Within AVIATAR, Agile coaches play a central role in supporting teams and leaders with structured collaboration, continuous improvement, and change initiatives. To design and deliver effective workshops that support these goals, Alexander Simon and the Agile coaching team relies on SessionLab.

From Excel to a smarter, more visual way to plan workshops

Before adopting SessionLab, workshop planning often happened in Excel, which was time-consuming and didn’t support efficient collaboration. Once the team was introduced to SessionLab, things changed quickly.

“When I first started using SessionLab, I realized how much time I could save—and how much better it was as a knowledge management tool for our workshop designs.”

Now, workshops are planned in a flexible, visual format that encourages smooth collaboration from the start. Agile coaches are able to plan effectively and support their teams across a variety of uses cases and business functions:

“I use SessionLab for designing diverse workshops: for example Management Workshops for drafting OKRs, Sales Workshop, Project Kick-Offs, Creative Sessions, Welcome Days for new personnel, Retros etc.”

With the drag-and-drop agenda builder and colour categorization, SessionLab has helped the team streamline the design process and clarify what needs to be done, whatever the goal of the session.

SessionLab has also helped when it comes to staying mindful and in control of time. By assigning every block a duration, it’s easy to plan for the time you actually have for the session.

When something changes, SessionLab will automatically recalculate session timing, meaning Alexander and his team can focus on designing high-quality sessions, rather than adjusting formulas.

“SessionLab’s visualisation helps to clarify the assignment for a workshop. It also helps with good time planning, especially if you have a workshop where time is very tight.”

A structured, repeatable workflow

SessionLab is now part of the Agile team’s end-to-end workflow. From the moment a workshop assignment begins, it provides a central space for planning, refining, and sharing.

• Initial planning: “I open a SessionLab file as soon as I begin clarifying the assignment with the client.”
  
• Concept development: “I use it to sketch out the structure and approach.”
  
• Client alignment: “We review the workshop together in SessionLab during follow-up meetings.”
  
• Finalizing and delivery: “Once finalized, I often print the agenda or use the live version during delivery.”
  

This repeatable process helps coaches stay aligned with stakeholders while keeping the design process organized and transparent. When it comes to sharing the agenda and getting approval, Alexander has options too. 

In SessionLab, you can share your agenda with editors and viewers directly, so they can leave comments or make edits directly based on your needs. Or like Alexander, you can bring SessionLab to your client meetings and make changes to the agenda based on the conversation in real time. 

Managing workshop designs and centralizing knowledge for the Agile team was also important to Alexander. In SessionLab now, they have a record of all the workshops they’ve designed, ready to re-use, adapt and run again whenever the team needs. 

“We maintain knowledge in SessionLab: i.e. we can quickly fall back on old workshops and reuse methods.”

Handling complexity without the stress

Whether it’s a creative session with tight time constraints or a multi-stakeholder event with dozens of participants, SessionLab makes it easier to manage even the most complex workshops and multi-day events.

“It’s a big help when working with co-facilitators or multiple stakeholders. And for large events, where the process needs to be mapped out in detail, it really makes coordination easier.”

SessionLab gives Alexander and his team the power to plan their sessions down to the minute and stay in control. With support for multiple days, breakout sessions and time locks, the team is able to design complex sessions with confidence.

With many people working on the same agenda, clarity is key. In SessionLab, Alexander can assign blocks and activities to specific collaborators for a smooth workflow.

By working together in one space, nothing is lost and all stakeholders know exactly what is needed. The result? Smoother, more organized events and happier participants. 

From faster planning to better results

For the Agile Coaches at AVIATAR, SessionLab has become more than a planning tool. It’s an essential part of how they work, bringing structure, clarity, and consistency to every workshop. And with a growing library of reusable content, the team is able to move faster without reinventing the wheel.

In a fast-paced, global organization like Lufthansa Technik, this kind of support makes a real difference. SessionLab helps the team deliver workshops that are not only well-designed, but also drive real alignment and impact across the business.

“With SessionLab, we are better at clarifying objectives, quicker with planning, and we can coordinate better with each other. That leads to more effective workshops—and better results overall.”

To support the design and delivery of these sessions, Lea Flytkjær and the consulting team at Implement are using SessionLab to bring structure, clarity, and collaboration to their process, making it easier to deliver high-quality workshops at scale.

Workshops as a foundation for change

Implement is a consulting firm with 1800 employees worldwide. They support organizations in achieving their strategic goals with tailored, people-centered solutions. Their mission is to empower businesses to realize their full potential by combining deep expertise in change management, organizational development, and transformation strategy.

Workshops are a cornerstone of this approach. Whether working with executive leaders, team managers, or internal teams, Implement uses facilitated sessions to create space for learning, reflection, and experimentation.

“Workshops are a key component of how we work. They provide hands-on experiences that allow participants to apply new concepts and strategies directly to their work environments—ensuring sustainable and measurable improvements.”

For Implement, the importance of workshops to their ongoing work required a platform that could keep up and which made adjusting, updating and running sessions a breeze. Enter SessionLab. 

Designing with structure, speed, and adaptability

At Implement, many consultants design and deliver both client-facing and internal workshops. For Lea and the rest of the team, SessionLab has become the go-to platform for building sessions quickly and clearly:

“I use SessionLab for developing workshops, meetings, and training sessions. It’s especially helpful when repurposing sessions we’ve used before.”

Drag-and-drop functionality, color-coded blocks and automatic timing calculation has helped improve the design process across the consultancy.

Instead of wrestling with manual formatting or static documents, consultants at Implement can iterate and adapt fluidly with an easy-to-use agenda planner. 

“I appreciate SessionLab’s functionality, which allows me to easily color-code various elements and adjust timings seamlessly.”

From individual use to a shared solution

SessionLab has added a layer of flexibility and collaboration that was hard to achieve with previous tools like PowerPoint and Word. Instead of working in silos and losing track of materials, Implement are able to work together in a single, unified workspace. 

“As we expanded use across our team, the sharing features and ability to adjust timings really stood out. The built-in AI bot has also become a helpful companion in designing engaging sessions.”

As more team members got on board, it became clear that SessionLab filled an important gap: helping consultants not just plan workshops, but iterate on them, collaborate easily, and save time along the way.

What’s more, SessionLab’s AI Assistant has helped the team speed up their design process and focus on what matters most to them and their clients. 

Meeting the real-time demands of facilitation

A common challenge facing facilitators and consultants at Implement? Making timing adjustments on the fly during a workshop and ensuring the agenda stays in sync. 

“During workshops and trainings, we often need to tweak the timings in real-time. That function in SessionLab is great—it makes adjusting and rebalancing the agenda smooth and stress-free.”

Instead of halting a session to re-calculate activity timing or manually rework a Word doc, facilitators using SessionLab can tweak activities and timings seamlessly to stay in the flow and on track.

With SessionLab, consultants at Implement an adjust their session with confidence and participants can enjoy a high-quality session.     

Conclusion

For the consulting team at Implement, creating transformative change for their clients means designing and running workshops that encourage engagement and create lasting impact. Lea and her team needed a tool that helped them collaborate effectively, repurpose their best session materials at speed and deliver value to their clients.

With SessionLab, Implement has been able to supercharge their internal and external workshops and improve their collaborative processes too. The feedback from consultants and workshop designers using SessionLab has been overwhelmingly positive:

“The users I know are thrilled about SessionLab. They find it very user-friendly and helpful in their daily work.”

With SessionLab, consultants at Implement have found a workshop planning platform that matches their needs: flexible, intuitive, and built for the realities of facilitation.

Presented with opportunities for improved efficiency and enhanced collaboration, First Advantage needed to move away from spreadsheets and to a centralized, automated solution that helped their learning & development design team to develop high-quality materials with ease. That’s when they found SessionLab.

As a global organization, First Advantage serves customers in over 200 countries and territories with a staff of about 10,000 employees in 19 countries. As such, First Advantage’s Learning and Development team has a large number of training requirements they need to fulfill.

In this customer story, Deborah Masak, Head of Global Talent Development  & Inclusion, and Lavanya Chouhan, Manager, Architect of Learning Design, share how First Advantage uses SessionLab to drive results and enhance service delivery.

Creating an organized, efficient training program 

The Learning & Development team at First Advantage primarily uses SessionLab when creating internal training programs. They cover a diverse range of sessions and workshops that focus on leadership development, technical skills, and professional training.

Tailored for HR professionals, hiring managers, team leaders, and front-line agents, these workshops aim to deepen participants’ understanding of background checks across various industry verticals. 

Deborah says that these training programs are a vital part of equipping their team with the skills necessary to navigate the current world of work and to foster “a safer, more compliant workplace that supports organizational success.”

Before using SessionLab, First Advantage faced challenges with collaboration, efficiency and a lack of a structured process. Lavanya commented that:

“Before adopting SessionLab, our team relied on various tools, including spreadsheets and basic document editors, to plan workshops. However, these methods often led to confusion, lack of collaboration, and inefficiencies.”

As a result of that inefficiency, Deborah and the team at First Advantage recognized that they needed something different. After trying SessionLab, “it became clear that a centralized solution like SessionLab would benefit not just individual users but the entire organization.”

Now, SessionLab helps First Advantage improve efficiency and collaboration on both a micro and macro level.

For individual trainers and workshop design teams, Lavanya says “one of the main challenges we face is ensuring that all team members are aligned on the workshop agenda and objectives. With multiple contributors, it can be difficult to keep track of changes and maintain clarity. SessionLab addresses this challenge by allowing us to collaborate in real-time, making it easy to update agendas and share them with the team.”

As an organization, SessionLab has allowed First Advantage to create a “more cohesive and structured approach to workshop planning.”

By working together in a single, centralized platform, it’s easy for the L&D team to follow best practices, stay organized and streamline the planning process, even when working across teams. 

 “Using SessionLab has significantly improved our workshop planning efficiency.”

Flexible, powerful agenda design

Every training program and workshop begins with an agenda. At First Advantage, agenda design is an integral step the team takes seriously. Lavanya says:

“We use SessionLab primarily for planning and designing our workshops. On a day-to-day basis, we create detailed agendas that outline the structure, content, and objectives of each session.

Our typical workflow involves collaborating with team members to draft the agenda, rearranging days and topics as needed, and utilizing the platform’s features to ensure clarity and engagement.”

Moving away from spreadsheets and docs meant needing a robust yet intuitive solution that enabled facilitators and trainers to do their best work.

SessionLab’s easy-to-use agenda planner helps every team member design and co-create sessions easily. According to Lavanya:

“The key benefits of using SessionLab include enhanced usability, improved collaboration, and greater flexibility in workshop design.”

For Lavanya, the visual elements of planning a session in SessionLab are a key part of what  helps the team get things done. With colour-coding and an interface purpose-built for creating agendas, the L&D team can easily visualize the learning flow and make changes to their training programs instantly. 

“SessionLab allows us to easily rearrange agenda items and visualize the flow of the session, which was not possible with our previous tools.” 

Not only has this helped First Advantage streamline the process of a single sessign design, but it’s helped their team save time and focus on what’s important: delivering exceptional participant experiences. Lavanya comments that:

“We have noticed a reduction in the time spent on designing agendas, allowing us to focus more on content quality and participant engagement. Stakeholder satisfaction has increased, as evidenced by positive feedback from workshop participants regarding the clarity and organization of our sessions”

The end result of all your agenda planning is a workshop that you share with participants. By removing the friction of other tools and helping the team stay aligned during the planning process, First Advantage has been able to design more polished and effective workshops. 

SessionLab has helped the team run their sessions more efficiently too – saving time and ensuring participants are more engaged throughout. Lavanya says that:

“With SessionLab, we have been able to time all sessions and meetings more effectively, which has eliminated approximately 25% of wasted time.”

When it comes to getting folks on the same page or getting buy-in, SessionLab helps by providing beautiful printouts and easy options for sharing a customizable agenda with stakeholders and participants. “The ability to generate QR codes for agendas has streamlined sharing with participants.”

Conclusion

Delivering training for a global organization with 10,000 employees is no small feat. First Advantage needed a solution that helped them stay organized and deliver high-quality sessions at scale.

Using SessionLab has enabled Deborah and her team to centralize their workshop and training design process, creating alignment and structure instead of confusion. The employees taking that training have seen the benefit too – with an increase in positive feedback from participants and less wasted time in meetings and training sessions. Deborah comments:

“Using SessionLab has made it a worthy investment for our organization, driving better results and enhancing our service delivery.”

To deliver high-quality, engaging sessions at scale, HR Development Specialist Christian Valentiner and the team needed a smarter, more flexible way to plan and manage their training programs. That’s where SessionLab came in.

A team-focused approach to leadership and development

Norconsult’s competence development team in HR plays a central role in developing leaders and project managers across the organization.

From multi-day programs to one-day seminars, they design and run sessions for colleagues in locations ranging from Oslo to Copenhagen and Stockholm to Bergen.

As Christian notes, the scale of these programs can be massive:

“Our main audience is internal—leaders and project managers across the group. One example is our annual leadership forum, where over 700 leaders participate in one to two-day sessions throughout the year. Each event has slightly different constraints—start times, lunch breaks, venue restrictions—so no two agendas are exactly the same. For that, we’ve created an agenda in SessionLab.”

To manage events of such complexity and scale, Norconsult needed a tool that could help them design effectively, make changes efficiently and which helped them stay organized. As a result of these needs, they turned to SessionLab.

Saving time and managing complexity with ease

While planning, adapting and running Norconsult’s annual leadership forum at different locations, Christian found SessionLab was instrumental in making it happen.

“We designed a core one-day agenda with all the modules. But because each event is in a different location, the timing always shifts—starting early or late, changing breaks, or accommodating local logistics.

Without SessionLab, updating all those versions in Word or Excel would have doubled the amount of time we spent.”

Using SessionLab’s drag-and-drop interface, visual timeline, and automatic timing calculations Christian was able to quickly update agendas and navigate local changes without additional busywork. The result? Less time fiddling with formatting, more time focusing on delivering exceptional group work and training.

“Without Session Lab, I would have been inefficient and possibly quite frustrated. Also, things might not have run smoothly.”

Visual clarity and better-designed sessions

Norconsult is an organization that values thoughtful facilitation and experiential learning – whether that’s in their training part or for internal workshops focusing on innovation. When it comes to creating the timelines, SessionLab provides Christian and his team with an essential design benefit.

“I’m a visual person. I use color coding in SessionLab to mark different types of activities—yellow for giving information, orange for content delivery, red for group work, pink for plenary reflection. It helps me instantly see if the flow is balanced. Too much yellow and orange? That’s a warning signal for me—we’re missing interactivity.”

The color-coded timeline gives the team a quick, visual way to assess whether the session design supports engagement and deeper learning. When they make changes, the timing of the session automatically updates, so the team is able to see the impact of any changes and make informed decisions about what to cut, add and keep in the agenda.

Supporting collaboration and quick alignment

The team often collaborates with HR business partners and senior leaders—like local managers or the CEO—who contribute to the training. Sharing the agenda and keeping everyone aligned is crucial.

“I use the different sharing options all the time. The detailed agenda goes to the delivery team, so they can follow updates live. For presentations, I’ll use the high-level view to show the flow without overwhelming them with detail.”

SessionLab helps the team not only co-design internally but also share clear session plans with facilitators and stakeholders—saving time, getting buy-in and making running sessions a breeze.

Christian and the team will use custom printouts of the agenda to facilitate a session. He finds the materials list especially useful when it comes to preparing to run a workshop.

“Keeping track of materials is super efficient with SessionLab. Adding materials for each block and getting the materials list is fantastic.

So every time we say, “Oh, I’m doing a training session tomorrow. What do I need?”—here’s the list in SessionLab. Tick, tick, tick.”

Norconsult also uses SessionLab templates as the backbone of their ongoing training programs and courses. 

With a single source of what works well for these courses in SessionLab, Norconsult is able to maintain best practices and speed up the design and delivery of future courses. 

“We also have a project manager’s course and a leadership initiation course that are set in SessionLab. We use these as  templates, and as we learn things from evaluations and running those courses, we tweak things.”

Growing organically with facilitator training

Norconsult’s use of SessionLab has grown steadily over the years, starting with a few licenses in the Innovation department and expanding through the organization. 

“When we ran our Innovation Leader Program—a five-module, two-day-per-module course—we realized we needed a better system to track everything. That’s when we introduced SessionLab. Now, every year we train around 15 new internal facilitators, and we introduce them to SessionLab as part of the program.”

This facilitator training has helped spread adoption organically across teams and departments, especially among consultants running collaborative or creative workshops. By having templates and reusable sessions centralized in SessionLab, onboarding those new facilitators is made even easier. The result is a company-wide culture of facilitation that continues to grow.  

SessionLab as a must-have tool for effective workshops

From keeping track of materials and tweaking timelines to creating better learning flows and training programs, the impact of SessionLab for Norconsult is clear.

“I couldn’t do my job without SessionLab. I’d pay for it out of my own pocket if I had to—it saves so much time and frustration.”

For Christian, the impact extends beyond his own experience designing and running training sessions and workshops. Facilitators and trainers across the organization have been able to bring the power of facilitation and efficient agenda design to their roles. 

“SessionLab helps us to create alignment quicker. If we can save time, we can deliver more effective services. Because of SessionLab, the impact of what we deliver in the end—the quality of the training or the quality of the workshop—is going to be better. We can focus on the process and the people.”

By adopting SessionLab, the Learning & Development team at a leading global pharmaceutical company were able to create a structured, reliable process. Let’s see how.

The challenge: inconsistent, inefficient training design

As organizations grow, there comes a growing need to standardize processes and ensure high quality training delivery.

Trainers and learning designers need to be able to design and adapt sessions without getting bogged down in sloppy tools. Leaders need to have confidence that every employee will receive the best quality training, wherever they’re located. 

With decades of experience in training and facilitation, the leader of the L&D team at this global pharmaceutical company reflected on a key difference between his previous and current organizations:

“In my previous company, we had a clear standard for creating training agendas—everyone followed the same approach, which made it easy to understand and collaborate on training design. But when I joined this organization, even within our small community of trainers, there wasn’t a single agreed-upon way to structure our sessions.”

Without a common framework and process, each trainer developed their own session plans using different formats—mainly Word tables. This led to several challenges:

• Lack of consistency – Without a standardized structure, reviewing and adapting each other’s training sessions was difficult. Best practices weren’t being followed and quality was compromised.
• Time-consuming edits – Manually adjusting timings in Word tables was cumbersome, leading to errors and inefficiencies.
• Scattered materials – Training resources like slides, worksheets, and handouts were stored in multiple locations, making it harder to keep track of updates and find what was needed. 

To create a more efficient, structured, and collaborative process, their L&D team turned to SessionLab.

The solution: a centralized platform for training design

Since implementing SessionLab, the team has seen a significant improvement in how they design and manage their training programs.

1. A standardized training design process

By using SessionLab as their shared platform, the team established a clear and structured way of creating training agendas. Now, every trainer works within the same framework, ensuring that sessions are easy to follow, adapt and deliver.

“We built a process and now we have this structure. That’s what SessionLab gives us.” 

2. Simple, effective session design

In comparison to other tools, SessionLab is purpose-built for agenda design. Trainers can create agendas in minutes by intuitively dragging and dropping blocks. As they make changes, formatting is maintained and timing recalculates automatically. No more messy tables and manual timing updates. 

“SessionLab is easy to work with, and unlike Word tables, we don’t run into issues with timings or formatting.”

3. A central hub for training materials

SessionLab has become more than just an agenda planner—it serves as a single container for all relevant training materials, including PowerPoint slides, PDFs, and handouts.

“We have one place for everything. All the materials trainers need—PPTs, Word documents, PDFs—are linked in SessionLab, making it easy to share them with participants or colleagues.”

The results: efficiency, consistency, and improved collaboration 

By implementing SessionLab, the L&D team has successfully standardized training design across their organization. The platform provides:

✅ Clarity and structure – All trainers work within a shared design framework, ensuring consistency and quality.

✅ Efficiency – Drag-and-drop agenda planner and automatic timing calculations eliminate time wasted on formatting Word tables.

✅ Collaboration – Trainers can collaborate async or in real-time, all in a single workspace. With everything in one place, nothing is lost and it’s easy to share with stakeholders and participants too. 

With a streamlined process in place, the team can now focus more on delivering impactful learning experiences—knowing their training design is structured, efficient, and future-proof.

This case study is anonymous due to customer’s privacy request.

Myriam Hadnes, founder of workshops.work, has used SessionLab since 2017 to help her team of facilitators collaborate effectively on every part of the workshop design process. Let’s see how.

Simple collaboration in a shared workspace

With a network of 25 facilitators spread over 17 countries, effective collaboration and communication is vital to the team at workshops.work.

“We all need access to the same flow and have the opportunity to add comments if something is not clear or doesn’t work out.”

With a shared SessionLab workspace, Myriam and her team are able to collaborate on a workshop design and refine the flow together in real-time or asynchronously with comments.

When it’s time to share agendas with clients, they control the access, inviting collaboration or restricting edits once approved.

“Clients love the opportunity to have a look at the session and to collaborate with us on it.”

Staying organized while working with clients in up to 15 languages is also important to workshops.work.

Myriam and her team use dedicated client folders to stay organized and to maintain different versions of the same workshop in multiple languages, ensuring quality and consistency across all sessions.

“I love to work in folders, so all sessions for one client are one folder, and I know exactly where to find it.”

Effective agenda design

Before SessionLab, Myriam used spreadsheets to create her session designs and found adjusting the agenda and recalculating time to be a painful, manual process.

“The frustration of using Excel and constantly needing to recalculate the time, everything was just difficult and had to be manual.”

Switching to SessionLab had a profound effect on Myriam’s design process: it became easy to create and adjust an agenda without the outline or timing falling apart. Whatever changes she makes, Myriam can feel confident that the session will stay structured, look good and that timing will recalculate automatically.

SessionLab has helped when it comes to creating new agendas and training sessions too.

Myriam starts every agenda with the same skeleton of key blocks: introduction, purpose, engagement moments, and checkout. Then she adds the workshop content and activities, often reusing her existing content.

“SessionLab helps to build blocks that I would use for several sessions so I can easily copy them to a different session, which makes it easy. I can also build my library of activities so that we can easily reuse them.”

Using colour-coding to create balance

For Myriam, every type of session requires a different balance of content, discussion and interaction, and has a different measure of success.

• For problem-solving workshops, success may not be visible immediately. If a team is working through a challenge, the impact often unfolds weeks later when participants realise how much a difficult conversation has influenced their work.
• For training sessions, engagement is key. Success is when participants go beyond passive learning to ask questions, challenge ideas and deepen understanding. It’s also about psychological safety: when participants feel comfortable questioning and exploring, the workshop has done its job.
• In any session, real success comes from participation. A great workshop allows all voices to be heard, sparks meaningful conversations, and helps people connect. Even if participants forget the details, they might leave with a new peer, a sparring partner, or a friend. That’s the incredible magic of facilitation!

Using SessionLab’s colour-coded categories, the team at workshops.work can ensure all elements of their agenda are in balance.

Myriam developed a system where different colours represent different types of engagement: blue for facilitator-led content, green for small-group activities, red for full-group participation, and pink for self-reflection.

At a glance, she and her team can instantly assess the balance of a session, spotting if there’s too much content, too many activities, or not enough small-group discussions.

When I see the distribution of colours in SessionLab, I can spot immediately whether there’s too much content, too many activities, or there’s not enough small group conversation, but only large group exchange. And this helps me to make quick adjustments to ensure that the engagement level is where I want it to be.”

With SessionLab, these quick visual adjustments help ensure every workshop maintains the right level of engagement and flow.

Building client confidence with professional printouts

Any successful agency is built on the reputation and trust they build with their clients. For Myriam and the team at Workshops.Work, sharing beautiful printouts of their SessionLab agendas is a key part of reinforcing professionalism and building client trust.

Clients feel in good hands because they see that I’m using a tool designed for facilitators. Somehow, that makes them trust that I know what I’m doing.”

When working with clients on one-off workshops, Myriam often exports agendas as Word documents, tailoring the level of detail before sharing. SessionLab makes it easy to provide just the right amount of information, giving clients insight into the session structure without overwhelming them.

“SessionLab looks professional. Clients love having the opportunity to review and collaborate with us on the session.”

How the NeverDoneBefore community shared ideas and inspiration in a central workspace

During the pandemic, Myriam founded NeverDoneBefore, an experimental facilitation community culminating in a 24-hour festival where experts ran workshops they had never delivered before.

The NeverDoneBefore community, a global network of 100 facilitators, also benefited from a shared SessionLab workspace. While not every member had an individual account, the team license allowed them to design workshops in the shared workspace. Access to each other’s sessions meant they could draw inspiration from each other and learn from their peers.

The shared workspace made everyone curious about each other’s work. It encouraged conversations and fostered a culture of transparency and mutual learning instead of competition.

 “And what’s the impact of using SessionLab for my team? Time. We’re much faster in designing workshops. We are much faster in communicating our comments, much faster to compare different workshops to see if they’re aligned”

Conclusion

For Myriam and her team, a successful session is one where participants engage, ask thoughtful questions, and leave with something they can apply. Whether it’s a training designed to build skills or a session tackling complex team dynamics, the goal is always to create real impact and connection.

With SessionLab, they are able to design workshops more efficiently, ensure consistency across multiple languages and adapt sessions to client needs. The ability to structure, refine and share agendas in a professional way not only saves time but also gives clients confidence in the process.

“I found SessionLab early on, and I would never go back to any other solution.”

Voltage Control is a top facilitation academy that focuses on improving how teams gather and move towards desired outcomes. They offer public facilitation certifications designed to support leaders’ growth in facilitation skills, as well as corporate programs that bring facilitation training in-house.

Since the beginning, SessionLab has been a key part of Voltage Control’s process. As Erik Skogsberg describes, it’s an essential tool that allows the team to design adaptable agendas and effectively navigate complex discussions across teams and locations. By integrating SessionLab into their approach, Voltage Control helps organizations achieve impactful results and move the needle in meaningful ways

How Voltage Control use SessionLab to design workshops and deliver outcomes

At Voltage Control, designing impactful workshops begins with their Workshop Design Canvas. This serves as a high-level framework to outline session goals based on desired outcomes and participants’ needs.

Once Erik has established these foundations, he seamlessly transitions into SessionLab to refine the details. The drag-and-drop functionality allows him to easily rearrange blocks and groups, adjusting timing and flow to fit the session.

The automatic timing calculation helps Voltage Control work efficiently within time constraints. As Erik describes it,“the timing feature in SessionLab are especially helpful because it ensures we keep things within their bounds.”

By visually organising activities through colour-coding and groups, Erik and his team make sure everything is in place for a well-designed workshop.

“it really comes down to Session Lab’s ability to quickly get activities and blocks into place, move them around dynamically, and visually represent the flow through  colour coding”

SessionLab also cuts down on design time and streamlines the process. “SessionLab does the workshop math for us and we don’t need to reinvent the wheel each time. Our templates in SessionLab are ready to go whenever we facilitate our sessions.”

How Voltage Control students use SessionLab in their facilitation certification.

Voltage Control are committed to delivering high-quality training programs that improve how teams and leaders design and run their own experiences. A core component of this approach is their facilitation foundations curriculum, where they use SessionLab to create engaging agendas for both certification programs and smaller boot-camp workshops.

SessionLab is introduced to students as a key tool for agenda design, guiding them through the process of designing their own sessions.

“They’re just so glad this tool exists. Many have worked with systems that felt clunky and less dynamic, where tallying up the workshop math was a tedious task. As soon as they see SessionLab, it’s a whole new world for them”

As Erik works with certification students, he sees the agendas and sessions they’re able to create. The students effectively integrate learnings from the program into their SessionLab agendas, showcasing their workshop design skills and facilitation style. This focus on practical application ensures that participants leave with the tools and confidence they need to facilitate impactful sessions in their own environments.

Voltage Control Use SessionLab to adapt in real-time and meet client goals

One of the main challenges Voltage Control faces is balancing the outcomes identified by the client with the steps needed to achieve them. Erik explains, “We have a finite amount of time to guide participants to the outcomes. SessionLab really meets us right there in organising a session, allowing us to move blocks around, so we can tweak timing in the moment.” This flexibility helps Voltage Control stay organised and dynamic, especially when multiple facilitators are involved.

Erik and the team use SessionLab whilst facilitating too to time check, and make sure they’re hitting the key pieces for each method and activity.

“We can move things around in real time in a way that helps my collaborators flex based on what’s coming up in the session.

Voltage Control also use SessionLab to help keep everything documented. Having the ability to revisit any previous session, allows to collaborate and share agendas with clients or team members. When managing larger, complex conversations at scale using templates helps ensure the teams stay aligned

“Recently, we worked with a client on workshops across the globe, and having everything set up in SessionLab meant we could efficiently provide facilitators with the resources they needed to succeed.”

Conclusion

When facilitators are equipped with the right tools to design effective workshops and engage participants, they can drive meaningful outcomes for their organizations.

For the team at Voltage Control, that success begins with a flexible and dynamic session design. SessionLab plays a part in helping Erik Skogsberg create impactful learning experiences, enabling organizations to navigate complex conversations and achieve the outcomes they are hoping for.

“SessionLab has helped us be more purpose and outcome-focused. We can easily create an agenda and see the big picture.”

Designing engaging learning flows 

Whether it’s guiding a team through a strategic planning session or running NGO leadership training, the journey begins with a well-designed agenda. 

While Tucker had previously used Excel to design his sessions, after using SessionLab, Tucker says he couldn’t go back.

“Excel is not a great tool for professional workshoppers designing a lot of experiences. I wondered what other agenda tools were out there and found SessionLab. I looked around in general and I thought oh, no, SessionLab. This is the agenda tool. We use it every day.”

For visual thinkers like Tucker, SessionLab’s simple overview and color coding is a massive boon to the workshop design process. 

“I love the color coding because it helps us know what we’re looking for in all of our experiences. It lets me quickly see what each section of the workshop is doing at a glance.”

In SessionLab, you can flexibly color-code every block and instantly see a visual breakdown of your session in the mini-map. color code by activity type, learning style or whatever taxonomy suits your needs. 

Tucker and the team at Thrive Impact use a standardized color scheme across their agendas to keep all their designers and co-facilitators on the same page. 

“For example, green is for breakout rooms where participants are connecting with one another while yellow is for group sharing in the main room. Purple is a video or large group activity and blue is when a facilitator delivers content and training. Then we have red for a break or reflection.”

By color coding in this way, Tucker is able to easily see the ratio between different activity types and create a balanced and effective learning flow.

“We’re looking for a good ratio of green, purple and blues activities. If we have too much blue, that means we have too much content and we need to re-balance the agenda, because we already know based on the data around learning experiences that people don’t always learn well that way.”

For Tucker, well-designed and balanced experiences are the foundation of an effective workshop, especially when working in a virtual environment. By using SessionLab, the team is able to quickly create sessions that engage their clients in a spirit of co-creation and problem solving. 

Effective co-creation

Effective collaboration and team alignment is a key aspect of any successful NGO. Similarly, Tucker and his team use SessionLab to co-create their agendas and collaborate on the design together in one-place. 

“We all pull up Session Lab and go through the agenda at the same time. We start with a high level overview of where we’re going and then go down to the nitty gritty details.”

Once a high-level design is agreed upon, the team at Thrive Impact will assign each team member to the section or block they’re delivering so each facilitator can work on their script or content and easily get feedback from colleagues.

At the top of each agenda, they’ll add a note with important links and team roles to ensure everyone is aligned going into the session. With everything they need in one-place, Tucker and his team are able to deliver exceptional learning experiences, every time. 

Creating a repeatable, systematized process in SessionLab has also helped the team streamline their workflow, save time and focus on what matters most.

“We have people on our team who love to systemize the process in SessionLab and it’s immensely important because it saves so much time.”

A big part of this process is about institutionalizing knowledge and making previous agendas and activities available to the team.

Not only does using templates and a team library help the team at Thrive save time, but it also helps them transfer knowledge and train new members effectively.

“With our SessionLab library, we can go in and say, oh yeah, I need to do that paired interview. Let me drag and pull that into my agenda and then I can make it my own. We can say, hey, go into the templates and take a look. That kind of internal collaboration and institutionalization is great.”

Supporting session delivery 

When Tucker first started using SessionLab, what stuck out to him most was the ability to stay in control of time and dynamically update session timing during a workshop.

“The thing that was initially really helpful was the fact that you could have dynamic time in SessionLab. There are many times in the room where we actually add time as we go. So we’re like, wow, this section went way over and we’ll add extra minutes and adjust activities directly.”

In SessionLab, every block has a set time allocation. When you make changes in real-time, your total time and schedule will update automatically, giving you the confidence to make changes and see the impact on the rest of your agenda. 

Tucker is also able to understand how he’s performing against schedule and make informed decisions on what to change while facilitating. 

“We know in real time where the train is on the track from a schedule perspective. That’s an important benefit of using SessionLab for us, too.”

Time-locks have also been useful to the team at Thrive Impact. By locking time sensitive items in place, they’re able to ensure that there’s time left for reflection or breaks and that they cover everything needed. 

“We always put a time lock at the very end of a session for five minutes. We know we always want to end a session with heart, which is really ending with space for reflection. Time-locking blocks gives me a good sense of how long I have.”

Conclusion 

When NGOs are given the tools to plan strategically, reduce burnout and solve core problems, they can create impactful and lasting change. 

For the team at Thrive Impact, that change all starts with a balanced and engaging session design. SessionLab plays a part in helping Tucker and the team design effective learning experiences and help NGOs achieve their goals and make change in the world. 

“We love SessionLab. We run so many workshops that we literally use it, almost every business day.”

Using SessionLab to design learning flows and collaborate with subject matter experts has helped Vlerick save time, be more efficient and create programs that engage learners – whether as part of a degree program, executive learning or bespoke company training. Here’s how.

Structured, efficient learning design

An effective self-paced course, training session or blended learning program starts with a well-crafted learning flow informed by the needs of potential learners. At Vlerick, the process begins with a conversation and an outline in SessionLab.

“First, we analyze the needs of the customer or the audience. Then we talk with faculty and discuss learning objectives, learning activities, topics and the learning journey. When we have an idea of what we need to have in there, that’s the moment we would start using SessionLab.”

Even before they begin to use a content authoring tool or set things up in an LMS, Vlerick uses SessionLab to create a learning flow that serves as a foundation for all of their programs. 

“We use SessionLab as our skeleton before we start creating digital assets and finally add them to our learning management system. The day SessionLab came into my work life I was so happy because it felt so structured.” 

Vlerick starts the process by adding blocks with simple titles to quickly create an overview of their program. By reorganizing blocks and iterating quickly in SessionLab, they’re able to quickly craft a skeleton curriculum that meets the needs of their target audience.

Whether a course is self-paced or delivered in a blended learning environment, a well-balanced program with a mix of different interaction types is a vital part of engaging learners.

Vlerick uses SessionLab’s color coding to ensure they find the right balance and make informed decisions about their curriculum.

“We use the color coding in SessionLab to indicate the different sort of interaction methods and that helps at every stage. We know that if a block is blue, it will be a video, if it’s red, it will be an interactive resource or multimedia. This ensures we create a good balance: not to have five videos in a row, not to have five articles in a row, to have the right interaction moments. It’s very visible.”

SessionLab is designed to be flexible, so whatever kind of learning program Vlerick is designing, they’re able to co-create quickly and with confidence. 

Effective collaboration with subject matter experts

Once a learning design has been drafted in SessionLab, it’s time to get involvement from subject matter experts and members of the faculty.

Finding time in the busy agendas of their faculty poses one of the biggest challenges for the team at Vlerick but thankfully, SessionLab is able to help here too.

“With SessionLab, it’s easy for us to have a meeting where we go through the learning design with our content experts and it helps in the collaboration. We collect their feedback and make adjustments in real time.”

In SessionLab, it’s easy to share your agenda and collaborate in the best format for your collaborators. Invite subject matter experts to leave comments and add materials directly to the relevant learning blocks. Co-create in real-time or stay aligned asynchronously with track changes and comments. 

Subject matter experts at Vlerick often have their own ways of working. However you and your colleagues choose to work, SessionLab’s flexibility allows you to move forward efficiently and save time in the learning design process.

“Sometimes we have faculty who go into SessionLab themselves and add text to blocks or leave comments. Other times, we get the input for the storyboard in a meeting and make notes. Often, we receive a Word document or a PowerPoint from a subject matter expert and we put it into the specific block in SessionLab and brainstorm how we can add activities related to that and analyze how they fit into our storyboard.”

Attaching course materials and content from subject matter experts to your learning design in SessionLab is an effective way to keep everything organized and in one-place.

Never lose a crucial Powerpoint or Word document from a member of your faculty again. Attach key materials to specific blocks in your learning flow so it’s easy for everyone collaborating to find what they need.

Designing and iterating on learning flows as a result of feedback is also common for most learning designers. Rather than having endless versions and iterations of their sessions lost in folders and emails, Vlerick uses SessionLab to collaborate and consolidate their learning designs in one place.

“In SessionLab, workflows with ‘final final version two documents’ are a thing of the past.”

By creating a single source of truth, Vlerick is able to design confidently, save headaches and ensure all their collaborators are able to find what they need.

Saving time and improving organizational efficiency 

Building an entire learning program from scratch is a lot of work. With SessionLab, Vlerick has been able to optimize the process of creating a new program. They’ve also been able to save valuable time by reusing and adjusting their programs and learning material.

“We run a five module program for one of our clients with four reruns every year. Previously, I would know the program by heart and go through every module every time. I would go into the Word document, find the steps where I need to make changes, then write them on an email, add the link to the platform, send it to my colleague and she would go in the platform and make those changes but every time I had to review module by module so it would take me a whole day. Now I have all the content in SessionLab and it doesn’t even take me one hour anymore.”

In SessionLab, Vlerick can simply duplicate their previous course and make notes of what needs to change. Rather than needing to redo the whole program and resend document versions, Luisa and all the learning designers at Vlerick will make changes in SessionLab and invite colleagues to work with her on the specific sections which need their attention. 

The learning designer will mark blocks for the attention of the content builder to use when creating assets and another for her colleague in the admin department. Everyone in the workflow knows exactly what’s expected of them and can collaborate efficiently. 

By switching to SessionLab and improving their workflow, Luisa has been able to make a whole day’s work fit into just one hour of focused collaboration. 

SessionLab is also helpful when it comes to helping Vlerick keep organized records of all their programs in one-place. When creating their materials, learning designers at Vlerick sometimes reuse specific activities or they’ll review previously run programs created for returning clients. 

“Previously, if we had to recreate, rebuild or review the program, it was impossible to find those documents again. One of the values of SessionLab is that if I left tomorrow, and in two years, a colleague has to go back to one of the programs I worked on, she could just find it in SessionLab.” 

By reusing existing designs and creating templates, Vlerick has been able to save time and also unify their style and increase efficiency across the team.  

“We work with a lot of builders and designers who have their own ways of working and we have our own style too. Creating templates in SessionLab has helped us to align more.”

In SessionLab, you can add sections and checklists for each stage of your learning flow. Most of Vlerick’s learning programs have common elements that need to be filled in every time.

By adding sections for each key item to their templates, they can ensure nothing is missed and that their content team has everything they need to quickly add the flow to their LMS.

Leave notes to the template to make it easy for trainers and content experts to follow. Add checklists and color coding to create an efficient workflow and transfer knowledge across your team easily.

For Vlerick, this has been a vital part of onboarding new team members and getting them up to speed with creating learning flows. 

“SessionLab is helpful with alignments and processes. As our team grew a lot and we added new colleagues, it’s now much easier to adapt the process, because it’s all there in SessionLab.” 

Storyboarding and instructional design made easy 

Creating learning programs, whether for a self-paced course or blended learning format can often feel like a balancing act. Instructional designers need to manage the input of subject matter experts, carefully craft a learning flow and collaborate with content designers – all before moving material to an LMS.

When designing materials for their degree programs, executive learning courses and bespoke trainings, Vlerick Business School needed a tool that helped them design effective learning flows and improve efficiency across their team. 

With SessionLab, Vlerick has been able to streamline the process of creating their initial learning designs and storyboards. By also optimizing their collaborations with subject matter experts and templating their programs, they’ve been able to save time across the board – all while delivering exceptional experiences to their learners. 

“SessionLab is the one place where everyone can find all the storyboards for all the programs we designed within the school. It really helps with efficiency and time saving.”

The team at IPK needed a tool that allowed them to meticulously plan and design their sessions down to the minute. With SessionLab, they’ve been able to optimize their workflow and achieve meaningful savings in time and cost too. With contributions from Marc Steinlin and Nqaba Mpofu at IPK, let’s explore how.

Powerful features to support impactful workshops

When it comes to designing impactful sessions, IPK takes a comprehensive approach. With SessionLab, they are easily able to create detailed plans to best meet their client’s needs. 

“For the planning and preparation of our events, we rely on SessionLab as a vital tool in actualizing our designs. SessionLab assists us in meticulously organizing a range of activities into engaging sessions that are executed both virtually and in-person.” 

In SessionLab, the team at IPK are able to create minute-perfect agendas while maintaining complete control over every detail. Facilitators and workshop designers are able to set precise timing for each item in their agenda and add detailed instructions where needed. 

“SessionLab’s automatic time calculations are a critical tool, ensuring that our schedules are precise and free of errors. We can update and adapt them real time, all while staying on the same page. This level of detail, accuracy and synchronicity in planning is instrumental in the seamless execution and success of our events.”

With a flexible Session Planner, they’re able to design their sessions in a way that supports their process. The result? A minute-perfect up-to-date agenda that creates the foundation for an effective session. 

“Our belief is that the meticulous planning of our sessions contributes to 80% of our success in events. This involves detailed planning for every minute of the event, often requiring granular attention to detail. SessionLab greatly facilitates this process through its user-friendly interface, intuitive layout, and efficient session builder.”

Streamlined workflow 

Effective collaboration is a vital part of how a consultancy is able to deliver incredible results for their clients.

In SessionLab, the multi-national team at IPK is able to collaborate in real-time and dynamically design their sessions. Team members can leave comments and iterate on their agendas in one place, streamlining their process and ensuring nothing gets lost in a long email chain. For the team at IPK, it was a massive step-up from their previous tools. 

“Previously, we relied on a combination of Excel sheets for timing and Word documents for facilitation plans. SessionLab revolutionized our workflow by allowing us to create ‘blocks’ of activities, which we can add to our library for enhanced reusability in future designs, thus saving significant time.” 

Creating a library of their best content, IPK are able to streamline their process and reuse activities in future sessions, across their whole team. Best practices are followed, time is saved, and the whole team is able to optimize their workflow. 

“The ability to efficiently pull activities from previously designed sessions into current ones has been a key factor in saving time.”

Another time-consuming part of the workshop design process is finalizing your agenda and getting it ready to share with clients and participants. SessionLab saves the team time at this stage too!

“Another valuable feature we utilize is the ability to export our planned sessions into Word documents, creating well-structured agendas. Before SessionLab, this process involved creating four separate items: a timing sheet, a facilitation plan, a materials list, and an agenda.

Now, with SessionLab, all these elements are consolidated in one location, making it easier to extract and share specific parts with different audiences as needed. This streamlined approach significantly enhances our efficiency and organization in planning and conducting our events.”

By sharing a live link to their SessionLab agenda, IPK can keep their participants updated and aligned, even during an event. Any changes are instantly visible by all viewers, so whatever changes, you and your team can facilitate with confidence.

With SessionLab, IPK have been able to reduce the overhead and busywork of preparing their sessions and focus on what matters: delivering exceptional experiences to their clients and empowering meaningful change.

Effective co-creation with clients 

IPK primarily work with clients in international cooperation and public service sectors. The work they do includes leadership development, navigating complexity, promoting well-being, and fostering innovation.

These are high-impact areas for any team, and IPK are invested in creating long-lasting changes that engage an entire organization. 

“We operate under the philosophy that organizations are complex-adaptive systems. We are dedicated to ensuring that change is not merely a top-down effort but a collaborative and inclusive process, which we consider essential for sustainable success.”

Co-creation is a vital part of making this happen. With SessionLab, it’s easy for the team at IPK to engage stakeholders early in the process and ensure that any design they create is fit for purpose. 

“Another significant aspect is our capacity to share and co-create designs with our clients directly through SessionLab. This collaborative approach enhances client engagement and customization of our services.” 

When designing their sessions, IPK are able to invite clients as editors or viewers, ensuring that each stakeholder can collaborate in the way that suits them best. When it’s time to present materials to clients, they can export their agenda in Word, PDF or Powerpoint to get buy-in and sign-off. 

“Finally, once a session design receives client approval, SessionLab simplifies the process of extracting the agenda. This ease of sharing the finalized agenda with our clients further streamlines our workflow and enhances our professional service delivery.”

Creating solutions to tough problems while working with organizational complexity is a challenge for any consultancy. IPK believe that “for meaningful change or progress to occur, it’s crucial to engage all parts of these systems.” 

With SessionLab, they’ve been able to involve their clients directly in the design process, improve outcomes, and streamline their workflow. 

Saved time and reduced costs 

With the collaborative processes they create, IPK have been able to unleash the power of groups and create change for teams across the world. SessionLab has played a part in saving time during their design work and streamlining their process. 

“Our utilization of SessionLab has significantly streamlined our design process, resulting in a notable reduction in time spent on session planning. The key benefits we’ve observed with SessionLab include time savings, reduced errors, and the convenience of having a central repository for all our activity planning.

This combination of efficiency and reliability has greatly enhanced our operational effectiveness.”

Saving time and improving efficiency by using SessionLab hasn’t just made the team at IPK more efficient. They’ve also been able to leverage this into creating savings for their clients and maintaining an edge in an increasingly competitive market.

“The time savings made while using SessionLab translate directly into cost reductions, which we can pass on to our clients. This aspect of cost efficiency plays a crucial role in maintaining our competitive edge in the market.” 

SessionLab is designed to offer the flexibility and power teams need in order to achieve their goals and meet client goals. By bringing SessionLab to their consultancy, IPK have been empowered to create meaningful change and save costs across the organization.