For LTEC 4000: Module 8 - Facilitation Strategies, Tools, and Overview Reference: Bens, I. (2012). Facilitating with ease! Core skills for facilitators, team leaders and members, managers, consultants, and trainers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. (ISBN: 9781118107744) Course syllabus Reference: (Bens)

1. Module 8:
Understanding Facilitation

2. Facilitation Foundation
• Facilitation is a way of providing leadership
without “taking the reins”
• As a facilitator, your job is to get others to
assume responsibility and to take the lead.

3. Facilitation Foundation:
• Rather than being a player, a facilitator acts
more like a referee.
• You watch the action, more than participate
in it.
• You control which activities happen.
• You “keep your finger on the pulse” and know
when to move on or wrap things up.
• Most important, you help members define
and reach their goals.

4. FACILITATORS CONTRIBUTE BY…
• Helping the group define its overall goal, as well
as its specific objective(s)
• Helping individuals assess their needs and
create plans to meet them
• Providing processes that help people use their
time efficiently
• Guiding group discussion to keep it on track
• Making accurate notes that reflect the ideas of
members (paraphrase)
• Helping the group to work more effectively

5. • Making sure that people’s assumptions
are surfaced and tested
• Supporting people in assessing their
current skills, as well as building new skills
• Using consensus to help a group make
decisions that take all members’ opinions
into account

6. • Providing feedback to the group, so that they
can assess their progress and make
adjustments
• Managing conflict using a collaborative approach
• Helping the group communicate effectively

7. Facilitators make their contribution by:
• Helping the group access resources from inside and
outside of the group
• Creating an environment in which members enjoy a
positive, growing experience
• Fostering leadership in others by sharing the
leadership role

8. To be a facilitator, you must firmly believe that:
• People are intelligent, capable and want
to do the right thing
• Groups can make better decisions than
any one person can make alone
• “Two heads are better than one”
• Everyone’s opinion is of equal value,
regardless of rank or position
• People are more committed to the ideas
and plans that they have helped to create

10. To be a facilitator, you must firmly believe that:
• Participants can and will act responsibly
and assume accountability for decisions
• Groups can manage their own conflicts,
behaviors and relationships if they are
given the right tools and direction
• The facilitation process, if well designed
and effectively applied, can be trusted
to achieve results

11. Facilitation
Definitions

12. A facilitator is…
• One who contributes structure and
process to interactions so groups are
able to function effectively and all
individuals are encouraged to
contribute/participate; and
• A helper and enabler whose goal is to
support others as they develop their full
potential.

13. A process is…
• The structure, framework, methods
and tools used in interactions.

14. An intervention is:
• An action or set
of actions that
aims to improve
the functioning
of a group.

15. A group is:
• A collection of individuals who come together
to share information, coordinate their efforts,
or achieve a task.

16. A team is:
• A group of individuals who are committed
to achieving a common goal, who support
each other, who fully utilize member
resources, and who have closely linked
roles.

17. Facilitation Tools:
14 Core Practices

18. Stay neutral on content
– Your job is to focus on the process role and
avoid the temptation of offering opinions about
the topic under discussion.
– You should use questions and suggestions to
offer ideas that spring to mind, but never
impose opinions on the group.

19. Listen actively
– Look people in the eye
– Use attentive body language
– Paraphrase what people say
– Summarize key ideas

20. Use eye contact
– While people are speaking
– When paraphrasing what they have just said
– When summarizing their key ideas
– Let people know they can speak next
– Prompt the quiet ones in the crowd to
participate

21. Ask questions
– This is the most important tool you possess
– Questions test assumptions, invite
participation, gather information and probe for
hidden points.
– Effective questioning allows you to delve past
the symptoms and get at the “root cause”.

22. Paraphrase to clarify
– This involves repeating what people say to:
• make sure they know they are being heard
• let others hear their points a second time
• clarify key ideas
– “Are you saying…?”
– “Am I understanding you to mean…?”

23. Synthesize ideas
– Don’t just record individual ideas of
participants.
– Instead, get people to comment and build on
each other’s thoughts to ensure that the ideas
recorded represent collective thinking.
– This builds consensus and commitment.
– “Alice, what would you add to Jeff’s
comments?”

24. Stay on track
– Set time guidelines for each discussion
– Appoint a time keeper inside the group to call
out milestones.
– Point out the digression if discussion has
veered off topic.
– “Park” all off-topic comments and
suggestions on a separate
“Parking Lot” sheet posted
on a nearby wall to be dealt
with later.

25. Give and receive feedback
– Periodically “hold up a mirror” to help the group “see”
it6self so it can make corrections.
• “Only two people are involved in this discussion,
while others are sitting silently. How can we
shift the leadership so everyone will contribute?”
– Ask for and accept feedback about the
facilitation.
• “Are we making progress?”
• “How’s the pace?”
• “What can I do to be more effective?”

26. Test assumptions
– You need to bring the assumptions people are
operating under out into the open and clarify
them, so that they are clearly understood by
everyone.
– These assumptions may even need to be
challenged before a group can explore new
ground.
• “John, on what basis are you making the
comment that Sarah’s idea is too narrow
to be considered an option?”

27. Collect ideas
– Keep track of both emerging ideas and final
decisions.
– Make clear and accurate summaries on a
flipchart, writing board, or electric board so
everyone can see the notes.
– Notes should be brief and concise.
– They must always reflect what the
participants said, rather than your
interpretation of what they said.

28. Summarize clearly
– A great facilitator listens attentively to
everything that is said, and then offers concise
and timely summaries.
– Summarize when you want to revive a
discussion that has ground to a halt
or to end a discussion when things
seem to be wrapping up.

29. Redirect
– It is your responsibility to let the group
members know when they are “off track”.
– They can then decide to pursue the sidetrack,
or stop their current discussion and get back
to the agenda.
• “We are now discussing something
that is not on the agenda. What does
the group want to do?”

30. Hold questions/ideas
– At every session, tape a flip chart sheet to a
wall to record all side track items.
– Later, these items can be reviewed for
inclusion in a future agenda.
– “Parking lot” sheets let you capture ideas that
may be important later, while still staying on
track.

31. Offer room for errors
– Most people are nervous enough about writing
on flip charts/boards without having to worry
that they are spelling every word right.
– You will relax everyone by drawing a “spell-
check button” at the top right corner of every
flip sheet.
– Tell participants they can spell “creatively”,
since pressing the spell-check button
automatically eliminates all errors.