Facilitate Proceedings » Facilitating Group Process

The Facilitator’s Way: Plan Appropriate Group Processes

Susan Peryam — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:50:33 +0000

The elements of a successful facilitation plan include Group Processes, i.e., the steps or activities that transform Inputs (People, Information, Purpose) into the session desired Outcomes. In support of each process step we select the appropriate Tools – the facilitation methods that enable a group to collaborate to achieve the outcomes of that step (eg:, brainstorming, listing, grouping, prioritizing) and employ Techniques – the ways in which an activity (step in the process or tool) will be managed (eg:, large group, small group, silent refection, round robin).

How do you select the processes, tools, and techniques that you plan to use to facilitate a group? Do you take direction from the client? Do you ask the participants? Since you are the expert, do you design away based on what has worked in the past?

July Webinars – How to keep participants fully engaged

Julia Young — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 04:50:17 +0000

With our Interactive Webinars series, we’ve been exploring the concept of building highly interactive elements into virtual meetings and webinars. We invite anyone who is interested in exploring these ideas with us to engage in an interactive experience of creative thinking about ways to design collaborative activities in what is too often a one on many, presentation heavy format. Our series continues this month with more opportunities to collaborate on ideas about designing interactive webinars and virtual meetings. We’ve got two great webinars planned for July.

First Things First: Create Collaborative Client Relationships

Susan Peryam — Thu, 13 May 2010 16:20:59 +0000

What approaches should you use to develop a collaborative relationship with a client?

The first of the six Foundational Facilitator Competencies developed by the International Association of Facilitators is Create Collaborative Client Relationships which is focused on understanding the client’s needs so that the facilitator can design a session to achieve the desired outcomes.

7 Ways To Coax People Out of the Box in a Virtual World

Nancy Settle-Murphy — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:25:08 +0000

Before the latest economic downturn, many of my clients would bring together people from all over the world, put them into a conference room with pots of coffee and carbo-loaded snacks, and kept them there until they emerged with a raft of creative new ideas. Now, with organizations imposing travel bans for most internal meetings, the question becomes: How can we translate this type of high-energy, face-to-face brainstorming experience into a virtual session where we wring innovative ideas out of each person, using a phone and a computer?

Synergy or Oxymoron? Reflections on Asynchronous Facilitation

Gurpreet Gil — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:54:10 +0000

In this research brief I will share some of the experience of Synergy, a project exploring the use of collaborative meeting software to facilitate asynchronous group activities.

Most staff developers see themselves as facilitators of the learning process – knowledge is distributed throughout the organisation and the learning process happens when people successfully collaborate with others. The role of the facilitator is to encourage this process by providing a clear framework for discussion, creating opportunities for dialogue to occur across different groups and communities of practice. Sounds great doesn’t it? If only it were that easy!

In reality, availability of the right people at the right time is often a major issue and what appears to be a successful outcome for the group who attended can subsequently be undermined by the absence of key individuals. This is where collaborative meeting software comes in, by offering a solution that enables people to be involved in a facilitated meeting, irrespective of their geographical location and existing diary commitments.

Additional Webinar Date: Designing Interactive Webinars

Danuta McCall — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:06:19 +0000

We were oversubscribed within 24 hours of posting our invitation to sign up for our free one hour webinar that demonstrates eight principles for designing interactive webinars by engagingYOU as participants!

Based on this response, we’ve added a second webinar! The additional date is Tuesday, November 10th at 8:00 AM PDT (11:00 AM EDT, GMT 4:00 PM) .

Below we’ve repeated the information about the webinar. We hope to see you there!

Walking the Talk: Innovating Conference Design to Build Community

Julia Young — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:39:42 +0000

I recently returned from the Exploring Innovation Conference in Community Development 2009 Conference in St Louis (www.exploringinnovation.org) sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis. I was engaged by the conference organizers to help design a conference that demonstrates creativity and best practices and this community building event exceeded my expectations.

The design was shaped by a couple of key objectives:

To create an ongoing dialogue where input from conference participants shapes the conference content
To facilitate learning for conference participants through a variety of methods that accommodate diverse learning styles
To serve as a catalyst for future dialogues around topics of significant importance to community development

These objectives required a design that promotes creative thinking, interaction and community building in a large group conference setting. I’ve written a case study describing the methods and collaborative tools we used. I invite you to read the in-depth report on the conference design and download facilitation method sheets.

Which Collaboration Tool Is Right For The Task At Hand?

Editor — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:35:50 +0000

We’re trying to answer this question from a facilitator perspective. Web collaboration tools should be a part of every facilitator’s toolkit, but knowing which one to use to support each aspect of the group process is key. Just as using a screwdriver to hammer in a nail wouldn’t work; using a web meeting tool for the wrong purpose could yield results you don’t intend. Here is a link to our first attempt at mapping different categories of web collaboration tools to different purposes, but we think that this concept would benefit from “collaborative” input. We invite you to suggest additions, subtractions and comments to make this chart more accurate and complete.

Here is the thought process behind this project:

Cooked and Eaten: Growing as Facilitators from the Inside Out

Hector Rodriguez — Mon, 04 May 2009 16:55:13 +0000

Facilitate Proceedings asked me to report back on my experience at the North America International Association of Facilitator’s Conference in Vancouver BC. Facilitation has to do with knowing how to observe and intervene in group processes, using an array of models, techniques and tools but mostly knowing how to better use ourselves. I love sessions in which I learn new tools, but I mostly enjoy sessions that help me to realize my developmental edge as a facilitator.
Among others, I was fortunate to attend two great sessions: Dawna Jones’ session named “Cooked and Eaten: How to Transform and Grow from the Experience” and Larry Dressler’s session titled “Standing in the Fire: Facilitating Self when Things Heat Up.”

Does Facilitation Have a Role in the High School Classroom?

Julia Young — Fri, 01 May 2009 10:35:58 +0000

Exploring facilitation techniques at a high school was fun and engaging but then one teacher asked – What is the relevance of this to me and the way I can help my students learn? This challenged us to think about how a facilitation would shift the way we teach.