An outside facilitator for the meetings that matter
Some workshops are too important to run yourself — the room is too senior, the question too contested, or the last three attempts at "let's just talk it through" have gone nowhere. That's what an outside facilitator is for.
Melbourne based · sessions at your workplace or venue across greater Melbourne · travel Australia-wide by arrangement · from AU$2,995 (+GST)
What a workshop facilitator actually does — and what they don't.
Not run the meeting you'd have run anyway, just with better time-keeping. The job is to design the question properly, then get everyone in the room actually contributing to it.
Designs the actual question
Most sessions fail before anyone arrives, because the question on the invite isn't the question the room needs to answer. A discovery call sorts that out first.
Runs a process, not a discussion
Holds the structure that gets quieter, sharper people heard alongside the two or three who'd otherwise run the whole session — without needing anyone to be braver.
Stays outside the decision
An internal facilitator is still a colleague with an opinion and a reporting line. An outside one has no stake in which way the room lands, which is what lets people actually say what they think.
Turns it into a decision, not minutes
A photographed model summary and a written action list with names and dates against it — the difference between a good conversation and a decision that actually holds.
An outside facilitator earns its keep once the internal fixes have stopped working.
Tighter agendas and stricter timers fix structure, not participation. If the room still runs the same way with a better agenda attached, the problem was never the agenda.
The usual next move is to have someone senior chair it. That works when the question is straightforward, and it stops working the moment the person chairing also has a view on the answer — because everyone in the room can see the two roles sitting in the same chair, and they adjust what they say accordingly.
Bringing in a workshop facilitator from outside the organisation separates those roles. Chris holds the process, so your leaders get to be participants for once — arguing their case, changing their mind, being disagreed with by someone three levels below them — instead of running the clock and reading the room at the same time.
It's also why most organisations book a facilitated workshop for a particular kind of session rather than for meetings generally: a strategy day where the direction is genuinely undecided, a kickoff where the risks nobody wants to name need naming, or a wrap-up where the honest version of what happened is worth more than the tidy one. The rest of the time a well-run meeting is cheaper and faster, and we'll say so.
Each of those runs as its own format with its own shape — see the full breakdown on the workshops page.
Every session runs on LEGO® Serious Play®.
It's the method behind the facilitation, not an add-on — a structured process where everyone builds an answer before anyone speaks, which is what changes who actually gets heard. Read the full explanation of how it works and where it came from.
Melbourne, and anywhere else the room needs to be.
Brick Spark is based in Melbourne and runs sessions at your workplace or venue — the CBD, Southbank, Docklands and the rest of greater Melbourne, out to Geelong and the Mornington Peninsula.
Chris also travels Australia-wide by arrangement. Travel is quoted openly alongside the session rather than folded into the headline number, so there's nothing buried in the total.
- Melbourne CBD
- Southbank
- Docklands
- Greater Melbourne
- Geelong
- Mornington Peninsula
- Australia-wide by arrangement
You're booking Chris, not an agency.
Every session is designed and facilitated by Christopher Pepper personally — 21 years in Australian learning and development, certified in the LEGO® Serious Play® method through Pivotal Play in 2024. No account manager, no junior facilitator standing in.
The person who runs the discovery call is the person standing at the table on the day.
Questions worth asking before you book a facilitator.
What does a workshop facilitator actually do?
Designs the question the room needs to work through, runs the process that gets every person contributing to it, and turns what comes out into a decision with owners and dates against it — rather than joining the discussion as another voice in the room.
When is it worth hiring an outside facilitator?
When the question is contested or unclear enough that whoever runs it internally would also be a participant with a stake in the answer, or when the usual internal fixes — a tighter agenda, a stricter timer — haven't changed who actually gets heard.
Do you only use LEGO® Serious Play®, or do you run other formats too?
LEGO® Serious Play® is the method behind every session — it's the process that changes who gets to contribute, not an optional extra. What changes session to session is the question and the format: strategy days, kickoffs, retrospectives, resets, cross-team problem solving and rollouts. More on how the method works.
Is this the same as team building or corporate training?
No. Team building is about morale and connection; Brick Spark sessions exist to produce a specific decision. Training transmits a skill from someone who has it to people who don't; facilitation gets a room's own thinking out and organised. The output here is a decision the room reached itself, not a certificate or a better mood. There's a longer breakdown of what each one actually buys you in team building, a team day and facilitation buy three different things.
Do you travel outside Melbourne?
Yes. Brick Spark is Melbourne based and Chris travels Australia-wide by arrangement, with travel quoted openly alongside the session.
Three steps from enquiry to outcome.
Discovery call
No charge, no obligation. We map your objective and design the questions the session is built around.
The session
Facilitated end to end — everyone builds, everyone speaks, and the room works toward a decision it can act on.
Actions & 30-day follow-up
You leave with a written action list against names, and a follow-up call to check the actions landed.
Tell us about the room you need to fix.
Describe the decision that keeps getting deferred and Chris will come back with a session plan and a number within one business day. No obligation attached to either.