Attending this course and passing the exam earns 1 UX Certification credit, which also counts towards the optional UX Management Specialty.
Learn more about NN/g's UX Certification Program.
How to design and lead goal-based group exercises for collaborative gain
This is a very hands-on, workshop-style course. Using provided scenarios, you will engage in several workshop activities in groups, with each attendee being given chances to both facilitate and participate. Attendees will leave with first-hand applicable knowledge of how to design and facilitate UX workshops upon return to their organizations.
Attending this course and passing the exam earns 1 UX Certification credit, which also counts towards the optional UX Management Specialty.
Learn more about NN/g's UX Certification Program.
"Overall, I found the course useful (despite the fact that I already do lots of workshops) — esp. planning/agenda exercise."
Laura, Bit Zesty Ltd
"I loved it! Really informative, I learnt a lot and will use what I learnt to facilitate better, more productive workshops. Kate was great, clear and well prepared."
Kellie White, UK
"Probably the most useful workshop I have ever attended. Highly engaging! Kate thought of everything! I am confidently leaving with a clear framework, which I can immediately apply. Thank you!"
Danielle Gaines
"I love how many activities and strategies I gained from this workshop. Not only that, but just by watching Sarah I learned great soft skills for large groups."
Vanessa Colina, Inter-American Development Bank
More Participant Comments
"I especially liked the breakdown of which workshops to conduct and when in the design process. The UX toolkit is vast, but you were able to provide actionable points for a diverse set of situations."
Melissa Mendoza, CRITEO, Paris, France
"I was very impressed with the quality of content and presentation. Kate was very well prepared and her presentation was ruled in solid domain knowlege and practical experience. In this class, I have found balance between lecture and hands on activities to be well thought out. And the content offered exactly the type of information I had hoped from her."
Basie Coulter, Caktus Group
"Sarah offered even more tips and tricks throughout the day that are as valuable as all of the documented content. Looking forward to putting this all into practice right away."
Krista Van Guilder, Thermo Fisher Scientific
"Kate has a great sense of humor and made the hands-on exercises fun. I learned practical methods that I can put into practice right away."
David Vonberg, Allegis Group
"I haven't facilitated a workshop formally before and found this workshop to be incredibly valuable. I have a tool kit I can apply right away."
Gretchen, Continuum
"Sarah is a great, articulate instructor and the materials we covered built on each other in a natural way that makes it clear how each skill or topic informs the next."
Dan Lachapelle, Wayfair
"This is the type of tactical knowledge that is only native to people with a certain level of experience. It is fantastic to have it expanded on."
Luke Salinger, Wayfair
"Great info. Wow, Sarah really knows this topic."
Nate Turnage, USAA
"Highly recommend it, even if you are experienced at workshops."
David Gonzalaz, LTE Partners
"I cannot wait to practice this when I get back to the office. I thought the course was very valuable, informative, well planned and really fun!"
Sherlyn, Nordstrom Rack
"Sarah was a charismatic presenter with a deep knowledge of her topic and a lot of passion for sharing it."
Kelly Bao
"It's a firehose of information. I feel so much more confident in my ability to lead a workshop after just a single day of training. Amazing job, Sarah. You have a gift and serve as an inspiration."
Mike Davis, MailChimp
"Really enjoyed the workshop facilitation course. I learned some new things and others were reinforced. This will definitely be valuable in coaching and mentoring other facilitators in our organization."
Caleb Gore, DMI
"I think this was helpful to give me confidence to lead more workshops in the future."
Lauren H. Care, First
"Many leader and manager positions focus on strategy and engaging teams across an organization. This workshop-focused session provides ideas on how to optimize one's operation as a leader and demonstrate tangible value for us through workshops"
Darren Hood, Quicken Loans
"This course will either reinforce or will help you start facilitating workshops successfully no matter your level of expertise or your background!"
Juan Madrigal, Yuxi Global
"An exceptional course — Sarah's passion for the subject is clear. A lot of information, from short term easy tasks to longer term goals and objectives."
Todd Morrison, Perfect Sense Digital
"Gave me a lot of tools and a framework to use them for months and years to come."
Robb Chen-Wer, Big Human
"The instructor was very engaging, funny and helpful. I benefited by gaining practical knowledge on how to facilitate workshops and adapt them to situations."
Bernard Tyers, Home Office Digital, UK
"Really enjoyed the case studies in the course. It engages us to identify different cases in workshops, analyze them and see what can we do when we face it."
Ellie Xu, Intel
"The quality of the material was very good and easy to use later. The instructor is excellent and I loved the exercises. Can't wait to practice more!"
Pernille Madsen, Copenhagen
"Kate is a very engaging presenter who really knows the material. She provides a lot of examples to see the material in context. Great course! Highly recommend."
Jessica Dufour, Brigade
"Really engaging and practical course with clear workshop ideas to take back and work on straightaway."
Bec Connelly, RNW Media
"This course was really useful in understanding the different types of workshop, when to use them and some great ideas for using in my next workshop."
Ventia Casely, Money Advice Service
"Provides structure, tools, techniques and interactivity for learning how to implement UX workshops. Beautiful deck (I'm copying!)"
Gary Palmer, Abex Systems
"Really knowledge-heavy workshop. I will digest it all and use in practice for sure."
Sam Wooldridge, RBS Group
"Very comprehensive and covered a lot in a single day. I will be able to immediately use some techniques when I return to work. This has given me the skills and confidence to run a workshop."
Chet Thaker, FM Global
"Good listing of activity ideas and how they might support workshop goals. Good content/explanation on how to get started, approach a workshop. I definitely feel more confident in preparing and executing after the course."
Libby, Tank Design
"This is by far the best of all, lots of tools, and insight received. Extremely talented person with solid people skills."
Anal Chauhan
"Fantastic presenter. Knowledgeable. Right pace. Fabulous! Slides are excellent and actionable."
Betsy Eble, Red Hat
"I can take a lot of the information learned in the class back to my company and start to incorporate it right away."
Bradley Molinda, Veyo
"Excellent course! Mix of content and application was well balanced and easily reinforced. Looking forward to using step by step recommendations to improve my future workshops."
Jicara Gorski, FedEx Services
"This course provided a solid base for understanding the UX facilitation process and inspired me to learn more, practice and implement the techniques and processes that were presented."
Susan Hunert, USAA
"Gave me a basis to feel I can lead these workshops in my organization."
Andy Bassiri, BP3
"This was a perfect blend of high level concepts and practical stuff I can use right away."
Andrew Heber, ZS
"I liked the mix of presentation, activities and breaks. The content was well presented and very visual. Activities reinforced what we learned. I'm excited to bring those new tools back to the office."
Helen Van, Nashville, TN
"Loved getting to try out the activities and the course was very comprehensive — covering everything about the workshop experience."
Adria Spivac, Lifesize
"Provides a lot of new, updated and helpful information. Involves some hands-on activity which helps embed the topic in your mind."
Sanyyot Peterson, Kaloa, Inc.
"This course was jam-packed, rapid pace, a few more interactive activities might be nice, but I don't know how you'd fit in. All info seemed critical to me."
David Ryan, USE
"Content was incredibly useful, but it was delivered so densely that it felt a little like drinking from a firehose."
Ri Zoldak, Ameriprise Financial
"Loved how incredibly practical and high-level this course was!"
Michael Kwon, Blizzard Entertainment
"As someone that has planned, conducted and attending UX workshops, this course is a must for any designer. Guidance on activities, planning ad dealing with difficult participants are filling in the gaps for my skill set. Thanks!"
Jonathan D'Ambra, Bluetooth
"Some information overload for me. I do like that my notebook is full, so it's not all negative. I learned a lot."
Kim Hultgren
"The instructor was wonderful. Very thoughtful, focused and shared loads of useful info."
Dominika Sallemova, ESET
"Very professional, engaging and structured. Instructor was especially helpful in clarifying questions and engaging students."
Rita Benitez, UNFCCC
"If you want to explore range of methods & tools to deal with the UX process and get on well with what workshops have to be, you're in the good place!"
Sophie Amisse, NovUp, France
"Katie presents you with an amazing holistic overview of facilitating. The toolkit she provides will be used every time I need to prepare a workshop. Great job!"
Maria Yancheva
"You should definitely take this class if you desire to acquire a new super power."
Camilo Sanchez, Publicis
"Loved this course, it was fund and it is educational! The exercises were great to reinforce learning. It has refreshed a lot of things for me and given me new things to try."
Emma Pyper, P & G
"Sarah demonstrated her expertise in facilitation perfectly by facilitating this course. We stayed on track and always knew where we were at during the day. The resources prep was so helpful."
Leah Gallagher
"It was the 3rd course for me with Sarah. And she is facilitating her courses like she is teaching the content. So she is very authentic."
Bjorn Frieling, Youitive
"Excellent time! I especially liked the list of practical methods so I can use them right away when I'm back to work. Her experience/case study was also interesting. Thank you!"
Mikako, Indeed
"This course is perfect! I think that it is definitely most useful if you have at least facilitated a few times. For me Sarah is excellent. When I signed up for this course I wondered how a practical skill can be taught without us spending all day actually doing "that thing" But in actual fact breaking down "what" facilitation is and "how" and "Why" we do it has really helped me."
"She's a little devil that gets everyone (y'all) out of their comfort zone. Following a course of Sarah is like a once in a lifetime experience."
Stephen Howe, SDWorx
"The day's been excellent, crammed with brilliant content and insight."
Llara Geddes, User Conversion
"Take the course! Useful on every level. It's a bit fast paced, a lot of stuff covered in one day."
Julia, Athens Greece
"I had very high expectations about this course and they were met :) The content was very good and it helped to look at workshops from a different angles. Thank you."
Katarzyna Potyratix, Philip Morris International
"A great course that gives you a toolset of UX best practices to use and adapt with clients and colleagues to facilitate UX workshops!"
Oscar Mayr, Capgemini
"I enjoyed this very much. It's a delight to listen to Kate speak about this topic, and the only thing that was distracting me were my own thoughts about how I can apply this in practice. The slides are an amazing resource that I'm sure I will come back to again and again."
Saskia Idzerda, Baker Hughes
"Really liked the content of this course. A lot go new things and ideas for me. I can use this a lot in my daily work. Also liked the speaker, she had a good knowledge about the topic and she has great tips, thanks a lot!"
Maaike Bruggeling, CGI, Rotterdam Netherlands
"It's amazing to see how many things you think you know, being a facilitator in many workshops, and you get to this course and the mastery and details that Sarah brings to the game and how organised is not only mind-blowing but also a great way to see a stelar player in the field."
Giu Vicente, ServiceNow, Amsterdam
"This course is really rich in content and interactions. Sarah is a very skillful and talented instructor/facilitator. Looking forward to applying everything we've learned in practice. Highly recommend!"
Stevy Georgiadi, Architechts, Athens, Greece
"This course was not only a great primer on everything around facilitation, but really helped tear into the deeper considerations that go into designing workshops and designing in real-time stakeholder interactions and outcomes, and how to truly make it rewarding for everyone involved! Which can only be conveyed through time spent, hard work, experience and constant conscious reflection."
Sharmaine, Refinitiv Labs
"I really liked how Sarah taught by example instead of just telling us what to do. The entire beginning of the course was designed as an example of how to kick off a workshop in a good way. A great way to get the information to stick! I would tell others to take this course because it was clear to me that both Sarah and Rachel had done a lot of workshops before and really know what they were talking about. There was a lot of hands on tips and the resources we now have access to is a lot more than I expected when entering the course! The list of phrases for example, best list of all time! Having Rachel moderate was also a smart move. I could be confident that a question asked in the chat would not go unnoticed. And it made me feel like Sarah was more present in the class instead of always keeping an eye on the chat. I'm stealing that concept by the way!"
Christina Svensson, Cygni, Sweden
"This class covered everything a great facilitator needs to know....from the nitty gritty planning stages to the high-level strategies of diverging and converging. And most of all, it was fun and engaging. I'd recommend this to any UX practitioner because facilitating skills are invaluable."
Bree Mangun, Pampered Chef, Addison
"Sarah is a wonderful instructor, so personable and passionate — it really shined through my first experience taking courses with NN/g. Her ability to communicate and explain topics is superb — in a way that resonates and really helps you to connect the dots when lots of new terms and phrases are being used. Couldn't have asked for more. I feel I've benefitted greatly and can't wait to go out into the world and start practising what I've learned!"
Roshine Bagha, The Stars Group, Wakefield
"Very good! Should be a mandatory course for any designer."
Maira Santos, OneSpan, Montreal, Canada
"Inducing confidence in someone is a huge thing. I feel a lot more confident and prepared for my upcoming workshops as a facilitator. Thanks to Sarah!"
Divyani Bhisikar, Tetra Pak, Pune, India
"One of the best UX workshops I have ever attended which covers the breadth of facilitating methods, tips and also the timelines of when to use them. Also, it was engaging with all the hands-on exercises."
Vamsi Batchu, Truist Bank, Atlanta, USA
"Katie modeled the content of this course by expertly facilitating. I gained a lot of new knowledge, techniques and methods to get the best out of workshops we will run in the future."
Lani Raukawa Field, Signify Ltd, Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand
"This course gives a holistic idea on workshops and facilitation tips that can be used at various phases of product design. I learned a lot during this course on how to plan and prepare for a workshop."
Reshmi Koikkara, XPO Logistics, Portland, OR, USA
"The course is extremely beneficial for people who will be part of UX workshops or who will be managing them.
I came across concepts which can definitely be implemented at my workplace."
Sakshi Somani, Cincinnati
"Yes, I learned a lot from this 1 day session. The instructor was very clear in giving examples for each discussion point & was very thorough in answering all our questions. Overall, I really like the comprehensive but concise class material. I am excited to start applying them out in my present work and see the impact in our organization."
Jessica Dee, SAP, Palo Alto, USA
"I really enjoyed the course and thoroughly gained from it. I really liked the way it was structured covering the basics and structure of workshops followed by nuances of facilitation and preparation. The section on the UX workshops in practice was an icing on the cake. I came out way more richer from the course. I was able to clearly understand my strengths and weaknesses. I now have the right tools and knowledge to build my facilitation skills and be more effective and confident at facilitation."
Praveen Bandaru, Cognizant, Edinburgh, UK
"It is really good. The quotes and examples of the core techniques were life-changing for me."
Joyce Sueko, Assignar, Sydney / Australia
"Great foundations about how to facilitate and practical ways to deal with common problems that may hinder productivity. I find it very useful and will definitely be using the resources ongoing for my job."
Paolo Sta Barbara, SBS, Sydney, Australia
"There are workshop methods in this course that you will absolutely want to take back to your organization and use - I feel like next time I run a workshop we are actually going to make something, and it's going to awesome!"
Crystal Cary, Frazer Computing, Canton, NY, USA
"Excellent course to learn about different types of workshop methods, when to use them and who to invite to those workshops. Also a lot of useful tips and techniques on how to facilitate. Kate was an excellent teacher, watching her teaching this course alone was a learning opportunity."
Laura Heine, b13 GmbH, Stuttgart, Germany
"A great way to extend and repeat knowledge to get better at engaging workshop participants."
Jonathan Svensson, FOI, Sweden
"This is an absolute must if you run, or are thinking of running UX workshops and/or even smaller working sessions. This course went beyond just listing activities - it gave real, actionable ways to implement them and when, based on a variety of resources. Whether you are just first starting a project or are trying to focus in on a specific issue - this class has a method to ensure success."
Tracey Jackson, MERGE, Atlanta, USA
"TAKE THIS COURSE! It was well worth the time. I've facilitated workshops before, but still learned new methods, as well as ways to become a better facilitator."
Kat, Hoffman York, Milwaukee, WI
"It's super reputable and packed with valuable information."
Joseph Sip, Best Buy, Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
"Highly recommend this course! The course structure was really well balanced. Just enough overview on some topics, deeper dives for more complex/involved topics, good breakout examples to tie things together, and great domain expertise tips peppered throughout. The pace was great as well! Thank you again, Kate!"
Ben Worley, Doxy.me, Charleston, USA
"This course gave me so many great insights on techniques that I hope to apply immediately to my work. Make sure to take notes, because Kate Kaplan provided very helpful information on how to decide which methods would be most helpful for a given situation, in a way that was distinct from the slides."
Lauren Swainston, USANA Health Sciences, Salt Lake City, USA
"There was a lot to unpack in this course, I will be spending a good amount of time reflecting on all the ways to incorporate the methods and frameworks shared. It truly was fully of useful, practical tips and tools."
Heather McGeachy, Mozilla, Portland, Oregon, USA
"Incredibly VALUABLE session ! HUGE THANK YOU !!!! I realise how some of my peers have been using such activities, techniques and how I have been played ;) But mainly, I realise that there are SO MANY higher ranked people (manager, senior roles) who have literally no clue what they are doing, nor what they should be doing! Such a course could save so many many hours wasted in irrelevant "meetings". This was extremely insightful, eyes opening, showing me a direction and offering me great resources to dig deeper as I feel I have now SO MUCH more learn and PRACTICE. If more people were aware, capable of facilitating using these, team would not only be so much more efficient and productive but also more motivated :) This is insanely brilliant ! all of it. Instructor is fantastic - great pace, applying the rules she is laying down for us, keeping us very engaged (breakout rooms, polls, presentation to group), even on the last day and after 9pm local time!"
"Go follow this course because it is so essential and useful. I've never had a course with so many actionable content."
Benoît Drouillat, Oodrive, Paris, France
"This course is essential to understand the foundations of effective UX workshops. It provides a very solid framework for facilitators to help them ensure they are successful."
Daniel González López, Microsoft, Madrid, Spain
"I like the fact that this course gives you an overview of every type of possible workshop type to use for each particular type of challenge you are facing during product development. For each type of workshop it also gives you a structure and different techniques to run the workshop as facilitator so it's very practical oriented which I liked."
Robin Di Capua, Swisscom, Zurich, Switzerland
"I think this course gives you a lot of hands-on tools that you can tweak towards your workshop needs. Kate has filled this session with templates, recommendations and further reads. I feel ready to try facilitating workshops now!"
Jennifer, deskbird, remote-only
"I feel like I understand how to use workshops as a powerful UX tool instead of a compulsory exercise. I can't wait to more fully integrate workshops into my company's research practice."
Beth Schwindt, Capital One
User experience is not a siloed practice. In order to collect knowledge, generate new ideas, and design solutions, it’s best to bring people together. But even when people come together with the best intentions, ideas and outputs don’t just simply happen.
The job often falls upon the UX lead to design group meetings and collaborative exercises that create harmony among diverse opinions and yield innovative solutions. And as a facilitator, it’s your responsibility to make sure the time spent in workshops is as productive as possible for attendees—clients, stakeholders and other team members—while at the same time ensuring that you get the insights you need in order to move your project forward.
In this practical course, you will both learn and practice a variety of goal-oriented group exercises designed to meet specific UX objectives. You will gain confidence in facilitating UX workshops and leave with tips, tricks and techniques to run your next workshop with ease.