Monthly Community of Practice for Facilitators
Join us as we learn & try out Liberating Structures facilitation. New hands-on demonstrations each month! Plus regular guest facilitators.
Location
Online
About this event
About Liberating Structures
We're the Liberating Structures community of practice in the Washington, DC area, which also includes Virginia and Maryland. However, in an online world, we're open to anyone in the world. Liberating Structures are easy-to-learn facilitation microstructures that enhance coordination and trust in groups and quickly foster lively participation. We meet monthly to learn new techniques, try them out, and experiment with new ideas around group facilitation.
- Most events are free to attend. You don't need to have experience in facilitation or using Liberating Structures. And you don't need to be in the Washington, DC area.
- This practice group is hands on, uses active learning, and is designed to be appropriate for beginners and veterans.
- Don't worry if you're new or don't know anyone in the group yet -- you will :-) Friends and colleagues are welcome.
Monthly Meet-ups
We generally meet on the second Wednesday evening of the month.
Upcoming dates:
August 13, 2025 | 6:00-7:30 PM ET
People Love Change! Leading Organizational Change with Liberating Structures
In times of disruption, traditional facilitation falls short. This session introduces how to use Liberating Structures to unleash participation, spark insight, and drive momentum for organizational change. Countering the trite belief that people hate change, we share our experience for energizing meaningful change using TRIZ, Min Specs, Ecocycle Planning, and Discovery and Action Dialogue. Whether you're leading from the middle or the top, you'll learn how to engage teams in meaningful dialogue that reveals what’s working and what needs to shift. Discover practical ways to assess readiness, design safe-to-try experiments, and build shared ownership as used with organizations like Microsoft, Johns Hopkins Hospital, the World Bank and Amazon. Walk away with facilitation moves you can use tomorrow to move from inertia to action.
Guest facilitator:
Adriano Pianesi is a transformation leadership expert with 20+ years of experience helping organizations navigate complexity, silos, and resistance. As a faculty member at Johns Hopkins, he teaches adaptive leadership and participatory design. His work blends systems thinking, change management, and facilitation to unlock collective intelligence. Adriano has trained leaders at the World Bank, the UN, and Fortune 500 firms. He believes that real change happens when people feel seen, heard, and responsible.
September 10, 2025 | 6:00-7:30 PM ET
Coming Attractions: The New LS Book Is Launched (or will be very soon)
This session will play with features of this new LS book by Nancy White and Keith McCandless. The book includes: more emphasis on LS principles; online practice guidance; simpler step-by-step scripts for 43 LS; 10 LS not included in the legacy book; and, developmental evaluation approaches.
Guest facilitator:
Keith McCandless is co-developer of Liberating Structures and co-author of the book The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures – Simple Rules to Unleash a Culture of Innovation (2014). Keith operates a global consulting practice focused on strategy development, creative adaptability, and including all voices in shaping next steps. He calls himself a structured improvisationalist. Born in Cincinnati Ohio, he holds a Masters in Management from Brandeis University in Boston and a BA from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Keith lives in Seattle with his wife, Anne, and Bootsy, a whippet with talent to amuse.
September 24-25, 2025 | in-person in Washington, DC
Liberating Structures Training: In-Depth Facilitation & Group Skills
This is a fun, hands-on 2-day training to quickly develop group facilitation and meeting design skills using the powerful techniques from the Liberating Structures methodology. You'll be able to put these facilitation skills and techniques to work immediately in a wide variety of contexts, be it team meetings, community convenings, or large-scale events. You'll learn a powerful set of techniques to easily help groups meet and work together better -- becoming more effective, inclusive, innovative and collaborative. This hands-on training is great for leaders, managers, facilitators, educators, consultants, and community/event organizers. More info & registration info here ...
October 8, 2025 | 6:00-7:30 PM ET
Exploring Emerging Liberating Structures for a Compassionate Future
In this interactive session, we’ll explore three new Liberating Structures: Future~Present, Principles Move Around, and Spiral Journal. Together, we’ll imagine a future shaped by empathy and respect, reflect on how today’s small actions can move us toward that future, and connect the LS principles to what the world needs more of.
Whether you're brand new to these structures or a long-time practitioner, this session invites you to try out what’s emerging in the LS world and consider how you might adapt and apply them in your own context.
Guest facilitator:
Beth Cougler Blom is a facilitator and learning designer based in British Columbia, Canada. She helps organizations design and facilitate engaging learning experiences and meetings—both online and in person. Beth is the author of Design to Engage: How to Create and Facilitate a Great Learning Experience For Any Group and host of the Facilitating on Purpose podcast. Beth brings a participatory, inclusive approach to all her work and is always exploring new ways to spark connection and insight in groups.
November 12, 2025 | 6:00-7:30 PM ET
Beyond Drawing Together
The Liberating Structures activity called Drawing Together introduces five simple shapes and invites participants to use them symbolically. But what ELSE can you do with simple shapes that builds trust, encourages new ideas, invites feedback, and facilitates decision making? In this engaging and participatory workshop, Brian will take us through quick, easy, and impactful activities based on Drawing Together that energize, ideate, refine, plan, and foster collaboration. No drawing skills required. But you WILL be making marks on paper. So bring some paper and your favorite marker.
Guest facilitator:
Brian Tarallo is a visual facilitator. He works in the federal and state government, defense, education, engineering, and healthcare industries. He was the first person to receive a Master Certified Visual Practitioner accreditation. He is an IAF Master Certified Professional Facilitator and an INIFAC Certified Master Facilitator. Brian is the author of the #1 Amazon bestseller, Surviving the Horror of Online Meetings. In 2023, Brian was awarded an IAF Facilitation Impact Award.
December 10, 2025 | 6:00-7:30 PM ET
Details coming soon
Guest Facilitator:
Nami Ishihara is an IAF Certified™ Professional Facilitator and Liberating Structures enthusiast who cares about creating opportunities for meaningful conversations and drawing out the wisdom of the group. She facilitates group processes for team development, with the philosophy that happy teams make successful teams, not the other way around. As an IAF Certified™ Professional Facilitator, Nami has facilitated impactful retreats and workshops for various international development agencies and NGOs, including UNICEF Indonesia, UN Resident Coordinator’s Office Indonesia, and African Development Bank. She has lived in the U.S., Japan, UK, Laos, and is currently based in Jakarta, Indonesia. She misses her friends in the U.S. and looks forward to meeting the LS group.
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Etiquette and Preparation
- Join us on a laptop or desktop, not devices with small screens, i.e., phones or tablets. It makes the experience better for you and everyone else.
- Arrive before 6:00pm (US Eastern). We'll open the room at 5:55pm. (Check your time zone.)
- Most of our online sessions are run on Zoom. Download and use the Zoom (desktop) app.
- Plan to use your mic and camera. You'll be part of an interactive event, not a passive presentation. Use your computer's audio.
- Have a few pieces of paper and a pen handy.
- Having earphones/buds can reduce ambient sound and improve the experience.
Contact
We're a volunteer community of practice in the Washington, DC area. We send out a newsletter once or twice per month with updates on our future meetings. You can find more information via: