The Facilitator's Stack: A Checklist From Invitation to Follow-Up

Series: How to Run a Workshop People Remember (10/10)

Nine posts of opinions, mechanics and tool links later, here's the whole series compressed into the artifact people actually asked me for: the runbook. Print it, paste it into Notion, ignore half of it — the checklist is the point, not the compliance.

T-minus 2 weeks: design

• [ ] Write the outcome sentence: "By the end, participants can ___" (part 1)
• [ ] Write the evidence sentence: "I'll know because ___"
• [ ] Draft the four-beat arc with minutes: Open → Explore → Converge → Close
• [ ] Pick activities from folders with run sheets, props and debrief scripts — WorkshopSkill, or file your own materials in the folder shape (part 2)
• [ ] Pressure-test the plan with ChatGPT or Claude; keep the one-page plan in Notion

T-minus 1 week: prep

• [ ] Print props (poker-spec cards, A3 posters, both manual sizes)
• [ ] Create the sign-up card and check-in card — QRCard AI, printable, live status after printing (part 3)
• [ ] Send the invite with the card in it; if tickets are paid, the money lives in Eventbrite, the card handles the day
• [ ] Build the pre/post measure — FormLM, from the pre/post-training quiz template, one description and the scoring is generated (part 6)
• [ ] Optional, if you do this monthly: let an agent do the above from the folder's SKILL.md via skills.json, and build the forms over FormLM's MCP server — npm package @formlm/cli, npx -y @formlm/cli mcp (part 7)

Day before: the room

• [ ] Pre-build the remote/hybrid board if needed — Miro or FigJam, frames per group, never a blank canvas (part 5)
• [ ] Wi-Fi card on each table — free in-browser generator, nothing uploaded
• [ ] Charge everything; pack the clicker; check the projector with the presenter deck
• [ ] Deal tomorrow's groups in advance — random group generator, cross-matching if the goal is introductions

Day of: run it

• [ ] Pre-measure open as people arrive (under 10 minutes, scored)
• [ ] Open with pairs, not the big screen — Two Truths and a Lie, two minutes (part 4)
• [ ] One live-screen moment, genuinely used: trainer live screen — counts, not names (part 4)
• [ ] Every group task = artifact + visible countdown + midpoint callout (part 5)
• [ ] Debrief scripted, not improvised — What? So what? Now what? Exit ticket at the door; anonymous wall for the unsayable (live message wall) (part 8)
• [ ] Close with one written commitment per person
• [ ] Post-measure before people leave; feedback card on the table

Within 48 hours: follow-up

• [ ] One email: commitments, materials, what changes next time (part 8)
• [ ] Structured feedback survey out — workshop feedback form template
• [ ] Ten minutes of margin notes on the run sheet: what ran over, what got cut, which debrief question produced silence
• [ ] If a client sponsored this: the per-respondent knowledge-lift report forwards itself (part 6)

Monthly: keep the program alive

• [ ] Same date every month: the client report — attendance and deltas at the top, what the group worked on, one chart, one note (ReportSkills; the trainers' section and the monthly client report guide define the shape) (part 9)
• [ ] The templates hub has the starting points; paste the tables you already have, send per-recipient on a schedule:

The whole stack, every URL in one place

The tools from my own shop (I'm one of the makers — full disclosure below):

The other people's tools this series leans on:

The sentence to keep

If the whole series had to compress to one line, it's this: a workshop is not a deck; it's a folder, a measure and a follow-through. Every tool in the tables above just makes one of those three cheaper. A folder of markers, a show of hands, and a follow-up email you actually send beats a premium stack with a missing debrief every single time.

That's the series. If you run workshops, I'd genuinely like to hear which part of the pipeline eats your evenings — the fastest way to reach me is through any of the contact pages above.

Every part of this series: 1 — Design before the slides · 2 — The activity folder · 3 — Registration and check-in · 4 — Opening the room · 5 — Group work · 6 — Pre/post measures · 7 — Agent-assisted prep · 8 — The debrief · 9 — Client reporting.

*Disclosure: I'm one of the makers — the tools from my own shop named across this series. *