Design a workshop agenda built around a single defined decision or output.
Project Management
Facilitation Techniques for Project Planning and Decision Workshops
Build the facilitation skills that make planning and decision workshops productive: workshop design, divergent and convergent techniques, decision rights and clear documented outcomes.
🗓️Duration5 training days
📚Content4 modules · 8 sessions
🎓On completionAccredited attendance certificate
About the programme
Course Overview
Many project decisions get made in meetings that never reach a decision at all: the loudest voice wins, quieter expertise goes unheard, and the group leaves to schedule a follow-up meeting instead. This course treats facilitation as a distinct project skill, separate from subject-matter expertise, and teaches the techniques that turn a planning or decision workshop into a reliable route to a documented outcome. Participants learn to design a workshop around a single decision or output, choose divergent techniques such as brainwriting and affinity diagramming to generate options without groupthink, and apply convergent techniques such as weighted scoring and dot voting to narrow those options down. The course covers decision-rights frameworks that assign who recommends, who agrees and who decides, so a workshop ends with an owned decision rather than a list of opinions. Sessions are built around the workshops project managers actually run: work breakdown structure sessions, estimating workshops, risk identification sessions and difficult replanning discussions under time pressure, each with its own facilitation demands.
Expected Learning Outcomes
Run divergent techniques such as brainwriting and affinity diagramming to generate options fairly.
Apply convergent techniques including weighted scoring and dot voting to narrow a group to a decision.
Assign decision rights using a RAPID or DACI style framework before a workshop begins.
Facilitate a work breakdown structure or estimating workshop without anchoring the group's judgement.
Manage dominant personalities and quiet participants so a session reflects the whole room.
Document workshop decisions with rationale in a form the wider project can act on.
Who Should Attend
Project managers who plan and lead their own scoping, risk or estimating workshops.
PMO facilitators supporting planning sessions across multiple concurrent projects.
Business analysts running requirements or decision workshops with mixed stakeholder groups.
Change managers facilitating workshops where stakeholders disagree on direction.
Team leads new to running structured sessions rather than informal meetings.
Portfolio and programme staff who facilitate prioritisation across competing initiatives.
Course Modules
Select any module to see its sessions and points.
01Designing a Workshop Before the Room Fills
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Purpose, Participants and Pre-Work
- Write a single-sentence purpose statement that defines the one decision or output a workshop must produce.
- Select participants by decision right rather than seniority, inviting only those who must recommend, agree or decide.
- Send pre-work packs in advance so workshop time is spent deciding, not briefing.
- Build a timeboxed agenda that separates divergent exploration from convergent decision-making.
Session 2Facilitator Role, Neutrality and Ground Rules
- Separate the facilitator role from the contributor role so the same person is not steering content and process.
- Set ground rules that protect psychological safety for junior or dissenting voices.
- Use a parking lot to capture off-topic issues without losing workshop momentum.
- Assign a scribe role distinct from facilitation so decisions are captured accurately.
02Generating Options Without Groupthink
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Structured Brainstorming and Silent Generation
- Run a brainwriting round in which participants write ideas silently before any verbal discussion.
- Apply the round-robin technique so every participant contributes before open debate begins.
- Cluster generated ideas using affinity diagramming to reveal themes the group had not named.
- Sequence silent generation before group discussion to reduce anchoring on the first idea spoken.
Session 2Engaging Quiet Voices and Remote Participants
- Apply the nominal group technique to give quiet specialists equal weight to confident speakers.
- Configure a digital whiteboard tool so hybrid participants contribute on equal terms with the room.
- Run breakout groups with a structured report-back format to cover more ground in less time.
- Recognise and interrupt patterns where one or two voices dominate a mixed-seniority group.
03Converging on a Decision
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Prioritisation and Scoring Methods
- Run a dot-voting or multi-voting exercise to shortlist options before detailed scoring.
- Build a weighted scoring matrix against criteria the group agrees before seeing the options.
- Apply paired comparison to resolve close-call rankings that scoring alone cannot separate.
- Use MoSCoW prioritisation to close a scope discussion that scoring treats as all-or-nothing.
Session 2Decision Rights and Closing the Loop
- Apply a RAPID or DACI framework to assign who recommends, agrees, decides and is informed.
- Define an escalation path for decisions where a workshop cannot reach consensus on the day.
- Record each decision with its rationale in a decision log linked to the project record.
- Close a workshop by confirming owners and dates for every action the decision creates.
04Facilitating the Workshops Project Managers Actually Run
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Work Breakdown, Estimating and Risk Workshops
- Facilitate a work breakdown structure session that decomposes scope without the facilitator drafting it alone.
- Run a three-point estimating workshop that captures a range rather than a single anchored figure.
- Structure a risk identification workshop so categories of risk are covered systematically, not randomly.
- Guard against anchoring bias when a senior voice states an estimate before the group has spoken.
Session 2Facilitating Replanning and Conflict-Laden Sessions
- Facilitate a schedule recovery workshop under time pressure without skipping option generation.
- Surface conflict constructively by naming disagreement rather than letting it stay unspoken.
- Mediate a scope trade-off negotiation between stakeholders with competing priorities.
- Track workshop actions to completion so decisions taken in the room are not lost afterwards.
What the participant receives
4 course modules
A structured syllabus
8 training sessions
across 5 days
32 detailed points
Applied, detailed content
Accredited attendance certificate
On completing the programme
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