Team Facilitation

Good team facilitation starts with being clear about the content of the meeting or workshop: what it is that you are facilitating. How many of us can easily think back over the number of flawed meetings and workshops we've attended in the past.

How many meetings have failed or been ineffective because it hasn't been clear what they were trying to achieve? That's assuming there really was a proper purpose behind them in the first place!

This article is part of our short series on structured facilitation approaches. Based on the idea that structured facilitation can be categorised into three related strands of knowledge and skills:

Content - what the structured facilitation has been set up to achieve;

Process - the structure and steps used to facilitate the meeting;

Process Skills - the skills needed/used to facilitate the process.

Content

Content is the substance of the meeting. What is the meeting about? For example:

why has the meeting been called?

what is the context of the meeting? (specific issues or in relation to broader, business environment issues);

what needs to be done?

who should do it?

when does it need to be done?

what information is needed.

The content is the primary reason for your meeting. However, equally important is ensuring you have brought the right people together. Those peoople who are able to discuss the content effectively. Reg Revans, best known for his work on action learning, suggested three simple and powerful questions to help you get the right people together. Ask yourself:

Who knows? - about the situation/opportunity, or who has the information we need to solve it/realise it;

Who cares? - that something is done about it;

Who can? - do something about what happens next - who can take action?

If getting the right people together is important, then so is doing your groundwork before the meeting. Knowledge of the matter to be discussed is crucial, so it's worth ensuring you've gathered enough information to make the meeting as productive as possible. Make sure it achieves what it was called to achieve in the first place.

Getting the content right is also about ensuring clarity. Make sure that everybody is clear and agrees on both the purpose of the meeting, and their individual roles. Addressing clarity before a meeting starts can reduce the likelihood of differing expectations from those in attendance. For example, prior to the team facilitation event, you may:

Ask people to do their own ground-work on the topic for discussion - come prepared;

Propose areas for attendees to think about and pose questions;

Suggest they come prepared to air their own views and questions.

There are many ways in which you might discuss the content of the meeting but good team facilitation also requires the selection of an appropriate process to match the content being dealt with. Having clear processes to guide your approach to differing kinds of content are critical, and a core element in adopting a sructured facilitation approach. Follow the link to the next article in this short series of effective team facilitation.



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