What is Facilitation ?
Facilitation is a powerful skillset that helps improve collaboration, generates results and improves group dynamics. But what does it truly mean to facilitate and approach situations like a skilled facilitator? How can managers, leaders and anyone running meetings and workshops learn to bring a facilitative approach to their work?
“Facilitation is the midwife of ideas” – Anon
Key to facilitation
What does facilitation really look like, the key to be a facilitator is to have the right mindset and approach that will enable and empower to support teams through collaborative work through the following:
- Facilitation means creating a space for everyone in the group to contribute - this can be achieved by having a shared goal that allows everyone to meet the goal via a structured process.
- Defined by approach to process and content - Design a process that allows the group to ideate, discover and create content. It is not about having one person tell everyone what and how to do things. The group should be empowered to collaboratively work to come up with a solution.
- The best facilitated sessions are interactive by design - Workshops are one of the most common ways of where a process is designed and where facilitation is utilised.
In simple terms anyone can facilitate a session. It is just a set of tools and techniques that can be used to bring a group together to collaboratively achieve a goal. Designing a meeting process, holding discussions and working as a leader there is no shortage of scenarios where facilitation is vital and a transformative skill.
Scenarios where facilitation takes place
Here are some examples of where facilitation actually helps teams achieve their goals:
- Team Meetings / Stand - Ups - Facilitation can turn unengaging sessions into productive ones that energises the group. Even a 15 minute stand up can be kept on track by ensuring that everyone has their say and is kept to task, any external issues can be taken offline but by listening and engaging with the group it ensures that no one is left unheard as well as documenting actions and follow ups if needed.
- Workshops - This can be seen as a creative way of bringing people together to achieve a common goal however without proper facilitation it can be difficult to put ideas into action. The facilitators role would be to understand what the goal the team are looking to achieve and design a process that allows teams to collaboratively work towards achieving that through various activities. Keeping additional activities up their sleep if discussions go quiet is good in case sessions need a refresh.
- Training Sessions - if not delivered with enthusiasm can be seen as boring and dry sessions. In order to make them engaging, facilitators can tailor them to be interactive so that participants can share their experiences as the session progresses. Have engaging activities that allow people to share knowledge and learn from each other so that everyone can take something of value added from the training.
Personal Facilitation Experience
As a BA when it comes to facilitating sessions I tend to the following. Once the agenda distributed and participants have been invited I will ensure the room whether virtual or face to face is set up with the activities i wish to undertake, alongside that i have a slide deck that will outline what the key objectives of the session are what the goal is, this will be followed by a description of the goal followed by placeholder slides covering the activities planned:
- Icebreaker (5 mins) to get everyone in the zone will normally start with a question about what this subject means to you
- This will be followed by a SWOT exercise. We deep dive into the issue in question and try to break it out into strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats - I will give the participants 5 minutes per quadrant to add their thoughts and discussion and how things could be improved.
- We then spend the next 30 minutes or so looking at the art of the possible and what could things like by doing the 11 star experience - this is a really creative and fun way of getting people to articulate what they would like to see from top down and ultimately get people collaborating on what they want, followed by a quick vote on the key points that are important to them.
- Lastly we wrap the session up by asking participants what action they could take away from these sessions and write down one key action they will look to undertake as well as pulling together key actions identified from previous activities which will be documented and shared with key stakeholders, as well as reflecting on how the session went.
- If anything needs further discussion we would look to set up separate sessions to cover this in detail (If required)
Facilitation - Key Skills in order to succeed
As mentioned above anyone can take on the role of facilitator and here are some key skills that will help you succeed when facilitating a meeting, workshop or event:
- Try to remain Impartial / Independent - The hardest thing can be to remain impartial and independent and not have an outcome in mind that you want to achieve. It is about empowering the group to collaboratively work towards a common goal by setting up a session that brings out the best in them.
- Understand the Group Dynamics - Try to read the room and gauge how people are feeling, are they taking part?, feeling enthusiastic? Use probing questions to find out more but ensure to actively listen.
- Create context, set the scene - whilst peoples times are limited it is always important to set the scene and context as to what the session is all about rather than jumping into the workshop, these few minutes will help ensure that everyone is aware of what the workshop is all about and allow for better dialogue.
- Bring your own style - One of the key elements is to bring the best version of yourself to the role, it is about your energy and passion that will filter down to those in attendance. In order to get the best of the session the group needs to respect you and trust you and deal with any unforeseen circumstances in the best possible manner
- Conflict Management - is one of the biggest challenges to facilitation, normally there is an underlying conflict that is difficult to understand and tackle during the event or workshop. Good preparation is key to understanding where conflicts may potentially arise.
- Tool Based Approach - As a facilitator it is important to have a number of tools to hand when trying to improve an activities experience to achieve a goal, this could include things like Strengths,Weaknesses,Opportunities,Threats ( SWOT), Mind Mapping etc. It is important to talk participants through the tools and how to utilise them.
- Time Management - Managing time starts by good design preparation ensuring that there is enough time for each session / activity and allowing additional time in case things run over and ensure that everyone is aware of the agenda and objectives.
Conclusion
Facilitation is the act of guiding and supporting a group to achieve its objectives by encouraging participation, promoting understanding, and fostering collaboration, all while remaining neutral and impartial. The most important thing to remember is that anyone can be a facilitator if they have the drive and desire to help people work collaboratively to work towards a common goal.
