Effective Facilitation Skills
Course Description
Effective facilitators know how to take charge of work sessions and lead groups toward successfully completing their work objectives. As a more inclusive and participative approach is gaining traction, good facilitation skills are now essential to the success of project completion and meetings.
This course will take a facilitative and learner-centric approach to equip leaders with the essential skills for the entire facilitation process, from strategically planning work sessions and creating formal agendas, to leading groups to generate new ideas through brainstorming events, and helping people work through difficult facilitation sessions.
Course Objective:
This course will equip participants to
- Understand facilitation and its purpose
- Comprehend the role & focus of a facilitator for a group discussion
- Understand the benefits of good facilitation
- Master essential facilitation techniques and skills
- Differentiate between process & content of a group discussion
- Distinguish facilitation from instruction, training and chairing meetings
- Learn effective methods for planning a facilitation session
- Learn how to help a group reach a consensus and a final solution, by encouraging participation
- Practice techniques for dealing with disruptions, dysfunctions & difficult people
- Deal with controversial issues and divergent perspectives
- Give effective feedback
Who Should Attend
For Supervisors and Managers who conduct meetings, lead groups to generate new ideas through brainstorming events, and help people work through facilitated difficult sessions.
Methodologies
Interactive session, Facilitation Role Plays with feedback, Scenario discussions, Case studies discussion, Group activities, and Video clips.
Course Content
Lesson 1: Understanding Facilitation
- Background
- Why Facilitation?
- What Facilitators Do
- How Facilitation Differs from Training, Presenting and Chairing Meetings
- The Facilitator: Managing Structure, Not Content
- Understand the Benefits of Good Facilitation
Lesson 2: Team Involvement, Decision Making, and Dynamics
- Encouraging Participation
- Rules for Asking Nonthreatening Questions
- Types of Questions to Ask
- Body Language and Facilitation
- Making Decisions
- Six-Step Problem-Solving Process
- Getting Group Agreement
- The Importance of Preparation
- Running an Effective Team Meeting
- Team Life Cycles
- Handling Difficult Team Members
- What If the Group Still Gets Stuck?
Lesson 3: Keys to Effective Facilitation
- Create a positive learning environment
- Develop core competencies in process techniques
- Build around the adult learning model
- Address different learning styles
- Develop core competencies in content development
Lesson 4: Planning the Meeting
- Clarify the Purpose of the Meeting
- Familiarize Yourself with the Meeting Subject Matter
- Create the Agenda
Lesson 5: Facilitating the Meeting
- Climate and Environment
- Logistics and Room Layout
- Welcome and introductions
- Setting the stage - objectives and ground rules
- Encourage participation
- Stick to the agenda
- Seek commitments
- Bring closure
- Summarise the results and follow-up actions
- Appreciate participants and closing
Lesson 6: Facilitation Challenges
- Dealing with Difficult Team Members
- Avoid Common Pitfalls
- Apply Appropriate Prevention and Intervention strategies