Feedback Labs | March 24, 2025
Great facilitation isn’t just about leading a meeting—it’s about creating space for connection, collaboration, and transformation. UFacilitate, a global network of expert facilitators, helps purpose-driven teams navigate the messy human stuff—from cultural differences to communication barriers. But as facilitators, how can they gather meaningful feedback without overburdening participants? In our recent LabStorm, we explored how UFacilitate can refine its feedback collection methods to better measure impact, ensure participant engagement, and make feedback a more valuable experience for everyone involved.
About UFacilitate
Founded by Andres Marquez-Lara, UFacilitate matches organizations with expert facilitators who bring the right blend of subject matter expertise, process knowledge, and cultural awareness to ensure successful engagements. With a network of over 160 facilitators across 38 countries, UFacilitate specializes in:
- Internal team off-sites
- Multi-stakeholder convenings
- Short-term and long-term leadership training
Whether helping teams strengthen collaboration or navigate complex organizational change, UFacilitate ensures that people feel seen, heard, and empowered to drive meaningful progress.
The Challenge
UFacilitate already collects feedback using tools like Mentimeter (live polling), Google Forms, email surveys, and one-on-one follow-ups. However, gathering consistent, insightful feedback—especially across long-term engagements with varying levels of participation—remains a challenge. Key questions included:
- How can UFacilitate gather more authentic, actionable feedback without overwhelming participants?
- What methods could improve feedback collection at different stages of an engagement?
- How can facilitators encourage long-term feedback, even from participants experiencing burnout?
By tackling these challenges, UFacilitate aims to tighten its feedback loops, ensure greater consistency across facilitators, and make feedback an engaging—not exhausting—process.
Key Discussions
1. Integrating Feedback into the Facilitation Process
One major takeaway from the discussion was that feedback should feel like a natural part of the facilitation process—not an add-on task at the end. Participants suggested:
- Building in “mini-feedback moments” at the end of each session (e.g., asking one reflection question that doubles as a feedback prompt).
- Using buddy systems for peer interviews, where participants reflect on their experience at the beginning and end of a program.
- Creating session check-ins, like “Plus/Delta” exercises—where participants quickly share one thing that’s working and one thing to improve in real time.
By making feedback part of the learning experience itself, UFacilitate can increase participation while reducing survey fatigue.
2. Designing Feedback Loops That Are Beneficial for Participants
Too often, participants feel like feedback is something they give—but never receive back. To close the loop, attendees suggested:
- Scheduling a feedback “reunion” three months after an engagement, so participants can see how their insights led to improvements.
- Letting participants create their own success measures—for example, defining their personal learning goals at the start and reflecting on progress at the end.
- Offering burnout-sensitive feedback methods, such as polls or structured dialogue instead of open-ended surveys, to reduce cognitive load for overwhelmed participants.
If feedback adds value for participants, they’ll be more likely to engage in the process.
3. Creating More Consistency Across Facilitators
Since UFacilitate’s network includes 160+ facilitators, ensuring that feedback collection is consistent and standardized can be difficult. Participants proposed:
- Developing a shared framework for feedback collection, so facilitators use a similar process regardless of the engagement.
- Systematizing check-ins across facilitators, ensuring that feedback is captured at similar points in every program.
- Embedding feedback into facilitator training, reinforcing best practices for gathering and acting on participant insights.
With a clearer structure for collecting and utilizing feedback, UFacilitate can ensure higher-quality, more actionable insights across all its engagements.
Key Takeaways
- Make feedback part of the facilitation journey. Mini-feedback moments, buddy check-ins, and real-time session reflections integrate feedback without burdening participants.
- Feedback should benefit participants—not just facilitators. Creating long-term engagement opportunities, participant-defined success metrics, and burnout-sensitive methods can increase buy-in.
- Consistency is key across the community of facilitators. A structured feedback framework will help ensure that insights are collected and used effectively across all engagements.
Conclusion
This LabStorm with UFacilitate reinforced the idea that feedback shouldn’t be an afterthought—it should be an integral part of facilitation itself. By embedding smarter, more participant-friendly feedback methods, UFacilitate can ensure that every session is more engaging, impactful, and aligned with participants’ needs.
Have you experimented with integrating feedback into facilitation and training? Share your insights in the comments below or reach out to us at [email protected] to continue the conversation!
Learn More About LabStorms
LabStorms are collaborative problem-solving sessions designed to help organizations tackle feedback-related challenges or share what’s working well in their practice.
Presenters leave the experience with honest, actionable feedback and suggestions to improve their feedback processes and tools.
To learn more about participating in a virtual LabStorm, please visit feedbacklabs.org/labstorms.
