Module 5’s one-pager replaced our 19-slide “insights” pack. Our COO asked fewer questions because there was less to hide behind. I still dislike writing the uncertainty paragraph; Nia makes you keep it.
Marcus · Leeds, internal consulting
Flagship programme
Reading the Room
Session Quality Analytics for facilitation leads who must defend a debrief. Six modules, live clinics, and a scoring pack you can use the following Monday — provided you actually took notes.
What you will be able to do
Sample instead of drowning
Choose three windows in a session and justify why those windows matter more than a full transcript.
Name decision density
Count commitments, reversals, and parked items without inflating “alignment” language.
Write a one-pager a lawyer can stand
Produce a debrief that states evidence, uncertainty, and next experiments — not a personality review of attendees.
Refuse a bad metric
Explain, in sponsor language, why equal talk time can still describe a failed room.
Modules
- 01
The room as a contract
Who was invited to decide, advise, or witness. How a fuzzy invitation poisons every later score.
- 02
Attendance is a door count
Why joining time, camera-on rates, and poll completions are weak quality claims. Replacement artefacts.
- 03
Talk time and its disguises
Airtime charts, interruption maps, and when to throw them away. Includes the Leeds procurement case.
- 04
Silence, parking lots, and fake closure
Coding unresolved questions. Detecting a “decision” that was only a calendar hold.
- 05
The one-page debrief
Structure, tone, and what never belongs in a pack that might be forwarded to HR.
- 06
Live clinic: your regrettable workshop
Bring notes from a session you would rather not repeat. We score it in public, with consent boundaries.
Instructor
Nia Calder
Nia spent a decade facilitating public-service workshops across the North of England before opening this studio in Whitton. She writes the scoring sheets used in Reading the Room and still marks every clinic pack herself. She will not teach a module she has not run on a live client session in the last year.
Informational fee
Self-paced materials plus four live clinics: £1,180 per person. A team of four sharing one clinic slot: £3,400. These figures describe typical invoices; this website does not process payment or collect card details.
Questions we actually get
Do you record the rooms we analyse?
No, not by default. The method is built on notes, timers, and agreed samples. If a cohort wants to use an existing recording, we require documented consent from everyone audible. We will refuse work that treats recording as a hidden data source.
Can I skip modules 1–2 if I already facilitate?
You can skim the readings. You cannot skip the contract exercise. Most quality failures we see start with a confused invitation, including among experienced facilitators.
What is a real limitation of this course?
Reading the Room will not produce a trustworthy score if the only artefact is a slide deck and a memory. We cannot reconstruct talk, silence, or decisions from branding. Teams that keep no notes leave with a method they cannot yet apply — that is a genuine gap, not a teaser for an upsell.
Is this a software course?
No. Spreadsheets appear. Product analytics platforms do not. If you need instrumentation engineering, this is the wrong studio.
From people who finished the clinics
I joined for After-Action Scoring habits and stayed through Reading the Room. The live clinic was uncomfortable in a useful way: my notes from a supposedly “high energy” kickoff were mostly jokes and no decisions.
Client in higher-education administration