Facilitator Toolkit : Meeting

Characteristics of a Great Facilitator

Key Facilitation Techniques

Setting Ground Rules

Room Set-up

Recording the Details

This section covers activities and topics related to the meeting itself.  

Start your facilitation experience by reading Kinsley’s “Art of Facilitation.”  He describe the role of the facilitator as follows:

The best facilitators are positive, energetic, assertive, and respectful. They work well with a wide variety of people and are well organized. They’re willing to manage the group process and the flow of information without taking over or manipulating the group’s decisions. They ensure that all the members of a group fully participate and share in decisions, generating group commitment to the results...A smooth group process is your first priority. Your interest in influencing the outcome becomes secondary.

GATHER identifies twelve qualities of a good facilitator:

• Process experience and capabilities that specifically fit the meeting’s purpose
• Emotionally centered, confident, and humble, sure to recognize and acknowledge the needs of the group
• Conversant in the language and issues central to the convening topic, but without being wedded to a strong position on the issues being discussed
• Flexible enough to adjust during the meeting
• Puts the group first, especially in challenging moments
• Neutral in engaging diverse perspectives on the topic; has excellent listening skills and won’t push his/her own agenda
• Balances control and emergence, and therefore able to facilitate focused dialogue and work while giving the group ample space to take the conversation where they want to
• Attuned to participants’ diverse cultural outlooks and perspectives
• Capable of probing gently to encourage full participation, draw out underlying beliefs, and promote mutual understanding
• A capable user of a wide range of process tools, both in the advance design and in the moment
• Skilled at storytelling and real-time synthesis
• Good at preparing the group for the upcoming stages of work so that they know what to expect

The following techniques are a good place to start, but as mentioned before, practice is the best way to solidify these skills and develop a unique facilitation style.  The more your practice, the quicker you’ll find your groove and be able to share your techniques with your colleagues.  There is always room for improvement.  

Kinsley’s key facilitator techniques:

• Employing active listening
• Keeping the group focused
• Engaging dual-awareness of content flow and group process  

GATHER’s Facilitation Fundamentals:  

• Start with goals and ground rules
• Build agreement along the way
• Guide each discussion through an arc: from opening, to narrowing, to closing
• Listen as an ally: set aside your own opinions for the sake of helping the group as a whole
• Use conflict as an opportunity to expose underlying beliefs: establishing mutual understanding will often lead to compromise
• Step in when the group needs help
• Gather any information you can about how participants are likely to engage
• Expect a wide range of attitudes

See the attached for further detail.

In setting ground rules, you establish a social contract with your participants and build a constructive environment in which work can be done.  These rules can also enable complex issues to be confronted and challenging work to be completed in a comfortable, collaborative setting.

Identify two to five rules before the meeting or actively engage participants to set rules at the beginning of the meeting -- actively engaging participants may help contribute to their sense of ownership in the workshop process.  Regardless of how you set the rules, make sure you gain participant agreement at the beginning of the meeting and post the rules in a visible location for easy reference.  

There is no standard package of rules: you will find that certain rules are more effective than others depending upon the meeting objectives.  The following list will help you start thinking about the rules, but you should tailor to your specific needs.  

• General rules:
• Be present
• No phones/email, but if absolutely necessary, leave the room to take a phone call
• Show up on time and show up for all things to which you’ve committed: the processes you are facilitating builds on what has happened previously, so each piece is imperative
• Be emotionally and intellectually present: be here now
• Everybody participates
• Listen
• Generally one of the greatest barriers to anything being done is the inability to listen effectively
• Explaining to participants the “Four Ways of Talking and Listening” can be helpful in establishing this rule
• Avoid groupthink
• It’s less important to agree than to state areas of disagreement
• Forget about titles, everyone is on an equal playing field
• Power dynamics and hierarchy within groups can stifle creativity
• No interrupting
• Share all relevant information

• Useful for ideation/brainstorming events:
• Have a Beginners mind (particularly effective in stoking creativity)
• Be curious
• Ask questions early and often
• Question your assumptions; question others’ assumptions
• Be open to learning something new and viewing things from a new perspective
• Be open (also effective in stoking creativity)
• To new things, new ideas, new ways of thinking
• Approach the meeting with an open mind, open heart, open will
• All ideas count, even wild ones

• Useful for multi-stakeholder events:
• Do not personalize things
• Work the issue, not the person
• Respect different viewpoints
• We’ve intentionally brought diverse individuals together
• No judgment
• Confidentiality
• Ie. Chatham House Rules: nothing said can be attributed without permission
• Focus on interests and ideas, not positions or solutions to the problem
• Share first, debate later
• Interact with others outside of your group
• Discussions and criticisms will focus on interests and not on people
• Avoid discussions of topics that are out of scope or irrelevant
• Ie. “We will not review the completed and validated data model from the prior workshop”
• Discuss undiscussable issues

Set up the room in a way that is conducive to discussion.  Aim for everyone to be able to have eye contact with everyone else.  The following are the best styles for collaborative meetings -- the last thing you want is an auditorium or classroom style setting that suggests that your participants are there to hear a lecture.  

In addition to the physical set-up, prepare the following:

• Check-in list and nametags ready at the entrance
• Breakout group assignments and locations identified
• Printed material available
• Objectives, agenda, and ground rules clearly displayed
• Easels set up
• Butcher paper hung on walls, if needed
• Markers, PostIts, hexagons, dots, other materials on breakout tables
• Food and drink accessible, but out of the way
• AV equipment tested and ready to go
• Bathrooms and emergency exits identified

It is vital to record not only the major findings of the charrette but details from each breakout and plenary session, novel ideas, interesting comments, etc. Detailed notes and photos of Post-its and flip-charts will be used to create summary notes for participants following the meeting.  

Assign at least one facilitator to take notes during plenary sessions and make sure each facilitator is aware of their responsibility to document the work their group produces during breakout sessions.  You can create a template for structured recording of particular break out activities, which may speed-up the post-meeting data collection and organization.  

If the budget allows, videographers, photographers, or even cartoonists documenting the meeting in real-time can provide unique and beneficial artifacts.