Chapter 16 , Section 2 Developing Facilitation Skills Main Section Community Tool Box

The facilitator does not need to solve everything in the moment. Sometimes the most useful move is to slow the conversation down enough for people to think together again. It often gives people time to think, feel, and decide whether they want to speak. Once the conversation begins, facilitators use simple moves to help the group participate, stay oriented, and return to purpose when needed.

If you’re having ineffective or unproductive meetings, this is a great prompt to introduce meeting facilitation to your organization. Group discussions and decision-making are essential aspects of teamwork, collaboration, and problem-solving. However, they can also be challenging, especially when there are conflicting opinions, perspectives, or interests among the participants. How can you facilitate productive and respectful group conversations that lead to effective decisions? We’ve all been in meetings that didn’t feel like a valuable investment of time. Conversations go in circles, thoughts get lost, and folks walk away feeling as though nothing was accomplished.

• They do this by utilizing the skills and techniques we are going to talk about next.
• Some of the best conversations I’ve had moved all over the place.
• An in-depth guide by Seeds for Change about facilitating meetings and how to make them more effective, inclusive and enjoyable.
• By doing so, you will be able to measure the impact and value of the group conversation, as well as improve your facilitation skills and practice.

Ground Rules For Group Discussions

Facilitators come from all sorts of backgrounds and walks of life! Whether you are a beginner or professional facilitator, facilitation training can help you grow and refine your practice. Finding opportunities to watch other facilitators on the job is a great way to learn and to understand what type of methods and styles are right for you. Take part in workshops, even if the topic is not very familiar to you, to see how others work. You don’t need to travel the world to get exposed to great facilitation.

·         Productive Disagreement

This opens the door to finding new and creative solutions that work for everyone – instead of everyone simply fighting their own corner. As a facilitator, you can take some steps towards addressing power dynamics by using exercises that help equalise participation, e.g. reflection time in small groups, go-rounds. Notice differences in who contributes, and what response different people get. Make extra space for messages that aren’t getting through and be assertive if thelauradate.com necessary to help people listen. Ideally, everyone has a fair say in decisions which fundamentally affect them.

The Group Can’t Reach Agreement

During the opening phase, establish more or less how much time should be spent on each agenda item and communicate this to the moderator and the team. These should be indicative timings, as they will change, but they can give everyone a sense of which items should take longer, and which ones should take less time. You can do this on the spot, or upon setting the agenda with the team lead. If you’re facilitating a meeting in a hybrid setting, that is, with some people joining in and some offline, you will need some extra roles, and you can read more about those here.