Academy / Design Lab
Kolab Design Lab
A free four-week cohort for people who lead sessions. Bring one real session you have to run, build it with hands-on help, rehearse it with the cohort, then run it for your organization. Starting January 2027, led by Rach Davis.
Why it exists
Most people who like a new platform never run a real session on it. The blocker isn't interest. It's trust. Nobody wants to test an unfamiliar tool in front of a client or their own program participants.
The Design Lab fixes that with rehearsal. You build your actual session with help, run a messy version for the cohort where nothing is at stake, fix what broke, and only then take it live.
It's about people and the craft of holding a room. AI helps you shape the build. It doesn't facilitate for you.
How the four weeks run
One live session a week inside Kolab, a guest expert in each session on the human side of the craft, and build support in between. Short videos before week one cover the basics, so live time is never spent on where the buttons are.
- Week 1: How the build worksWhat holding a room looks like when the tool gets out of the way. A live build, start to finish. You leave with your own session sketched.
- Week 2: BuildA working session with hands-on help building your real session.
- Week 3: Dry runThe heart of the Lab. In groups of five, you each run a segment of your session for the others and get feedback straight away. Nothing is at stake.
- Week 4: Refine and prepareFix what the dry run exposed, and get ready technically and practically.
- Then: run it for realYou run your session inside your own organization, on your own date, with light support from us.
- Return sessionEveryone comes back to share what worked, what broke, and what they want next.
Who it's for
People who lead sessions as part of their work: program managers, learning leads, community builders, and facilitators. The cohort is about thirty people.
You're a good fit if you have
- A real session to run in early 2027, for a named organization and a real group of participants
- A paid account with Claude or a similar AI tool, which is how you'll shape your session
- Time to join all four weekly sessions and come back for the return session
Independent facilitators are welcome. Your session just has to run inside an organization, not for a hypothetical audience.
The trade
The Lab is free, and it's a trade rather than a giveaway.
You get
- Hands-on help building your real session
- A rehearsal with the cohort before it counts
- Free Kolab access during the Lab and after it
- A guest expert every week
- Founding membership in the Kolab community, and a listing on this site
You commit to
- Running your session inside a named organization
- Coming back to share how it went and what to improve
- Letting us document it, where your organization allows
- Sharing what you built in your own words, if you post about it
Is this a certification?
No. You leave with a session you built and ran, a place in the founding cohort, and a group of peers who take the work seriously. That's worth more than a badge.
Who's leading it
Rach Davis leads the Design Lab with Kolab's Facilitators in Residence. She has spent more than twenty years bringing playful thinking to agencies, corporate teams and nonprofits, and runs her own client work on Kolab.
After the Lab, the community keeps going: build-together sessions where we take someone's idea and build it live, and show-and-tells from people who've run sessions. Some graduates go on to join the Facilitators in Residence network.
Applications open soon
We'll open applications later this fall and confirm places before the holidays. Want a heads-up when they open?
January 2027 cohort. Free, by application.