Training & Capacity Building
We design and facilitate a wide variety of workshops and trainings that meet people where they are and create safe spaces to learn new skills.
Training is a cornerstone of our work because it creates space for people to develop and practice the skills needed to carry projects forward. Skills such as:
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Recent Projects
Process
Designing Curriculum
Each training or workshop infuses the context of the client–whether one department within a city or a cross-departmental team at a state agency. Depending on the size and scope of the training, workshop or longer capacity building effort, we conduct a light discovery phase to learn more about the context. This might include short interviews or a survey to potential participants on what they’d like to learn.
We take what we’ve learned to develop a curriculum that matches the desired content and format for our audience. We adapt and expand on content that we’ve continuously refined over the past 10 years, curating sessions that are relevant and meaningful.
Our team of curriculum designers and facilitators are also full-time practitioners. We bring insights from our projects – across service areas – while also bringing new approaches in co-design and trauma-informed practices.
Trainings & Facilitations
Our facilitation style is interactive with a focus on group collaboration, reflection, and learning by doing. Bringing people together in shared and one-on-one activities creates opportunities for empathy-building and peer learning. This reflects the skills needed to work well in teams and practice human-centered design.
Whether we are bringing people together virtually or in person, our goal is always to maximize the value of connecting people to each other. We mix teaching and team building methods that appeal to different learning and working styles. And we leverage equitable facilitation techniques to ensure the learning environment is safe and welcoming to everyone.
Learning Labs
LEARNING: an equitable exchange of knowledge and experience among peers
LAB: a place for experimentation
Our signature “Learning Lab” is an immersive learning and engagement experience for cross-departmental teams in public institutions. We originally co-designed this learn-by-doing program with one of our clients to offer learners the opportunity to build skills in creative problem solving, while strengthening human connections within teams and across organizational silos.
Over the course of six sessions, participants work in small teams and apply Human-Centered Design (HCD) methods to address a real world challenge, while also skilling up on project management, effective communication, data synthesis and more. The Learning Lab culminates in a “Showcase” where each team presents the prototypes they developed to their peers, organizational leadership and, when appropriate, community members to see where their insights informed decision making.
This HCD learning experience differs from others in that it allows learners to immediately apply tools and techniques to public sector challenges. Get in touch if you’d be interested in hosting a Learning Lab of your own!
Products
We’ve applied our process for annual Board and Council retreats and for citywide strategic plans. We’ve also worked in more specific contexts such as smart city action plans and county-wide workforce plans.
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Trainings that teach core human-centered design skills through interactive, “learn by doing” activities. |
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Workshops that guide participants through a specific step in the design process |
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Applied Learning Programs that coach cross-discipline teams through the process of understanding a real challenge and testing ideas to address it |