Join us for this beta edition of the new Facilitation Deep Dive, now also exploring AI in facilitation and how to facilitate teams working with AI. Learn how to both read and run the room, facilitating workshops and projects online and offline.
Adam Lawrence, service design expert and co-author of This is Service Design Doing; co-initiator of the world's biggest service design event "Global Service Jam"; adjunct professor at IE Business School Madrid; specialist for facilitation of collaboration and engagement. See Adam's profile on LinkedIn.
Renatus Hoogenraad, specialist for human aspects of change, expert contributor to This is Service Design Doing. Renatus draws on his experience in service design, coaching and performance arts to guide international clients through innovation projects and cultural change. See Renatus' profile on LinkedIn.
(Please note: This is not a service design course. It is about facilitating service design activities and other collaborative work. If you are looking for service design training, we recommend This is Service Design Doing: Executive School or This is Service Design Doing: Essentials, both available online and offline.)
The Facilitation Deep Dive is suitable for anyone leading collaborative work, such as service design or design thinking projects, strategy workshops, innovation sprints, ideation and prototyping sessions, organisational change initiatives, hackathons, jams, or learning events.
“This beta edition explores the next evolution of the Facilitation Deep Dive, bringing facilitation into the age of AI while staying true to the principles that have made the course successful.”
Around 80% of this beta edition remains the same, because the fundamentals of great facilitation have not changed. Reading the room, creating trust, structuring collaboration and helping groups do their best thinking are still at the heart of effective facilitation.
What has changed is the context. AI is creating powerful new opportunities for facilitators, changing how participants prepare, think and collaborate, and raising new questions about how groups work together. Throughout the course, we will explore practical ways to use AI before, during and after workshops, while also learning how to facilitate teams whose members increasingly work with AI.
Through a series of highly interactive activities, participants will experience, practise and reflect on facilitation techniques, experimenting with both timeless methods and carefully selected AI-supported approaches.
Participants have the opportunity to practise and receive feedback from both faculty and their peers. At the end of the course, they will be equipped to lead engaging workshops and collaborative sessions across a wide range of contexts, confidently combining enduring facilitation skills with practical AI-enabled approaches, without losing the human judgement, trust and presence that great facilitation requires.
Day 1: 10:00 to 17:30 (doors open and coffee is served from 09:30)
- introduction and basics
- understanding working preferences and engagement
- structuring sessions for effective collaboration
- other intelligences: how AI use affects teamwork
- needs outside the room – the sponsor and other stakeholders
Day 2: 09:00 to 17:30 (doors open and coffee is served from 08:30)
- relative status; understanding power behaviour
- time and space, the facilitator's secret tools
- freedom and structure, the eternal tension?
- AI as an assistant and co-facilitator
- facilitation challange: the meeting from Hell
Day 3: 09:00 to 16:30 (doors open and coffee is served from 08:30)
- creating safe space
- online facilitation
- coaching on personal challenges
- reflection and next steps
- soft close (after the course finishes at 16:30, you are welcome to stay and reflect until your transport leaves)
Location: WorkPlayExperience Service Design Lab, Hessestraße 5, 90443 Nürnberg, Germany
Accessibility: The WPX Service Design Lab is located in a historic building on the fourth floor. At the moment, building work means that our elevator is problematical. If you have mobility challenges, please let us know. It is our problem, not yours.
Max participants: 24 (Note: because diverse viewpoints and backgrounds form part of the learning experience, please understand that no more than 5 people from the same organisation may attend.
Price: Early bird BETA €790 plus taxes (until 01.08.2026 )
Normal price BETA €1190 plus taxes (from 02.08.2026)
(Please note these reduced prices reflect the experimental BETA version of the course.)
Student? Unemployed? Underrepresented? As us about inclusive prices.
The price includes tuition, one-on-one coaching opportunities, digital copies of learning materials, drinks, snacks and lunches. Successful participants will receive a printed and signed certificate.
Language: English. If needed, help is available in French, German, amd Dutch.
This is Service Design Doing: Facilitation Deep Dive is presented together with the CoCreation School, a coproduction of WorkPlayExperience GbR, Sparks sàrl, and Servis8.
This is Service Design Doing moves service design thinking from theory to practice, connecting customer experience to business success. The School facilitators Adam, Marc, and Markus, together with Jakob, also published the book with the same name. With cases and tips from 300 contributors, the authors outline tools and methods, discuss running workshops, sprints and projects, and explore embedding service design.
*All prices not including VAT.
