Effectively Facilitating Group Collaboration

The Art of Becoming an
Effective Facilitator
Presenter: Sally Elatta

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About the Speaker

• Sally Elatta
• Founder of AgileTransformation.com
• Enterprise Process Improvement Coach, Architect, Trainer
• Coached over 18 teams on adopting more Agile methods.
• Taught over 600+ students
• Certified ScrumMaster, Scrum Practitioner, IBM, Sun, and
Microsoft Certifications.
• Sally@AgileTransformation.com
• 402 212-3211

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Copyright(c) Sally Elatta 2009 www.AgileTransformation.com

Session Agenda

 The Current Reality and Statistics of
Meetings
 Top Meeting Dysfunctions
 Top 10 Must-Have for Effective Meetings
 The Role of a Facilitator
 Listening and Questioning Techniques
 Information Gathering Techniques
 Closing 3

The Grim Statistics
• Approximately 17 million meetings occur in the
U.S. each and every day.
• A PM could easily spend 4-5 hours per day in
meetings. That‟s 100 hrs/month!
• A study has shown that 25 - 50% of the meeting
time is unproductive and discusses irrelevant
issues or doesn‟t achieve a concrete outcome.
• 63% of the time meetings have no clear agenda
or purpose. So what does all this mean???
LARGE WASTE of TIME = LARGE WASTE of $$$
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Workshop – Collaboration
Challenges

“Not another meeting! Meetings
are a waste of time!” Have you
heard this before? What are the
top challenges with meetings?
Brainstorming Workshop
You have 4 minutes

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Common Meeting Dysfunctions

No clear purpose or agenda. No agreement on a
Multi-headed Groups. The common goal for the
tendency to go in different meeting.
directions simultaneously. Personal agendas.
Not separating the “What” Attacking other‟s opinions.
from the “How”
No roles defined.
The Dominator who speaks
the loudest! No one “controlling” the
Participants not speaking up meeting process.
or providing input Power abuse.
Late or missing attendees. Not tracking decisions or
action items.
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There is a Solution!

Collaborative meetings are one of the most
complex activities you “do”. The success or
failure of the collaboration effort has a significant
impact on you and the group.
To solve “Collaboration Challenges”, we need to
address and improve the knowledge and
skills of the facilitator.

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5 Skills to Improve On

1. Knowledge of the roles
2. Effective meeting preparation and design
3. Listening, observation and questioning
4. The ability to manage dysfunctional
behavior
5. Information gathering techniques

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Roles for Effective Sessions

To truly achieve effective group
collaboration, each meeting must have the
following roles identified:
– The Sponsor
– The Facilitator
– The Participant
– The Recorder

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The Top 10 Steps for
Effective Meetings - Handout

As a Group, Let’s Review the
Handout Titled
“The Top 10 Steps for
Effective Meetings”

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Who is the Facilitator?
The facilitator is the meeting orchestrator. They
control the “Process” of the meeting not the
“Content”.
The facilitator is a servant leader of the group,
neutral and non-evaluating.
Responsible for making sure the participants are
using the most effective methods for
accomplishing their task in the shortest time.
Responsible for helping the group reach its goals.
Skilled at effective meeting preparation, facilitation
and closure.

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What Does a Facilitator Do?
Communicates meeting purpose, agenda and roles.
Uses visual tools such as Agenda, Ground Rules, Action
Items, Group Decisions as the Group Memory.
Designs the meeting using a variety of possible techniques to
help the group achieve their goal and builds consensus
around the meeting purpose.
Helps keep the group on track until they accomplish what
they set out to do or change direction.
Provides a „Safe Environment‟ for collaboration. Makes sure
all participants have an opportunity to speak and they are
protected from personal attacks.
Controls meeting dysfunctions such as domination, side
conversations, off topic items, personal agendas … etc

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The Diamond of Decision Making

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Listening and Questioning

• Facilitating open discussion meetings can
be very challenging and requires a
facilitator who can use effective Listening,
Observation and Questioning Skills.
• We call it “Process Listening” as appose
to “Content Listening”.
• Example Listening & Questioning
techniques in the next 2 slides.

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Promoting Full Participation

• Techniques for promoting full
participation by all attendees:
– Encouraging
– Uncomfortable Silence
– Round Robin
– Direct Questioning
• Use direct eye contact and physical
proximity to engage and encourage
participation.
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Promoting Mutual Understanding

• Techniques for bringing about mutual
understanding:
– Paraphrasing
– Drawing People Out
– Linking
– Tracking
• Also look for body language to gauge if
your audience understand what was just
said.
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Dysfunctional Behavior

• Examples of dysfunctional behavior:
– A Dominator
– The Rambler
– Power Abuse by Manager
– Side Conversations
– Naysayer
– Anger/Extreme Emotions

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Managing Dysfunctional
Behavior
Never use anger to confront the person exhibiting
dysfunctional behavior.
Never use embarrassment to resolve the
dysfunction.
Always strive to bring the person back into the
meeting.
Stay mindful of your own dysfunctions. Know what
brings out your bad behavior and control it.
Stay neutral, professional and composed.
Example techniques coming up next.
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Managing the Dominator

This is the well-acknowledged expert or the self-
appointed expert in the room. S/He controls any
discussion or decision being made.
Your Options:
– Add or point to an existing ground rule that covers the
“Full Participation” and ask the team to follow it.
– Don‟t give them eye contact, use body language to shift
the focus away from him/her.
– Say “Ok, that is a valid point John, I’d like to hear from
everyone else now ..”
– During a break, thank them for contributing great ideas
and ask for their help engaging others and getting their
input.
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Managing the Naysayer

Of course, we have to have one of them in each
meeting contributing: “this will never work!”, “We‟ve
already tried this, it failed ..” “ We will never get
approval to do that”
Your Options:
– “That’s a valid concern John, do you have any positive
ideas of how to make this work?”
– “You might be right John, team, what positive and
creative suggestions do you have for making this
work? ”
– “Great list of concerns, now let’s discuss feasible
solutions”
– Establish and point to “the art of the possible” as a
ground rule.
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Managing Side Conversations

This is a dysfunction that attacks almost every
group session.
Two people engaged in a side conversation may
indicate:
– They have lost interest in the meeting
– They forgot that their participation is needed
– They have an interesting thought they want to share
related to the topic being discussed.
Side conversations can jeopardize your group‟s
confidence in you as an effective facilitator.
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Managing Side Conversations ..

Your Options:
– Make sure you have a ground rule stating “One
conversation at a time”. Gently point to the
ground rule and say “Folks, one conversation at a
time please”
– 2nd time: Make direct eye contact with them,
gently smile and repeat the ground rule.
– Stand near them and whisper the ground rule.
– If it is reoccurring, ask them if their conversation
is important enough for others to perhaps join
them?
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Information Gathering
Techniques
• All meetings do not have to be Open Discussion
format!
• There are very creative
and powerful methods
for gathering and
processing information
from groups.
• “*Thinklet” cards are easy to
follow cards that provide you
step by step instructions for how to implement these
activities.
• * Introduced by Dr. Robert Briggs and Gert-Jan DE Vreede
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ThinkLets for Generate

The core of what you do during
“Generate” is brainstorm and list ideas.
Here are some activities/thinklets for
facilitating brainstorming:
– Facilitator-Led Callouts
– Post It-Notes
– Pass the Card
– LeafHopper

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Summary
• To become an effective facilitator, you need
to improve your skills and gain new
techniques that will help you skillfully bring a
team to their desired outcome.
• You need to improve:
– Your knowledge of the roles involved
– Your meeting preparation and design skills
– Your listening and questioning skills
– Your ability to manage dysfunctional behavior
– Your information gathering toolset
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Training & Coaching
Training Coaching & Consulting
•Mastering the Art of • Project Management
Facilitation Skills Assessments
•Effective Requirements • Troubled Project
Gathering Assessment &
• Servant Leadership Recovery
• Real World Agile and • Agile Project Initiation
Scrum team training + and Planning
Project Jump Start • End to End Project
• Executive and Business Execution
Overview of Agile/Lean • Process Improvement
• … More! Roadmap Execution

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Copyright(c) Sally Elatta 2009 www.AgileTransformation.com 29

References
Excellent List of Resources:
http://managementhelp.org/grp_skll/resource.htm
International Association of Facilitators: http://www.iaf-
world.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3280
RECFTC:
http://www.recoftc.org/site/fileadmin/docs/CABS/manuals
/Facilitation

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Effectively Facilitating Group Collaboration

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