meeting facilitating techniques (crash course)
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Key take aways from a training session I've participated in. PLEASE NOTE, the first upload had only 8 slides - I've now uploaded 19 slides more. Enjoy!TRANSCRIPT
Meeting facilitating techniques (crash course)Key take aways from a training session
I’ve participated in.
shared by Hilde Alstad
A facilitator is not a team leader
A team leader usually… A facilitator usually…• Sets agenda • Ensures an agenda is set.
• Plans the meeting • Discusses plan and advise team leader/manager on how the meeting should be run to improve effectiveness.
• Contributes directly to achieve the task
• Ensures that the team makes a plan of the activities needed to be undertaken and that roles are allocated.
• Supports individuals • Observes team behaviour and feedback to the team leader. Provides in session management of dysfunctional behaviour.
• Participates in review of meeting / process
• Manages review of the meeting / process
Counsellor
"You do it;I will control the
process"
Coach
“You do it; How can I guide you to find the correct path”
Partner
"We will do ittogether and learnfrom each other."
Facilitator
"You do it;I will attend tothe process."
Teacher
"Here are someprinciples you can use to solve this
problem."
Modeller
"I will do it; you watch so you canlearn from me."
Reflective observer
"You do it; I willwatch and tell you
what I see and hear."
Technical adviser
"I will answer yourquestions as you
go along.”
Hands-on expert
"I will do it for you;I will tell youwhat to do."
Main
tain
con
trol of
pro
cess
Providing solution / answer
A set of “consulting” roles- what is your preferred role??
Key phases in the facilitation process
Facilitate group processes
Encourage participation
Summarise, check for agreement and push for action.
Review process and results from meeting
Agree on next steps
Debrief with team leader
Get agreement on process, agenda and timing
Prepare to be flexible
Agree purpose of workshop and aim to contract with the participants
“Contract” ….• Objectives• Expectations• Ground rules• Scope • Level of
participation• Next steps
Identify and define purpose, objectives, roles, process and output of meeting
Prepare and contract on objectives, process and roles with project SPONSOR
Prepare Focus Plan Do Review
Before a workshop During the workshop End of/ after workshop
Prepare Focus Plan Do Review
• What levels of goal is appropriate?
• What communication with stakeholders is required?
• Do I know my audience?
• Do I need to manage people’s expectations?
• Are my aims realistic?
• What is the best environment? (room, layout props etc.)
• What hidden agendas could there be?
• What will be a good agenda to put to the group?
• What goes into my introduction?
• What problems should I anticipate?
• Engage the group
• Contract with the group (ground rules).
• Set shared/owned objectives
• Keep visible records as you go for ground rules, objectives and output
• Clearly define your role. Be sure understanding of ‘facilitator’ is shared
• Set an appropriate emotional tone for the event
• Consider asking the group what they think the purpose is (may raise hidden agendas)
• Involve everybody – build commitment
• Test assumptions
• Understand what the outcomes should be
• Get the group to own the responsibility to succeed
• Plan the process (stages, timings, milestones, signposting)
• Agree and draw the plan but but be ready to be flexible
• Ensure there is understanding and commitment to the plan
• Agree any roles or responsibilities. Delegate key roles such as a time keeper and a writing assistant
• Agree what will constitute a decision (e.g. majority vote, consensus, unanimous agreement)
• Consider to use techniques like nominal group technique, solution matrices, ranking, fishbowl and thinking hats
• Separate emotions/issues from people
• Adopt the appropriate style• Say what you see • Be flexible if you find the goalposts
shift• Use the group’s language and
terminology• Encourage participation from all• Use the full range of question types• Ensure visual aids and flipchart
writing is readable• Get all the issues out on the table• Show respect and empathy• Voice others’ opinions in neutral tone
and language• Draw the fire and protect the
vulnerable • Balance the discussion across the
whole group• Use the group creatively• Focus on the group’s strengths• Don’t just hear the loud people• Use the environment to your
advantage• Use breakouts as a time to step back
and think at a higher level• Don’t be scared of silence• The right outcome is more important
than an outcome!
• Ask somebody else in the group to summarise (not you)
• Give a sense of closure
• Leave it on a high note
• Plan the next steps together
• Think about your own personal development (what did I do well/badly?)
• Gather formal and informal feedback from the group
• Follow up the meeting with some communication at a later date?
Hints and tips when facilitatingBefore
meeting
Aftermeeting
In themeeting
In themeeting
In themeeting
Session 10: Facilitation Techniques
Different techniques can be used to vary the atmosphere and focus in the group
Opening up creativity• Ask the guru• SCAMPER• Forced relationships• Brain writing pool• Ideal world• Prop analogies• Thinking hats• “Yes, and..”• Set unrealistic goals• Handling crisis
Narrowing down options• Lists and voting rights• Grids• Filtering
Driving forward• Scaling• The Consultant• Questioning• Take a break• Parking lot
Create confidence & trust• Systemic thinking• Who are you?• Change of behaviour
Systemic thinking This exercise enables the group to warm up to each other and also
demonstrates how people interact with each other dynamically in an organisation
How to run the exercise:Ask all the people in the group to choose two spots
in the room and stand directly in the middle of these two spots
Now, ask everyone to choose one spot and one person in the group, and then stand in the middle of the spot and the person
Then, ask everyone to choose two persons in the group and stand in the middle of these two persons
Who are you?
This exercise provides an easy and quite fun to get to know the group members, and is also quite useful to get people to start talking to each other about other things than work
The main point of the exercise is to group people who have something in common – and then change the subject and establish new groups
An example: “Everyone that lives in a house gather by the window, and everyone who lives in a flat
assemble by the door. The rest of you can go to the whiteboard and gather there” “Now, everyone who has a main background from HR gather by the window, everyone with
a main background from sales go to the whiteboard, while everyone with a background from consulting goes to door”
Etc
Other subjects can be e.g. nationality, where you were born, number of siblings, how many subordinates you have, favourite colour, type of pets or how many different line managers you have had in your career..
Change of behaviour
This exercise enables the group to warm up to each other and also demonstrates how difficult it is to change established patterns
How to run this exercise: 1. Ask the group to walk around until you say “stop”, and start walking again when
you say “walk”2. Say “stop” and “walk” a couple of times (“walk”, “walk”, “stop”, “walk”, “stop”,
“stop”, etc)3. Inform the group that “stop” now means walk, “walk” means stop4. Say “stop” and “walk” a couple of times (“walk”, “walk”, “stop”, “walk”, “stop”,
“stop”, etc)5. Repeat 1-4 above, but this time use the words “jump” and “make a curtsey ”6. Now, say all the words in random order (stop, walk, jump, make a curtsey) -
remember that “stop” still means “walk”, and “jump” still means “make a curtsey”
Ask the guruSeeing the problem through someone else’s eyes
brings a totally new perspectiveHow would the following people approach this
problem?Hans Christian AndersenCharles DarwinWalt DisneyRichard BransonNapoleonMadonna
Take initial ideas and keep forcing developments - often the best ideas are not the immediate ones
Example - inspiring new ways of thinkingGuru = Madonna Changes image Controversial Dances Acts Sings Fashion Concerts Number One Raunchy
Implications for the car:Make it more sporty
Adverts to get it noticed
Consider movements -balance/suspension
Consider implications for driver image
Sound systems
Possible to change colours regularly
Use lighting to show best aspects.
Win awards
Associate with stars that stand for quality
SCAMPER checklist
This can be used once a few ideas have been tabled.
This is for both building on ideas and generating new ones.
S ubstitute – one idea for another
C ombine – ideas to make a better one
A dapt – change the idea or the problem
M aximise/minimise – make it bigger or smaller
P ut to other use – use the idea for something else
E liminate – eliminate or go-around the problems, don’t solve it
R everse – think how you could make it worse!
Forced relationships
Wall StreetAcupuncture
Snowboarding
Formula 1
Tabloids DentistryOscarnight
Nutrition
Cruiseliners PlumbingSoap
operasSpacetravel
Take a word or images selected at random, and try to force a relationship between it and the issue in hand – what new insights are generated?
Example: Find a name for a new - best seller - drink.Using the words above, the following names spring to my mind: Summer cruise, nutrition bomb, snow powder…
The brain-writing pool1. A problem is presented to the group.
2. Each person writes down four or five ideas on an A4 sheet. These are then placed into the centre of the room.
3. Each person then picks one of the idea sheets and builds on the ideas to develop further ideas.
4. The process can be repeated for three or four rounds - it can help to play music while this is happening to stimulate creative thinking!
5. The facilitator then captures and categorises the ideas.
The ideal world technique 1. Identify and explain the problem.
2. Brainstorm a wish list of all the things which solve this problem in an ideal world.
3. Hand out a selection of magazines to the group, and ask pairs to build on ideal world solutions using words and images - either ripping out pictures or jotting down ideas.
4. Each pair presents their images and ideas to the rest of the group for further idea building.
Prop analogiesTake a prop out of the bag and find away to link it to the problem that the group is solving.
Alternatives and creative ideas
Values and benefitsWhy something might work
Cautions and difficultiesWhere things might go wrong
Intuition, feelings and hunches
Information available and needed
Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats® proposes six different ways of thinking about an idea. By grouping the hats into 3 pairs you open up new angles by asking suitable questions
Overview of the process
Thinking Hats
Facts v Feelings
Strengths v Weaknesses
Creativity v Structure
White Hat - neutral and detached thinking
What are the facts?
What information is missing?
What further research do I need to do?
What does logic tell me to do?
Red Hat - intuitive thinking
How do I feel about it?
What's my gut reaction?
What's my hunch?
How should I investigate my hunches?
Red and White – Facts v Feeling
Black Hat - logical thinking (negative)
What's the bad news?
What (factual, logistical, or ethical) problems do we see?
Where is the strategy weak?
What are the biggest threats?
Yellow Hat - logical thinking (positive)
What's the good news?
What benefits do we see?
What parts of our strategy demonstrate a strength?
What are we confident of?
Yellow and Black – Strengths v Weaknesses
Green Hat - creative thinking
What are the possibilities?
What haven’t I thought of yet?
What are the other ways of looking at this?
-
Blue Hat - procedural thinking
Where do I go from here?
Is it time for a summary?
What are the consequences?
Green and Blue – Creativity v Structure
Scaling• Used to rank for example performance on a scale from 1-10 • First you rank “as is” on the scale and describe WHY• Then you increase the score by max 2 on the scale, and describe “to be”
and actions needed• Finally you describe max on the scale and actions needed
10
7
5• A• B• C
• D• E
• F• G
”To be” - areas of improvement
”As is” – what you are good at today
The consultant Useful when the group is stuck, lacks energy, is frustrated, or in other
ways needs another perspective to move on
Ask the group to gather in a corner of the room. Tell them that they are now consultants with an assignment to analyse the meeting they just attended
Help the group by asking them questions like “What sort of behaviour do you see in this group?” “Why does the group appear to be stuck in the same discussion over an over
again?” “What sort of advice will you give the group (alt.: a special person) in the group
to help them move forward?”
Note that the group members are not allowed to use names or personal pronoun. Use e.g “the man in the blue shirt”, even if they are talking about themselves
Lists and voting rights
• Consider sensible criteria: e.g. likely market value, risk, speed to market, fit with current brand positioning.
• Give everyone 3 votes and mark their choices against the long list of ideas with ticks or stars – take the most popular ideas forward for further development.
• Ideas can also be quickly classified into groups e.g fast to market, high market potential etc
• This is an informal approach which has the advantages of speed and buy-in, and provides a start point for screening.
• It’s sensible to review all the ideas again later in order to ensure nothing has been missed.
GridsIdentify key criteria for evaluating ideas and
set up two-dimensional grids to screen each idea (this works well with post-it notes)
Criteria should fit with overall strategy
Fit with existing resources
Impact on performance
Filtering ideasEliminates the least useful ideas by filtering
through objective criteria Appropriate when the need to cut down the
number of ideas is more important than the need to preserve their variety.
Choose objective criteria to act as filters. The earlier criteria should be designed to screen out a lot of ideas, whereas later ones should provide more refined filters.
Example:1st filter: Evidence of market need?2nd filter Ready for testing in under 6 months?3rd filter: Strategic fit?
What technique is the most appropriate depends on the situation in question?
Opening up creativity• Ask the guru• SCAMPER• Forced relationships• Brain writing pool• Ideal world• Prop analogies• Thinking hats• “Yes, and..”• Set unrealistic goals• Handling crisis
Narrowing down options• Lists and voting rights• Grids• Filtering
Driving forward• Scaling• The Consultant• Questioning• Take a break• Parking lot
Create confidence & trust• Systemic thinking• Who are you?• Change of behaviour