Workshops and Learning Intensives
We design focused sessions that help teams think together, build shared language, and move through complexity with greater clarity.
Sometimes what a team needs most is not a long engagement, but a well-designed session, or a short series of sessions, that creates momentum. A workshop can open up a stuck conversation. A training can build capacity around a new skill or way of thinking. An intensive can help a group step back, see more clearly, and move forward with stronger alignment.
Workshops and Learning Intensives are custom-designed engagements across six key topic areas: Systems Thinking, Foresight & Innovation, Visual Thinking, Storytelling, Collaboration, and Thoughtful AI Integration. They can stand alone or serve as an entry point into a larger collaboration. Some are tightly focused. Others are more exploratory. All are designed to help people engage complex material in a way that is active, thoughtful, and genuinely useful.
The goal is not simply to deliver information. It is to create a shared experience that helps a group understand more deeply, think more clearly, and leave with stronger language, tools, and next steps.
This offer is especially useful when your organization is:
exploring a new area of work and needs shared language
preparing for strategic change, growth, or transition
designing an offsite, learning session, or team development experience
building capacity around systems thinking, communication, foresight, storytelling, or AI
trying to move from abstract discussion toward clearer collective understanding
looking for a focused, lower-commitment way to begin working together
Does your team need a workshop, training, or focused learning intensive?
What this offer helps with
A good workshop does more than fill time. It creates the conditions for people to think, question, test, connect, and make meaning together. It can shift how a team sees a problem, how it talks about its work, and how it moves through uncertainty.
This offer helps organizations create sessions that are:
clear, engaging, and well structured
participatory rather than performative
intellectually rigorous without becoming dense
emotionally attuned and alive to group dynamics
grounded in real practice, not abstract jargon
designed to leave people with language, insight, and momentum
Depending on the context, that might mean a single half-day session, a full-day workshop, a short training series, or a set of custom modules designed around a specific theme.
Workshop & Training Sessions
Possible deliverables
Each engagement is tailored, but Workshops and Learning Intensives may include:
half-day and full-day workshops
multi-session training series
offsite and retreat modules
custom facilitation design
exercises, prompts, and group activities
slide decks and participant materials
visual frameworks and worksheets
facilitation guides and delivery notes
follow-up summaries and synthesis
toolkits and supporting resources
coaching for internal facilitators or presenters
Some engagements are designed as one-off sessions. Others become repeatable formats that can be used across teams, cohorts, or partner groups.
Who this is for
This offer is designed for organizations doing complex, collaborative, or future-facing work, especially in areas like climate, systems change, research, education, culture, governance, technology, and public-interest design.
It is a good fit for:
teams that need a strong facilitated session around a specific challenge
organizations building capacity in a new area of work
leadership groups planning retreats, offsites, or strategy days
institutions looking for engaging trainings that move beyond passive presentation
researchers, educators, and practitioners who want to create more participatory learning spaces
organizations that want a lower-barrier way to explore a possible longer-term engagement
Common challenges
This work is often helpful when:
your team needs shared language before it can make progress
your workshop format feels tired, passive, or unclear
you need a session that balances substance, interaction, and movement
people are interested, but not yet aligned
you want to introduce a new framework, method, or way of thinking without overwhelming the room
you need a focused intervention that creates clarity and momentum quickly
How we work
Our approach combines facilitation, learning design, systems thinking, and visual communication. We design sessions carefully, with attention to content, pacing, group dynamics, and what people need in order to actually engage.
We think about:
the purpose of the session and what it needs to unlock
the balance between presentation, participation, and reflection
how to make complexity easier to work with in real time
the emotional and cognitive experience of the group
what participants should leave with, not just what they encounter in the room
how a session might feed into a wider process, strategy, or body of work
The aim is to create learning experiences that are focused, engaging, and capable of shifting how people think and work together.
Relevant experience includes learning design, facilitation, and knowledge translation work with the University of Toronto, Dark Matter Labs, Nourish, Maven, Concordia University, Fleming College, and Disco, including learning design support connected to Margaret Atwood’s Practical Utopias course.
Example formats
This work can take many forms. A few examples:
-
A focused half-day or full-day session designed around a specific challenge, concept, or team need.
-
A short sequence of sessions that builds skill, shared language, and deeper capacity over time.
-
A designed session that fits within a larger offsite or gathering, bringing structure, insight, and strong facilitation to a key moment.
-
A compact but high-value engagement for groups that need clarity, alignment, and momentum quickly.
-
A workshop built around a specific combination of thematic areas such as systems thinking, diagramming, storytelling, strategic communication, foresight, or AI.
Why this matters
In many organizations, the need for learning is constant, but the space for it is limited. Teams are busy. Attention is fragmented. Complexity is high. Under those conditions, a well-designed workshop or intensive can do important work quickly.
It can create shared understanding, strengthen trust, introduce useful methods, and make better collaboration possible.
When done well, these sessions do not just inform. They help groups think and move differently together.
Engagements
Projects are scoped based on the format, length, and level of customization involved. Some clients need a single session. Others want a short series or a workshop that can become part of a broader programme.
Engagements may include one-off workshops, custom training packages, retreat modules, or multi-session learning intensives.
Pricing
Typical engagements range from $2K to $20K+, depending on scope, duration, delivery, and complexity. Sliding-scale rates may be available for nonprofit and community-led organizations.