Facilitation Tools and Best Practices

1. Facilitation 101 Presented By: Robert McGeachy, PMP Kintyre Consulting Incorporated June 6, 2009

2. Agenda The role of the facilitator Preparing for a facilitated session Capture Best Practices Dealing with challenging behaviour Tools

3. Agenda The role of the facilitator Preparing for a facilitated session Capture Best Practices Dealing with challenging behaviour Tools

4. What is the role of the facilitator? Work with team to plan the session Make sure all participants know the reason for the discussion and the intended outcome Take a diverse group of people (working styles, individual personalities, perspectives) and develop a common direction, solution or outcome Manage time in order to achieve objectives Guide the group’s discussion Assist the group in developing a common language or terminology Ensure that points are understood by all members Ensure content is applicable and of high quality Manage the participation, energy, and group dynamics in the room Actively listen Capture information in a comprehensive and organized manner, or coordinate with a recorder to capture information Provide subject matter expertise

5. Facilitation Styles Assess your situation Convergent Divergent Process Expert Subject Matter Expert (SME) Step Back Drive Hard Unstructured Structured

6. Agenda The role of the facilitator Preparing for a facilitated session Capture Best Practices Dealing with challenging behaviour Tools

7. Planning the Session (the PAD) Purpose: Why is the session being held? Agenda/Approach: Logical and sequential roadmap to achieve the objective Deliverable: The end result of each objective

8. Facilitation Preparation Basics Create a PAD (Purpose/Agenda/Deliverable) Take care of meeting logistics Attendees Meeting request with the proposed PAD Attendees and their roles Facilities Room arrangement and setup Aids required : projector, laptop etc Handouts Food and Beverage Know the group Prepare/leverage any materials necessary Populate white boards (PAD, mark space for issues, next steps) Plan output with the note taker Create a ‘strawhorse’ solution where makes sense

9. Knowledge Window CLIENT Does not know Knows Knows CONVERGE ADVISE FACILITATOR IDEATE UNDERSTAND Does not know

10. Understand Your intention is to learn more and understand - typically these areas concern the client’s business, which you may know very little about ADVISE CONVERGE IDEATE UNDERSTAND

11. Ideate Brainstorm in order to ensure we have a rich collection of ideas which can then be combed through to select the best idea You are a facilitator – hence your key objective is to get as much as you can in form of ideas (“diverge”) and then drive acceptance of the best one (“converge”) ADVISE CONVERGE UNDERSTAND IDEATE

12. Advise You are a consultant who needs to provide advice as to what is in the client’s best interest. You need to use your knowledge of the technology or industry to help the client make intelligent decisions ADVISE CONVERGE UNDERSTAND IDEATE

13. Converge This is normally the theme after a lot of work has been done and you want to drive closure The key idea is to demonstrate the direct linkage of the plan/proposal to the client’s drivers and help the client see the road to success ADVISE CONVERGE UNDERSTAND IDEATE

14. Facilitation Techniques Ask questions Reinforce agreements Make a proposal Defer Give positive reinforcement Encourage divergent views “Boomerang” – send the question back Summarize

15. Extract Content – Asking Questions Opening To generate participation and open the floor for different examples, experiences, ideas or points of view Leading To focus the discussion on a particular topic or question. Closing To move the group forward or end the session

16. Agenda The role of the facilitator Preparing for a facilitated session Capture Best Practices Dealing with challenging behaviour Tools

17. Capturing Content: Best Practices Capture as much as is possible and is relevant How do you decide what is relevant? “Creative license” Don’t, unless you are very confident that you are writing exactly what the client intended Play it back Context Enough context so it can be easily determined what the point was Issues should be phrased as questions Consequence How will this information be used? Issues/To Do’s should have an owner, due date

18. Agenda The role of the facilitator Preparing for a facilitated session Capture Best Practices Dealing with challenging behaviour Tools

19. Managing People Validate and legitimize client ideas Give access, encourage dialogue Encourage the quiet folks Support the underdog Help develop consensus Defuse uncomfortable moments Watch the group Body language Dynamics Level of interest Manage challenging behaviors What else?

20. Dealing with Issues Deal effectively with issues or unrelated content Play back - Parrot back the statement without agreeing or disagreeing Legitimize - Acknowledge and empathize with the statement Deal with or Defer - Decide if you can deal with the statement in the moment or if you want to defer the statement to a later time

21. Levels of Intervention Highest Level Ask person to leave Call in sponsor to get person on board Confront on a break Use ground rules, Call individual by name Make eye contact Move toward individual, no eye contact Ignore Lowest Level

22. Managing Challenging Behavior How will you deal with these challenging behaviors ? Late comer Side conversation Beating a dead horse Quiet member Dominating member The Skeptic Any other challenging behaviors you have faced ?

23. Agenda The role of the facilitator Preparing for a facilitated session Capture Best Practices Dealing with challenging behaviour Tools

24. Tools for Generating Ideas Brainstorming What : A structured process that allows for a large quantity of ideas in a group setting When to use : List possible solutions or alternatives To imagine the impact of a decision To look at all aspects of a problem T-chart What : Organizes material into 2 columns with distinct headings When to use : To compare and contrast information To show relationships between information (pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses) To show changes over time (how things are now/how you want them to be)

25. Tools for Organizing Information Affinity Grouping What : Incorporates brainstorming and allows for information to be regrouped or arranged until relationships and categories are found When to use : Lot of information to be categorized Useful when thoughts, ideas, and opinions are all over the map and need to be recorded in an organized way. Flowchart What : Highlights steps in a procedure or project to show how the project proceeds through time and illustrates how the tasks relate to one another When to use : Use to plan the steps within a process To improve a process by altering an existing flow

26. Tools for Ranking / Evaluating Multi Voting What : Multi-voting allows a group to select the most important or preferred items from a list with minimum discussion. When to use : Used after a brainstorming session or to narrow down a long list Ranking and prioritizing What : Is a way of narrowing down many options to a few that the group believes merit further consideration. When to use : Use when you want people to select, prioritize, and discuss top choices only

27. Tools for Ranking / Evaluating Quadrant Diagram What : Method to determine and graphically portray which solution best meets two goals at once When to use : To compare potential solutions to one another in relation to key factors (e.g., cost/benefit, impact/level of effort, cost/time to implement, and achievable/effective) Decision Matrix What : A matrix used to evaluate possible solutions against a predetermined set of criteria When to use : There are many criteria or standards that a solution must meet Multiple solutions are available

28. Questions?