“Leading Innovation ’n Collaboration through Facilitation”

Taught by: Gary Rush, IAF CPF | Emeritus

FoCuSeD™ On… - 3-Days

“We know that anyone can be successful if they are able to guide their group through a facilitated process to accomplish their task.  They produce better results that have the buy-in of all stakeholders enabling the greatest chance of success.”

  • You MUST develop Essential People (“Soft”) Skills to succeed…
  • I’ll help you develop them…
  • Trainer: Gary Rush, IAF CPF | Emeritus
  • Let me, an IAF CPF | Emeritus, share my 40+ years of experience.  
  • I Don’t Just Provide Instruction – I inspire… 
  • Are you a Scrum Master?  This will help you hold more effective stand-up, retrospective, and backlog prioritizing meetings.
  • Are you a Project Manager?  This will help you gather better requirements and hold more effective project meetings.
  • Are you an aspiring leader?  This will help develop the necessary essential ‘soft’ skills to become an effective servant leader.
  • In my FoCuSeD™ Facilitation classes, I provide you with content and then we discuss, practice, and relate it to your work and life. 
  • You bring your concerns, your past experiences, and your questions.  I keep my classes small so that I have time to devote to you.  
  • My highly interactive class teaches you not only “how to”; it also teaches you to understand the "why" so that you can perform effectively.  
  • I want you to continue learning and developing your new skills, so I provide you with a comprehensive reference manual that reinforces what I teach, and you learn.  
  • Do you want stronger “soft” skills?

In our class students practice 40% of the class time and receive comprehensive assessments from the instructor.

This class is available anywhere in the world.  Please contact Gary for additional information, and scheduling.

Course Details

FoCuSeD™ On… covers People Skills, basic Process Design, etc.  It covers effective Facilitator skills and tools necessary to facilitate the overall business management strategy into the product solutions so needed for business success – achieving support and commitment from stakeholders.

  • What is Facilitation? What’s the history? When is it used?
  • What do Facilitators do? How does this fit with your job?
  • How do you deal with people – the good, the bad, and the ugly?
  • How do you manage conflict and make it productive?
  • Where do diversity, inclusivity, and thinking/learning styles fit?
  • How do you design a Holistic Process?
  • How do you build an effective Annotated Agenda?
  • How do you fit facilitated workshops/meetings into projects using different methods – e.g., Waterfall, Agile, etc.?
  • How do you structure facilitated workshops/meetings for a variety of business situations?
  • How do you facilitate in both an in-person environment as well as a virtual environment.
  • How do you fit facilitated workshops/meetings into any situation in business and in life?

Course Objectives

 FoCuSeD™ On… is designed so that the students will be able to:

  • Perform as effective FoCuSeD™ Facilitators immediately upon completion.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of FoCuSeD™, its components and processes.
  • Know “how to” incorporate their new skills and tools to enhance their job skills.
  • Facilitate a variety of workshops/meetings.
  • Demonstrate a level of proficiency in basic facilitation skills.
  • Use effective FoCuSeD™ Facilitator skills in business and in life.
  • Understand the IAF Core Facilitator Competencies and what they need to learn to achieve them.

Each Student Receives

  • PDF version of the FoCuSeD™ On… Guide by Gary Rush, IAF CPF | E – a radical departure from previous work.  A comprehensive reference manual in which Gary shares his step-by-step process so that students can replicate his practices.  

Some Key Features are:

  • Comprehensive Facilitator tools.
  • Cookbook Processes fully described using an Annotated Agenda format.
  • Our unique FoCuSeD™ Holistic Parallel Process Development – this critical process enables the Facilitator to seamlessly integrate the workshop/meeting process to build a product parallel to the emotional group cycle.
  • Class handouts with agenda and exercises.
  • Confidential assessment – feedback from the instructor
  • A class Certificate of Completion.  You will learn what it takes to become certified by the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) as a Certified™ Professional Facilitator (CPF).

Consulting Support


Each student is invited to contact Gary Rush, IAF CPF | M for advice on agendas or issues they encounter in workshops – regardless of how many years ago they attended the class

Contact Gary

Interested in an On-Site Class for your organization?  With 5 or more attendees, we can bring our class to you…

What students are saying…

“Thank you again for such a great class.  I leaned a ton and really valued the time in class.” - Melissa, Texas Department of Agriculture

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