Face to Face (F2F) Training & Facilitation

Examples of my work

Commissioned directly by the CEO, I designed and facilitated a high-stakes multi-day strategic alignment workshop for senior leaders from across the organization. This was a cross-departmental group navigating a period of significant misalignment, which was creating bottlenecks and friction in day-to-day operations. The assignment carried enough weight that a member of the executive team was present throughout, on hand to lend support and answer questions as they arose. 

My interaction design approach—drawing on systems thinking and principles from complexity science (to work with emergent group dynamics) and human-centered design (to keep participants and their perspectives at the center)—focused on intentionally structuring conversations and energy flows to first surface shared goals, then open safe channels for voicing perspectives and building empathy. Incorporating the Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing model, I designed it deliberately to surface and work through tensions rather than smooth them over. Activities included participatory visioning, gallery walks, voting, consensus-building, and a detailed action plan with assigned ownership and deadlines.

Every element of the interaction was purposeful—environment shifts (formal to collaborative to informal settings), physical movement to sustain energy, and hands-on dialogue tools (sticky notes, flipcharts) instead of slide-heavy passive presentations—all in service of keeping participants actively engaged and shifting group dynamics in real time.

The workshop was a significant success. By the end, participants who had arrived feeling misaligned were engaging openly and collegially, a shift that was visible in real time. I received a performance bonus in recognition of my contribution.

When the Local Capacity Strengthening (LCS) Practice Area launched at MSH, its newly assembled global team of seven had never been in the same room. I designed and led a five-day, in-person retreat that served as the team's founding moment—part strategy session, part team-building, and part organizational design.

As both practice area lead and lead facilitator, I designed the overall agenda and my own sessions, coordinated with teammates who each led or co-led sessions, and provided facilitation coaching along the way. Pre-work included an MBTI personality assessment, whose results we explored together on Day 1 to build self-awareness and shared understanding across the team. Sessions drew on a variety of participatory facilitation techniques and liberating structures to keep the group engaged and the work generative. 

By the end of the week, we had a draft LCS conceptual framework, a shared vision statement, and a strategic roadmap of priorities for the year ahead—built collectively so that everyone had a hand in shaping the direction they'd be working toward. Evenings included a team dinner, a staff happy hour, and an escape room, all intentional investments in the relationships that make a team actually function.