teamcraft.org

Breakthrough facilitation

Our clients

Teamcraft clients are non-profit organizations and social enterprises working on complex problems at the intersection of technology, open innovation, and smarter human futures.

Wikimedia Foundation CERN NYU Public Library of Science Creative Commons The McConnell Foundation Toronto Public Library Code for Canada The Rockefeller Foundation City of Toronto Public Goods

Invited Speaker

US Library of Congress London School of Economics McGill University

Our approach

Teamcraft’s approach to facilitation focuses on three core design principles:

01

Hold space

Everything starts with real human connection. In a world that feels increasingly overwhelming and isolated, it’s vital to help people connect as humans so that they can do their best work together. Teamcraft uses thoughtful techniques to break the ice quickly, get to deep conversations early, and strengthen your relationships — without cringey trustfalls or wasting the group’s time.

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Examples
Training and mentorship: Teamcraft CEO Matt Thompson is a graduate of the Rockwood Leadership Institute’s “Art of Leadership” program, and emulates their mindful facilitation approach. He also interviewed Rockwood’s former CEO Akaya Windwood and has co-facilitated with her for the Wikimedia Foundation executive team.
Leadership training: We redesigned a leadership training curriculum and five-day retreat for the Wikimedia Foundation that participants said made them feel “loved,” “energized,” and “inspired.”
Design sprint: We helped AI researchers and practitioners working on very different sides — corporate and non-profits — come together to draft an ambitious multi-year research agenda in just three days.
Non-violent communication: Teamcraft has design ed and teaches a series of online and in-person workshops on how to give feedback, tackle difficult conversations, and address conflict in a clear, kind way.
Strategy workshop: We helped a room full of physicists from around the world gather at CERN and build relationships across languages and disciplines, without trust falls or dad jokes.
02

Lead adaptively

At Teamcraft we’re big believers in designing an extremely thoughtful and detailed agenda — and then breaking it. Why? Because it’s all about adapting to what’s emerging for the group, in the room, on the day. Breakthrough ideas aren’t always predictable, the needs of the group can change on a dime, and winning solutions often emerge as surprises. By getting crystal clear about your convening’s purpose and outcomes in advance, we can adapt the process based on what’s happening in the room, drawing on principles like “Adaptive Leadership” and agile facilitation techniques to balance structure with emergence.

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Examples
Strategic planning retreat: We pivoted and quickly re-designed the agenda for an ambitious 80-person planning retreat in Lisbon, because participants signaled they wanted to break down silos between departments and take a more collaborative, audience-focused approach.
Reverse keynote: We turned a keynote speaking engagement into a participatory workshop on the fly, where we gave library board members and leaders a set of practical tools they could put to have the right conversations with each other at their own tables, instead of just listening to us talk.
Defining purpose: We helped a new team at an elite travel agency draft a powerful purpose and mission statement by simply listening to each other tell stories about their moments of pride at work, instead of the usual top-down jargon and lifeless org-speak.
03

Get to real outcomes

Teamcraft’s clients are typically mission-driven organizations working on complex, systems-change problems. Our ideal clients are unapologetically… well, nerdy. In the best possible way. Because complex problems require complex, adaptive approaches that lack a typical straight line, and emerge out of specific expertise and real front-line knowledge. The art of breakthrough facilitation is embracing this complexity, doing lots of deep and specific listening, and then helping the group surface actionable proposals, experiments or clear next steps. It’s about navigating complexity without getting paralyzed or stuck.

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Examples
Strategic planning: We helped a busy executive team name tensions, navigate conflict, and deliver an updated strategic plan outlining their response to external trends and the threat of AI.
Stakeholder engagement: We designed and facilitated a set of events in Geneva, Nairobi, and Washington, DC that gathered the best ideas from scientific researchers, university leadership, and philanthropic funders to design a complex new system involving software, publishing, and new business models.
Workshops: We delivered training and workshops for front-line workers serving at-risk and underhoused populations in a major urban center, using lean product design frameworks to help them imagine ideas for serving their clients better.

About Matt Thompson, Teamcraft CEO

Matt Thompson helps leaders build outstanding teams and convenings. As a facilitator, trainer, and organizational development consultant, he’s spent the past decade leading leadership trainings, retreats, and strategy workshops for organizations working at the intersection of technology, open collaboration, and social change.

His past clients include the Wikimedia Foundation, CERN, PLOS, NYU, Creative Commons, Mozilla Foundation, McConnell Foundation, the City of Toronto, Code for Canada, and others. As a collaborator at the organizational development firm Plural, he has facilitated leadership teams at Penguin Random House and PepsiCo.

He was an invited speaker at the US Library of Congress, London School of Economics, and McGill University. Based in Montreal, he is passionate about collaborative intelligence, group psychology, and new ways of working.


Get in touch at matt@teamcraft.org, or:

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