Facilitator aide-memoire

Guide the thinking. Let the group decide.

One shared clock, independent group pacing, human ideas first, and accountable movement at the end.

The operating model

The clock is shared. Your group controls its pace.

The lead facilitator starts the room, the shared clock, and the projector experience. You guide one breakout group through Discover, Define, Develop, Deliver, and Commit. Everyone receives the same time notices, but groups do not have to change sections together.

Spend longer where the thinking needs it and recover time later. Use Back and Next in your group workspace to move only your group. The clock informs your tradeoffs; it never moves the group.

Before the rooms

Set the working agreement.

Ask everyone to keep their own device open. Their notes form the group's shared context.
Assign each person one lens for the workshop: Skeptic, Systems Thinker, Futurist, or Responsible Innovator.
With a larger group, put one or two people on each lens.
Human ideas first. Generative AI second. Human judgment always.

Discover

Widen what the group understands.

Talk before touching the AI controls.
Capture tensions, evidence, stakeholders, assumptions, and unanswered questions as short notes.
Aim for quantity and difference. Protect disagreement.
Run one lens at a time, read its questions aloud, and let the lens owner lead the response.

Define

Converge on the problem worth carrying.

Consolidate once and read the shared candidates aloud.
Select the strongest candidate. Use Change choice if the group reconsiders.
Construct a statement with who, what, observable evidence, and a meaningful boundary.
Ask one final lens question and weave in only what improves the statement.

Develop

Open the solution space before designing.

Generate human ideas first and add them as shared notes.
Use the lenses to provoke alternatives, consequences, dependencies, and possibilities.
Encourage combinations and reversals instead of polishing the first plausible answer.

Deliver

Choose a direction and name the next uncertainty.

Consolidate ideas into distinct directions and discuss the tradeoffs.
Select one direction. Use Change choice if needed.
Construct and challenge it with one final lens question.
Move forward with a test, research step, partnership, sponsorship, or delivery action.

Commit

Put accountable names on a realistic next move.

When the data-sharing sponsor signs off, the hospital data lead and vendor partner will run a four-week test with three frontline teams by 30 September, then publish the owner, outcome measure and next decision.

It names a trigger, action, people, date, and evidence for the next decision.

Moves that matter

Facilitate the judgment, not the software.

Read AI output aloud. Examine it as a contribution, never an instruction.

Prefer one strong question. Protect time for thought instead of rapidly running every lens.

Name the time tradeoff. Say what you are protecting and where the group will recover time.

Use every device as resilience. If the monitor fails, the shared workspace remains available.

Recovery

Keep the room moving.

To switch groups: open Today, choose Problems, then select the new group.
If two facilitators press Back or Next together, one update wins and every device adopts it.
If consolidation is already running, wait for the shared result before deciding whether to run it again.
If the network drops, continue the conversation and capture notes when it returns. AI responses need a connection.

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