Before you book the 2027 planning day, find last year's plan
Somewhere in your calendar is a planning day for early 2027. Before you book the venue, open the plan from the last one and count what actually happened.
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Better meetings, one brick at a time.
Plain-spoken pieces on the sessions everyone complains about — the dominated ones, the drifting ones, the ones that end without a decision — and what actually fixes them.
How to stop one person dominating every meeting
Seven things that actually work when one voice runs every meeting — and the three that make it worse. From a facilitator who runs rooms for a living.
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Forty-five minutes, twelve people, zero decisions
Twelve people take turns reporting what they did last week. Forty-five minutes pass, everyone nods, and nothing was decided by anyone in the room.
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If your retro feels like déjà vu, it is
The same communication problem gets raised, the same dependency gets blamed, the same fix gets written down. Why retros repeat, and what breaks the loop.
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The best idea in your last meeting never got said
Somewhere in your last meeting was the best idea in the room, and nobody heard it. Airtime is not insight, and that gap compounds over a year.
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The offsite that ends up on a shelf
Good venue, better food, whiteboards full of sticky notes, and a warm sense the team is closer. Three weeks later nothing has changed. Here is why.
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What actually happens in a LEGO Serious Play session
Everyone builds before anyone talks, every model gets heard, and the group builds the decision. A plain walkthrough of the method, skeptics included.
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You've tried agendas and timers. Meetings still fail.
You have tried agendas, timers and tighter invite lists, and the same two people still run the room, because none of those fixes change who gets heard.
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Your team already agreed. That's the problem.
Nobody objected, so the proposal went through. Three weeks later half the room admits they had doubts. Silence is not agreement, and it costs real money.
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Team building or facilitation? What you're actually buying
Team building, a team day and facilitation get treated as the same budget line. They buy three different things, and only one of them buys a decision.
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How to run a retro where people say the hard thing
A retrospective technique you can run yourself this week: silent capture first, then round-robin, then one change with a name against it.
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When a workshop is the wrong answer
Four situations where booking a facilitated session wastes your money. Written by someone who sells them.
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Your 70 has no design in it
One of the researchers behind 70:20:10 called it folklore. The numbers are soft, and the bigger problem is that nobody designs the biggest part of it.
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The post-mortem where everyone agreed it went fine
The project shipped late and everyone knew roughly why. Then the review opened, the senior manager spoke first, and the room agreed it went fine.
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Is LEGO Serious Play worth it? 7 signs it will pay off
A facilitated LEGO Serious Play workshop costs real time and money. Here are seven signs it will pay off for your team, and when it won't.
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