Reviews and Testimonials
From Eris Weaver
Professional Facilitator
From Lucas Cioffi
Co-Founder, QiqoChat
I'm absolutely impressed with the level of thinking that went into making the deck; it was a pleasure building on your work and I'm so thankful you made it available via Creative Commons. This deck is a vital piece of the facilitation community's knowledge and learning infrastructure, and there should be many other efforts to build out more of the community's knowledge in a similarly collaborative way.
From Sheri Wantland
Public Involvement Coordinator at Clean Water Services in Hillsboro, Oregon
Last week I was in a Board retreat of managers and engineers, and was delighted to see how quickly and easily the group focused on its strengths and opportunities using the colorful, thought-provoking cards. What particularly struck me was to see engineers and technical experts who identify as introverted left brainers who avoid "touchy feely" stuff readily embrace the cards. The Group Works cards instantly provide a safe place to start a conversation, and lead the group into exploration of diverse perspectives. These are a great tool for any group.
From Barr Houston
From Jim Clark
As quoted in Brian Remer's newsletter The Firefly News Flash (Oct. 2012):
"Want to sharpen your facilitation skills? Need a quick idea to untangle a tough group? Trying to analyze why that last meeting nearly went up in smoke? You can find answers to these challenges and many others in the Group Works Deck."
Reader Jim Clark commented (posted here with permission): “What an amazing resource. It was great for me to just go through the cards and see what are...
read more...From Daryl at Anecdote.com
From "Anecdotally" (the newsletter of the Anecdote consultancy in Australia) - August 2012:
http://www.anecdote.com.au/newsletters.php?nlid=51#Technique
"I recently had the opportunity to use the deck when I lead a peer-learning workshop on ‘facilitation skills’. The objective was to listen to stories and observe these meeting patterns, to reveal what skilled facilitators and other participants do to make things work (or not). It was a lively and engaging session."
From Karbyn Eilde
teacher & freelance writer
Just wanted to let you know that I did get the Group Works deck at last, and was entirely impressed. Fantastic! Great quality, beautiful and relevant images, perfect writing, 100% usable information, I was absolutely impressed all the way around, and I'm sure you are very rightfully proud of how things turned out, too.
I purchased the deck specifically to use as a tool for a presentation at a group that I am involved with that supports women's education. There have been several very tense moments within the past several meetings, when communication did not go well, and no one...
read more...From Frauke Godat
Initiator and Facilitator of Change Network, working with Art of Hosting in Berlin, Germany
Used the cards to map "Patterns I have appreciated, experienced, or wished for more" of during a one-week stay in Totnes for Transtion Town Launch Training:
http://artofhosting.ning.com/profiles/blogs/working-with-groupworks-patt...
From David Plouffe
Engagement Lead, Cultural Transformation at City of Calgary
At the City of Calgary we have been using the cards as part of an organizational cultural transformation within our "dream" phase [of an Appreciative Inquiry]. We have engaged over 1200 employees using the cards. I am going to share some videos/images and a report about our use of this fabulous tool when we are done. We have been using these cards from the start of the process (last Sept after I took the workshop in Seattle) for everything from planning our meetings to various engagement sessions. We have also used the iPhone app, especially the random card deal as how we start our day....
read more...From Laird Schaub
Laird Schaub has been exploring the Group Works cards at his Community & Consensus blog. Read all his responses here.