Let’s shift ideas into action…
Develop skills…
Graphic Facilitation Workshop
May 1-2, 2025, Winnipeg, Canada
Design your own
What clients are saying…
Very interesting workshop
It was a very interesting workshop. I am practicing drawing figures at most meetings I attend. I hope to use this new skill at a big brainstorm session coming in the fall with my teams. Thank you for a good time and course.
Sangita Sudan
General Manager of Development Services, Local Government (2018)
Training for all skill levels
The ‘Engaging Beyond Words’ training was highly engaging, fun and wonderfully facilitated by Michelle! I have a background in graphic design and Michelle’s training was a great refresh on simple visual techniques to help audiences understand key concepts quickly. It provided practical details on how to expand my visual communication approach. On top of the toolkit offered, during the training we collaborated on real-life engagement challenges that were informative, invaluable and inspiring. I highly recommend this training for all skill levels as there was so much to learn.
Marina Nagibina
Design CoCreate
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
Building Networks
Michelle was responsible for building a network of research institutions in South Asia under an ADB supported project, and building their capacity to have influence with their work and ideas in urban sustainability. This included skill development in strategic communications, engagement and relationship building. This happened at the municipal as well as regional scale via networking, training and other forums to connect, learn and share together. Michelle supported the teams from India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as a mentor, capacity builder, and trainer to keep people connected and to learn from each other on their efforts and contributions to evidence-based policy making and in support of ADB’s agenda to promote innovation. Michelle is very skilled in her field.
Vivian Castro-Wooldridge
Senior Urban Development Specialist, Asian Development Bank (ADB)
Key Architect
I recently participated in a multi-stakeholder dialogue where Michelle was the key architect. The structure of the panel, breakout groups and question sessions provided a great platform for raising awareness and highlighting some noticeable challenges in messaging to the general public. It was very well done.
Thompson Hickey
General Manager, Teck Trail Operations
Successful Engagement Program
Understanding and learning from our community is key to effective planning for the City. Michelle helped us develop a successful engagement program to inform policy on the legalization of cannabis in our community, sustainability planning and land use change. She was successful in ensuring that a diversity of voices were heard through a credible, professional and creative process.
Pam Mierau
Director of Development Services, City of Nelson
Learning along the way…
Reflective practice is a part of our DNA.