separate competent moderation from the kind that shifts outcomes: when to let silence hold, when to redirect, how to read energy at minute 47.
The Facilitator's Tech Stack in 2025: What's Working, What's Duct Tape
A look at the tools facilitators actually use, such as ChatGPT, Miro, Google Docs and Notion, and where the workflow gaps still are.
When Not to Run a Workshop
A decision framework for when a workshop is the right format, when async works better, and when someone wants a workshop to avoid making a decision alone.
Five Agenda Revisions and a Crisis of Confidence: Managing the Re-Briefing Client
Why re-briefing happens (unclear objectives, internal politics, fear of failure), how to spot it early, and techniques for guiding uncertain clients toward commitment without burning margins.
Running Strategy Workshops for Teams That Disagree on What Strategy Means
How to facilitate strategy workshops when participants hold different mental models of what 'strategy' means, with pre-workshop diagnostics and frameworks.
Why Your Workshop Agenda Needs Contingency Blocks
How to build 15-20% time contingency into workshop agendas without making the schedule look padded, for facilitators who have run out of time before.