ThemeFacilitation & roles
CardCard 26 of 63
Questions5 to explore
StepInvite and prepare

Mental Preparation

Rehearse workshop process & the tools

Rehearsing the tools and process before the session is what separates a smooth online workshop from a series of small crises in front of participants.

Mental preparation in a remote context means more than knowing your content. It means knowing the platform well enough that you are not discovering features in real time, having tested your audio and video, knowing which breakout rooms you will open and when, and running through the session flow with the same transitions you will use live.

The best facilitators treat a dry run as mandatory, not optional. Even a fifteen-minute solo walkthrough catches the moment where you planned to share your screen but forgot you would need to switch windows, or where the timer app blocks the shared view. Online, problems that are minor in a room become visible stumbles in front of everyone.

Online, specificallyOnline the facilitator carries the platform itself as part of the session design, so mental preparation includes the tools and not just the content: knowing where to click is as important as knowing what to say.

In a remote session

The same building block as it plays out online: how experienced facilitators tend to handle it when the room is a screen. Illustrations to react to, not rules to follow.

Do a solo dry run

Walk through the session alone at least once: open the tools, test transitions between slides and activities, set up breakout rooms, and time each segment. This is where you catch problems without an audience.

Test your own setup

Check audio, video, and internet connection on the same device and location you will use for the real session. A different room or network on the day can change everything.

Visualize the hard moments

Identify the two or three moments in the session that are most technically complex or most likely to stall, and rehearse exactly what you will do in each one, including what you will say to the group if something goes wrong.

Questions to plan around

Use these on your own or in a group. There are no right answers, only better conversations.

Have you run through the session from start to finish on the actual platform, not just reviewed the slides?
Do you know how to operate every feature you plan to use, including the ones you might only need once?
What are the two or three moments most likely to go wrong, and have you rehearsed a response to each?
Have you tested audio and video from the same location you will use on the day?
If a co-facilitator is involved, have you done at least one shared run-through together?

What trips people up online

Facilitators who are expert in the content sometimes underprepare the technical side, assuming comfort with the subject translates to comfort with the platform.
A dry run done in a different room or on a different network than the actual session can miss the exact problems it was meant to catch.
Rehearsing in your head is not the same as clicking through: the hands-on run reveals problems that imagination skips over.