Practical Appreciative Inquiry Live Online Training
Next course date TBA – register your interest below
Book before 15 July to get $100 early booking discount!
Get started using Appreciative Inquiry confidently with teams and small groups
Discover a practical, scalable process that you can use to:
- Structure a team coaching session that will change thinking and generate results
- Quickly get diverse groups talking freely to each other
- Get everyone collaborating on creating a shared vision
- Unleash the creativity of everyone in the team to generate new ideas
- Get from vision to action plan in less than two hours, with an engaging, participative method that involves the whole team
Is this the right course for you? Book a discovery call with me to find out!
(No hard sell – it’s not my style)
Early booking discount expires in:
The pace of the course was just right for me. The diverse group was also a big plus.
I really liked the holistic approach - Appreciative Inquiry can be used to shift mindsets & approach to life."
Why the world needs more Appreciative Inquiry facilitators
If, like me, you work with teams to help them improve their performance, you know that they are under increasing pressure to produce quick results.
Pressure makes people narrow their focus right down to achieving targets.
Unfortunately, it also shows up any weaknesses in the team.
The focus on ‘getting results yesterday’ often means relationships within the team are neglected, leading to mistrust, cynicism and blame culture.
The more this happens, the more it shuts down trust, openness to new ideas, and creative thinking – the very things that the team needs to find new solutions.
As a change agent, this can be frustrating. You know that the people in the team can do better, if they weren’t holding themselves back by lack of trust and poor communication.
But getting hard-pressed team members to trust each other more and communicate better isn’t easy – especially if they resent any time spent on this as a distraction from hitting their deadlines.
So as a coach, facilitator, and trainer, I was always looking for more effective ways of coaching and engaging teams.
When I came across Appreciative Inquiry – a leading-edge method for getting people to focus on what’s working and do more of it to get better results – I knew I had found that more effective way.
Each time I used Appreciative Inquiry, I was amazed by how quickly it could:
- Dissolve cynicism
- Get normally reserved people to drop their defences and open up to each other
- Enable team members (and their bosses, and customers) to have structured conversations about where things are now, and how they could be improved – without it turning into a whinge-fest.
I’ll confess, it took me a long time to get confident using Appreciative Inquiry. As it was usually presented, there was a lot of academic language, and it wasn’t always easy to see how to translate the theory into practical, step by step actions.
Gradually, I gained experience in using the method, with participants ranging from prison officers and apprentice engineers to business owners and elected representatives.
I got plenty of practice in how to explain Appreciative Inquiry to all kinds of people in a business-friendly way, without the alienating jargon.
About 15 years ago I started teaching a two-day Practical Appreciative Inquiry course to show other coaches, trainers and business owners how to get started with Appreciative Inquiry.
Many of the participants who have taken that course told me that they had read up on Appreciative Inquiry, maybe even taken some training in it, but they needed confidence about putting it in to action.
They needed to know that they’re doing it ‘right’, about when to use it and when not, and how to apply Appreciative Inquiry when they are working in cynical, negatively oriented corporate cultures.
From what the participants on that ‘offline’ version of the course have told me, and from how they’ve been using Appreciative Inquiry since completing the course, I know that it’s possible to give you everything you need to start using the method with confidence in a short time.
And from the many online Practical Appreciative Inquiry courses that I’ve run since 2019, and from what previous participants have reported back, I know that coaches, trainers and change agents like you can take what they’ve learned in the online course and start applying AI in the real world.
He was also very committed to the success of the participants.
Even after the closure of the online course, he availed himself to walk us through our preparations and shared ideas on how else to make a session better."
During the course, Andy provided exercises for us to tackle in smaller break-out groups. These gave me what I was looking for.
Now, having experienced the process for myself, I am much more confident in describing it to others and facilitating my own sessions.
I endorse and recommend the program because of Andy’s practical approach to learning."
What's In The Course?
The aim of the Practical Appreciative Inquiry course is to give you everything you need to get started using Appreciative Inquiry with teams and small groups, even if you’ve never used Appreciative Inquiry before.
The curriculum goes like this:
Pre-Study: Intro to Appreciative Inquiry, where it came from, the neuroscience of Appreciative Inquiry, the Principles of Appreciative Inquiry, and the 5-D format (Definition, Discover, Dream, Design, and Delivery or Destiny).
Group Zoom calls: five 90-minute coaching calls taking you through each stage of the 5-D format, backed up by video and audio recordings of each call and more short instructional videos (with transcripts) covering the learning points.
Week 1: The ‘Definition’ stage: how to craft Affirmative Topic wording, a quick way to ‘flip’ problem statements into Affirmative Topics, a checklist of characteristics for successful Affirmative Topics, how to acknowledge ‘negatives’ and move beyond them, and what to do when it’s hard to get the topic wording right.
Week 2: How to facilitate the Discovery stage, and how to conduct successful Appreciative Interviews (formats, how to craft questions, what interviewers need to know)
Week 3: How to facilitate the Dream stage, formats for building a shared vision, how to encourage the ‘non-creative’ participant
Week 4: How to facilitate the Design stage, how to ensure quiet/introverted participants are heard, formats for getting from Dream to Delivery
Week 5: How to facilitate the Delivery stage, the Fishbone/Swim Lanes format for quick, inclusive planning, when (and when not) to use Appreciative Inquiry, review of course experience.
On top of the lessons, you also get:
- Lifetime access to the call recordings and all the instructional videos – useful if you want to refer back to something!
- A one to one coaching call to help you plan your first Appreciative Inquiry implementation
- The Appreciative Inquiry Toolkit that gives you step by step instructions for how to conduct each stage, example session agendas from AI meetings that I’ve facilitated, what kind of art materials to use for ‘in the room’ workshops, etc.
The course now includes 33 learning-packed instructional videos (also available as audio and transcripts) covering every stage of the Appreciative Inquiry 5D cycle, to view at your own pace so you can back up the learning you get from the live calls and have a reference any time you need it in the future.
I now have a clear understanding of how to facilitate AI learning and the confidence to do so. "
I found his knowledge of the subject extended far beyond "book" learning and offered insights not normally found in the average instructor.
I left the course confident that I could not only apply Appreciative thinking in my own work but adequate enough to get others started down that path."
Andy has a depth of knowledge, a true passion for the process, a welcoming manner and a capacity to explain things simply and clearly to ensure people can use these skills."
What do I need to know?
There will be 5 90-minute Zoom calls, at weekly intervals.
There will be some pre-study (which should take no longer than 90 minutes), and a weekly assignment to embed your learning that should take no longer than an hour.
Dates: TBC
Group size: This is a small-group course to ensure you get enough individual attention. I will be accepting a maximum of 14 participants per group.
Support: You also get a one to one coaching session with me included with the course to help you plan your first implementation of Appreciative Inquiry. Previous students have said they have found this extremely valuable.
Each live lesson will include the opportunity to ask questions, and of course you can email me with your questions in between lessons and in comments on the course platform.
Your commitment: Pre-study will be around two hours at most. There will be some assignments in between each session, with a time commitment of around an hour per week.
Another big upside when you participate in a ‘live’ course like this is that you get much more access to me than there would be in the more traditional kind of online course where you only learn by watching videos. And it still keeps the big advantages of online courses, that you can attend it from anywhere in the world, without travel or accommodation costs, and you have a video of each lesson that you can review as many times as you want.
How much is it?
I used to offer the ‘classroom’ version of the course for £595 GBP per place.
The price for this online course – that includes one-to-one coaching and lifetime access to the call recordings, instructional videos, and other materials, is less – just $597 USD.
The full price for this course is $597, but you can book before 15 July 2026 to secure your place for only $497!
Guarantee: You can book with confidence as I’ll give you a full refund if you’re not satisfied by the end of the course.
I didn’t feel I lost out compared to an in-person course because it was a relatively small group, we were all on video together and there was a lot of interaction and chat. We were all spread around the globe but for the duration of the sessions it didn’t feel like it!
I really enjoyed the course and feel confident enough to begin using what I have learned with groups in the coming months."
How do I book?
How do I register my interest?
Use the form below to register your interest or if you have any questions about the course. We’ll let you know as soon as the dates for the next course are available.
You can use the same form to notify me if you’re interested in in-house Appreciative Inquiry training or facilitation.
Email me at andy@coachingleaders.co.uk to check there’s still a place available. Then use the button below to book your place.
Reviews
(Note: only reviews from genuine graduates of the course will be published)
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Taking the Practical Appreciative Inquiry facilitators class clarified my understanding of how to use this method in a nonprofit organization environment. Andy is an amazing instructor! He provides invaluable guidance and resources. I used the skills that I learned in my doctoral research project and I have shared them with others. I will continue to use them to assist in our future strategic thinking endeavors. I suggest this course for anyone who wants to increase their knowledge and understanding of how to use this methodology or are searching for a new approach to effective collaboration.
Recently attended the Appreciative Inquiry online course by Andy Smith. Andy has so well structured the training that it was a judicious mix of concept understanding, practical experiencing of each stage and its detailed application in a real time scenario. The training did not end there, it continued online with short videos explaining the concepts that facilitated easy comprehension. The way Andy hand holds each one, gives you the confidence to take it and apply in the real world. A precise, experiential and well structured course for easy comprehension and confident real world application.
Thank you Andy for bringing this course to life. After reading your book 'Practical Appreciative Inquiry' I was inspired for a deep dive learning experience and hear more about the practical steps involved. I enjoyed the small group size as well as being able to apply the learning during our calls with fellow participants. The resources and knowledge sharing that you provide is beyond! Thank you.
Thanks Danielle! This will make a difference to people wondering whether to do the course, and of course it's very motivating to me!
Please do keep in touch and let me know how you're using Appreciative Inquiry in your work
The Practical Appreciative Inquiry course gave me all I needed to run an Appreciative Inquiry workshop at our NGO for peace work in Cali, Colombia. Soon, stories of high point experiences, success and joy filled the room and people addressed aspects they had never talked about in years. The appreciative approach enabled us to view even difficult topics from new perspectives, and at the end of the cycle, we were clear on where we were headed and which first steps we needed to take. We grew together as a team as we got to know each other better and thereby automatically improved internal communication which was the central issue we were inquiring into. In the course, I could clarify all my questions and, besides, had lots of fun. Thank you so much!
This is a very well designed course. The teaching platform and materials are excellent with videos and transcripts to suit all learning styles. There are plenty of documents available as part of the course to enable you to get up and running with your own AI session very quickly. Andy is very thorough and his teaching style is engaging.
The sessions were dynamic, and we were able to put the theory into practice as well as share insights with others on the course.
Each week, Andy added new layers of information from all our questions by adding more and more to the LMS he uses.
Andy has also offered post-learning support to those of us who want it.
I have been aware of AI for over 20 years but felt I didn’t really understand it. This course is an excellent introduction to the subject. It assumes no knowledge of the subject and breaks it down into chunks. The platform that Andy uses to post the course videos and other materials is first class
Brian Fairchild
Andrew Smith
andy@coachingleaders.co.uk
Siret Number: 534 957 428 00020
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