Facilitating Innovation Workshops & Hackathons Training Course

This five-day course builds the practical skills to design and facilitate innovation workshops, hackathons and innovation sprints that produce real outcomes. It covers session design, managing group dynamics, and the specific facilitation techniques needed to keep a high-energy, time-boxed event focused and productive from open to close.

Innovation workshops and hackathons are easy to run badly. Energy is high for the first hour, groups drift, the loudest voices dominate, and the event closes with a pile of sticky notes and no clear next step, so the organisation quietly concludes that hackathons do not really work here, when the real problem was the facilitation, not the format.

This course treats facilitating an innovation event as a distinct, learnable skill, separate from having good ideas or good facilitation skills in a normal meeting. It covers designing an event that has a real structure and a real output, and the in-the-room techniques for managing energy, dominant personalities and time pressure so the event actually produces something usable by the time it ends.

The course draws on the realities of running innovation events across African organisations, resource and time constraints, hierarchical workplace norms that can suppress open participation, and the pressure to show donors or leadership a tangible result, rather than assuming an unlimited-budget, fully flat event culture.

• Design an innovation workshop or hackathon with a clear structure and defined output.
• Facilitate group dynamics to draw out quieter or more junior participants.
• Manage dominant personalities and keep sessions on track under time pressure.
• Apply time-boxing and constraint-setting techniques that sustain creative energy.
• Design and run a design sprint or hackathon format appropriate to the goal.
• Facilitate the transition from ideation to a tangible, presentable output.
• Manage logistics, roles and materials for a multi-team innovation event.
• Evaluate whether an innovation event actually achieved its intended outcome.

This course is designed for:

• Internal facilitators and innovation team members
• Learning and development professionals
• Innovation, strategy and organisational development professionals
• Programme and project managers running stakeholder workshops
• Public sector and NGO professionals organising innovation events
• Anyone tasked with designing or running a hackathon or innovation sprint

The course is built around designing and practising facilitation live, delivered through:

• Facilitator-led sessions on session design and facilitation technique
• Case studies drawn from African hackathon and innovation event contexts
• Live facilitation practice with peer and facilitator feedback
• Group dynamics exercises addressing dominance, silence and drift
• Design sprint and hackathon format design workshops
• A complete innovation event design plan built across the week

Organisations that invest in this training can expect:

• Innovation events that produce a genuine, usable output
• Reduced wasted time and budget on unproductive workshops
• Stronger internal facilitation capability across the organisation
• Higher genuine participation from staff at all levels
• Improved credibility of innovation events with leadership and donors
• A repeatable format for running future innovation events well

Participants who enrol in this training will benefit from:

• A practical toolkit for designing and facilitating innovation events
• Confidence managing group dynamics, energy and time pressure live
• Stronger skills in translating ideation into a tangible output
• A ready-to-use innovation event design plan
• A stronger professional profile in facilitation and innovation delivery

At Strategic Revenue Africa, our certification goes beyond proof of attendance—it represents practical competence and measurable capability. Upon successful completion of our training programs, participants are awarded a Certificate of Completion from Strategic Revenue Africa, recognizing their ability to apply acquired knowledge in real-world settings. As an organization focused on architecting sustainable revenue and strengthening organizational performance, our certifications signal that participants are equipped with skills that drive results, not just theory.

No prior formal facilitation training is required. This course suits anyone who designs, organises or facilitates workshops, hackathons or innovation sprints, or expects to soon. Participants are encouraged to bring a real, upcoming innovation event to design during the practical sessions.