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Whether you're facilitating workshops, leading teams, or navigating complex decisions, here you'll find practical tools, frameworks, and lessons drawn from my real-world work with leadership teams and organizations.
I'm Jackie Colburn. Strategist, facilitator, human.
For nearly two decades, I've partnered with teams across industries to navigate complexity, unlock possibilities, and design a better way forward.
How I walked away from burnout (and 3 tips to help you do the same)
How did a self-care promoting, work-life-balance advocate wake up one day and realize that burnout had gripped my life? And what could I do to escape the cycle and find a new, more sustainable way of being? This is the story of my “burnout intervention” and how I’ve spent the last year of my life making a concerted effort to break free from the toxic cycle.
Steal these guidelines for your next meeting
There’s no magic button to eliminate unruly behavior among workshop participants, but there are a few things facilitators can do to get ahead of it. In this post, I share my four favorite ground rules that set teams up for better meetings and workshops, along with a few bonus rules that apply to virtual sessions.
How to design a winning workshop: Step 3 of 5
Have you ever experienced a moment in a workshop or meeting when it became abundantly clear that your participants weren’t on the same page about the objective for your time together? It’s mostly avoidable if you make time for one very important aspect of workshop design. In today’s installment of this series on intelligent workshop design, I’ll be sharing methods and activities you can borrow to nail this part of the process.
Conflict is a product manager’s secret advantage (if you know how to use it)
No matter the team dynamics, conflict is inevitable. What if conflict wasn’t to be avoided, but embraced? Cultivating an openness to conflict with your product team just might be your secret to unlocking your team’s best new ideas. Here are my facilitator-approved tips for doing just that.
The art of naming: How to overcome challenges in naming products, services, and companies
If your team has been spinning out on naming for many weeks or even months, I’m guessing at least one of four factors is at play. I cover them in this article, along with 7 facilitation methods from my own experience leading workshops that will get the group back on track.
3 prototyping hacks you can steal for your next workshop
Today, I’m sharing my prototyping hacks to help your team create the best initial, simplified version of their design – one that’s ready to be tested, iterated on, and validated. See why getting it right is so important, and lift these activities to streamline the next session you facilitate for your team.
How to design a winning workshop: Step 2 of 5
Part 2 of this series on workshop design is all about understanding the customer and their needs. This article includes some resources and sample activities you can leverage as you design your workshop flow — they’re activities I use in my own work as a facilitator.
The best way to understand user needs and pain points without a big research budget
Understanding user needs and pain points is essential for building successful products and services, but that doesn’t mean we need to get stuck going down a multi-month research hole in order to be “ready” to collaborate, innovate, or prototype. Learn how to overcome research analysis paralysis with some actionable methods for gathering and applying insights – all without a big research budget.
One woman's remedy for the summer scaries
My remedy for the summer scaries is an entire shift in how we perceive change and letting go. Here, I share my tips and mantras for embracing closure in order to harness the power in choosing what to pay attention to and how to invest our time.
How to design a winning workshop: Step 1 of 5
In this five-part series, I’ll break down the arc of a winning workshop from beginning to end, with guidance around how the session might flow and sample activities you can copy/paste into your own plans. Part 1 of this series and today’s focus is all about grounding and expectation setting: the foundation of any workshop.
A workshop guide to define a more purposeful return-to-office protocol for your team
The return-to-office conversation has been top of mind for many as more and more companies call employees back to work in person. Rather than simply telling people to return to the office without any structure or intention, let’s instead think about the best way to accomplish the work to be done. Here’s a workshop format for team leaders and managers who want to handle this next chapter with intention.
3 facilitation techniques for effective group decision making
Helping teams make decisions can be a complex process when there are various group dynamics, cultural quirks, and political intricacies at play. But it doesn't have to be. Let’s explore a few essential facilitation techniques that empower groups to harness their collective wisdom, navigate challenges, and arrive at well-informed decisions.