I’ve taught hundreds of instructional designers how to build better facilitator guides. A facilitator guide is the cornerstone for consistent and high quality instructor led training. Here are some basics I’d recommend for making your facilitator guides better:
Incorporate participant materials and PowerPoints in a way that you don’t need cross referencing or icons. Cross referencing and icons create a nightmare for editing and keeping things straight.
- Don’t duplicate information that’s in the participant materials, PowerPoints or job aides. Use the facilitator guide for directions only.
- Use a software program that is commonly used so that anyone can easily create an update the document. You can always protect the document after it’s created with a PDF.
- Add a running time and an elapsed time on each page so the facilitator can easily keep the workshop or seminar on track.
- Leave a lot of white space so that facilitator has a place to write notes about examples and stories.
- Limit what you put in headers and footers but make sure to put in copyright notices and page numbers.
These are just come of the basic tips. I’ve got a PowerPoint presentation that shows the format that I actually use. You can download it from this site.
Steve,
I’m interested in your Facilitator Guide PowerPoint presentation. I made it to the site but my connection isn’t very good and I don’t believe I can see everything. Would you please forward it to me?
Thank you,
AMy
Hi I can’t find the link to the template. Is it available?
Is there a particular software that you recommend?
Check out LeaderGuide Pro