North Bank Innovation at The VIC

Portland Design Thinkers, The Pacific NW Facilitators Guild, and North Bank Innovations are excited to host a special in-person event: Hot Topics, Cool Heads

Every team has conversations where stakes are high, opinions clash, and silence is just as dangerous as conflict. This interactive workshop gives you practical techniques to facilitate those moments rather than dread them. In this 90-minute, in-person session at North Bank Innovations at The VIC, members of the Pacific Northwest Facilitators Guild share their go-to methods for keeping tempers cool when hot topics arise. Through hands-on exercises and group discussion, you'll focus on group facilitation (team meetings, cross-functional discussions, leadership off-sites), not one-on-one conflict resolution.

You'll leave with several facilitation techniques for cooling down high-stakes group conversations, plus a simple plan for trying at least one of them out in a meeting sometime in the next two weeks.

ABOUT THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST FACILITATORS GUILD The PNWFG is a professional collective of independent facilitators and small firms serving Oregon and Washington. The Guild exists because organizations in this region deserve better access to skilled facilitation when it matters most: the high-stakes conversations, the stalled innovations, the cross-functional tangles, the decisions that keep getting deferred. Members bring a range of methodologies and deep experience.

Please RSVP and let us know if your plans change, so we can plan accordingly.