Let’s shift ideas into action…
Develop skills…
Graphic Facilitation Workshop
May 1-2, 2025, Winnipeg, Canada
Design your own
What clients are saying…
Impressive Facilitation Techniques
With her knowledge, enthusiasm, and impressive facilitation techniques, Michelle literally revolutionized our recent scientific conference on glaciology. By setting aside time for discussion and reflection, and avoiding the powerpoint marathons that plague so many other conferences, our symposium was about more than just knowledge dissemination. It was about knowledge synthesis, and building a scientific community. Despite our initial reluctance, the Open Spaces session that Michelle organized was a huge success and I am a convert – these should be a regular feature at high-level scientific conferences to get people talking!
I have had nothing but positive comments from the conference attendees, some of whom said it was the best conference they ever attended. And I have nothing but a glowing recommendation for Michelle Laurie, who guided us skillfully through the entire conference planning, hosting, and facilitation process.
Joseph Shea
Glacier Hydrologist, ICIMOD
Generously shared knowledge
I was looking for some hands on learning in graphic facilitation and was lucky to find Michelle Laurie’s annual Rosviz workshop in Rossland, B.C. She skillfully and generously shared her knowledge and experience in a fun and practical way. I was looking to increase my skills in harvesting and sense making in real time in my workshops and dialogue sessions. Laurie’s workshop helped me up my game (as a facilitator and process designer) and my practice in graphic facilitation has taken off like a rocket. I apply graphic facilitation to almost everything when I have the opportunity. It’s like Frank’s Hot Sauce commercial. I put that s— on everything! and wow what a difference it makes for my clients who are bogged down or overwhelmed by complexity. The feedback I get from my clients say it all. Thanks Michelle for helping me take my work to a new level.
Jules Leboeuf
Department of Environment and Parks, Government of Alberta (2018)
Expert Advice and Support
Michelle has provided expert advice and support to assist the Columbia Basin Trust (CBT) to be a leader on challenging and innovative projects/processes for more than a dozen years. In the early 2000’s when climate change was starting to be understood by governments and the scientific community Michelle designed multi-year strategic initiatives with more than twenty local governments and communities to help these communities understand what climate change is, how it may impact local communities and what type of actions these communities should consider to be more resilient or adapt to a range of future climate scenarios. Related to international water policy, Michelle helped develop cutting edge processes to help develop the capacity of community leaders, elected officials and staff to both understand the range of issues they were facing, how these impacted their various areas of authority and what tangible actions they could take.
Michelle has worked collaboratively with CBT and others and is willing and generous in sharing her skills. She has been supportive of CBT staff and the many partners our organization works with. She demonstrated great skill and knowledge in working with a variety of partners groups (including NGO’s, local governments, provincial governments, first nations and federal governments). She creatively designed and facilitated hundreds of meetings to strategize, learn together and engage people on tough topics. Additional highlights include facilitating the kick off meeting of government, utilities and First Nations where they agreed (for the first time ever) to work on reintroducing salmon to the Columbia River, assisting CBT staff to design a new organizational department for the Trust, and assessing long standing initiatives for learning and their evolution. She brings a broad wealth of skills and experience adding value to any team. Michelle is especially skilled helping to think through very complex multi layered issues and lay out very practical and useful frameworks for addressing this complexity. If you need help solving interesting complex problems Michelle Laurie is the person for your job!
Kindy Gosal
Executive Director, Special Initiatives, Columbia Basin Trust
A New and Innovative Method
The graphic facilitation workshop experience added a new and innovative method to my professional skill set. After the workshop, I was offered a job with a community design organization because my skills of community engagement are linked with visual interaction. I highly recommend the workshop to others!
Susan DeBlieck
Community Design Lab, Iowa State University
Co-strategist, Evaluator and Researcher
Michelle has worked with me as a co-strategist, evaluator and researcher on several major projects with international agencies, including an evaluation of a major rural development network (IFAD), a capacity needs assessment for network growth (IFRTD), research into local level knowledge sharing (UNDP) and developing guidelines for Knowledge Partnerships with ADB.
Michelle brings a diverse range of skills and expertise to the field of knowledge management, networks and partnerships, including the ability to work with rural stakeholders, across cultures and languages; and is superb at effective workshop design and delivery to get to desired outcomes efficiently. She is able to research and synthesize large amounts of information into organized documents for decision makers, quickly and reliably. She is straightforward, transparent and accountable in the provision of her consulting services, a quick study in grasping the needs of the client and able to deliver a quality product on time.
Heather Creech
Former Director of Global Connectivity, International Institute for Sustainable Development
Relevant to most areas of life
I found Michelle’s graphic facilitation workshop not only applicable to my work (which I initially wondered about), but also relevant to most other areas of life. As a research manager, I’ve been less confident working with my right brain despite knowing how helpful those right-brained tools can be for public engagement. Michelle provided me with strategies, templates, and a graphic toolbox to assist in conveying sometimes complex research foci to broader audiences. I quite highly recommend this workshop to anyone organizing team meetings, engaging with the public, participating in education activities, or even helping your children with their homework. I’ll be taking it again when offered!.
Morgan Sternberg
Research Scientist, Morrow Bioscience Ltd, workshop participant 2019
Impressive Facilitation Techniques
With her knowledge, enthusiasm, and impressive facilitation techniques, Michelle literally revolutionized our recent scientific conference on glaciology. By setting aside time for discussion and reflection, and avoiding the powerpoint marathons that plague so many other conferences, our symposium was about more than just knowledge dissemination. It was about knowledge synthesis, and building a scientific community. Despite our initial reluctance, the Open Spaces session that Michelle organized was a huge success and I am a convert – these should be a regular feature at high-level scientific conferences to get people talking!
I have had nothing but positive comments from the conference attendees, some of whom said it was the best conference they ever attended. And I have nothing but a glowing recommendation for Michelle Laurie, who guided us skillfully through the entire conference planning, hosting, and facilitation process.
Joseph Shea
Glacier Hydrologist, ICIMOD
Generously shared knowledge
I was looking for some hands on learning in graphic facilitation and was lucky to find Michelle Laurie’s annual Rosviz workshop in Rossland, B.C. She skillfully and generously shared her knowledge and experience in a fun and practical way. I was looking to increase my skills in harvesting and sense making in real time in my workshops and dialogue sessions. Laurie’s workshop helped me up my game (as a facilitator and process designer) and my practice in graphic facilitation has taken off like a rocket. I apply graphic facilitation to almost everything when I have the opportunity. It’s like Frank’s Hot Sauce commercial. I put that s— on everything! and wow what a difference it makes for my clients who are bogged down or overwhelmed by complexity. The feedback I get from my clients say it all. Thanks Michelle for helping me take my work to a new level.
Jules Leboeuf
Department of Environment and Parks, Government of Alberta (2018)
Learning along the way…
Reflective practice is a part of our DNA.