All About Group and Team Facilitation
- Guidelines for forming and leading teams are included in the books Field Guide to Leadership and Supervision in Business and Field Guide to Leadership and Supervision for Nonprofit Staff.
- Guidelines for leading -- and for working with teams -- during organizational change are included the books Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development and Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development with Nonprofits .
Sections in This Topic Include
Understanding Facilitation
What is Facilitation?
What Does a Facilitator Do?
Facilitation as a Service
Test - How Good Are Your Facilitation Skills Now?
How Do You Recognize a High-Quality Facilitator?
Would You Benefit from a Facilitator? How Much Would
It Cost?
Core Skills for Facilitators
Core Interpersonal Skills for Facilitators
Core Group Skills for Facilitators
Types of Groups and Applications
Common Types of Groups
Popular Group Applications and Activities
Doing Facilitation
Preparing to Facilitate
Ice Breakers and Warmup Activities
Increasing
Participation
Intervening
Basic Tips for Successful Facilitation
Staying Centered During Facilitation
Business of Facilitation
Professionalism and Ethics
Credentials
Starting a Facilitation Business
General Resources
Various Organizations About Facilitation
and With Many Resources
Free Facilitation Tools
Parliamentary Procedures
Also consider
Employee
Performance Management
Team
Performance Management
Related Library Topics
Working With Groups
Also see
All About Facilitation
Team
Performance Management
Understanding Facilitation
What is Facilitation?
Facilitation is the nature of the activities to run a meeting, including planning, design, implementation and evaluation of the meeting. The activities can be done in an explicit and systematic manner or in an implicit, organic and unfolding nature, depending on the nature and needs of participants. Facilitation can be driven by an external role that is dedicated to facilitation (a facilitator) or by the group members themselves.
What is facilitation? (and Core Values of Facilitation)
What Does a Facilitator Do?
Simply put, the role of the facilitator (in the context of personal, professional and organizational development) is to guide and support a group to get clear on the results they want to accomplish and what methods they might use accomplish those results. The facilitator might also guide and support the group to actually implement those methods, and even evaluate the implementation and results. The results and methods and the nature of how the facilitator works with group members depend on the situation. For example, the facilitator might work in a rather direct role, making prominent suggestions of what the group should do and how to do it. Or, the facilitator might work in a more indirect role by gently noting what the group might do and how to do it. The following resources give more detailed descriptions of facilitation, including suggesting various roles that facilitators might play.
The Role of
the Facilitator
Facilitator
Facilitation 101 -- Roles of Effective Facilitators
What
is a Facilitator?
Facilitation as a Service
Test - How Good Are Your Facilitation Skills Now?
Before reading more in this topic, you might get an impression of your own skills here.
So, based on the results of the test, what do you want to improve? Consider the guidelines in the rest of this topic.
How Do You Recognize a High-Quality Facilitator?
Facilitation is usually not an activity that follows a standardized, specific procedure. So it's not an activity that many people can quickly ascertain as being done well or not. However, like many services that work to guide and support others toward improvement, there usually is a set of knowledge and skills that most people agree is necessary to be highly competent. The following links suggest certain expertise, and an upcoming section provides a more detailed list.
Facilitation
Excellence: The Seven Separators -- What separates top facilitators
from good ones?
Four
Facilitator Archetypes
Would You Benefit From a Facilitator? What Would It Cost?
10 Questions to Help You Choose a Facilitator
Facilitation,
Training, Consultation or Do it Yourself?
Hiring a Consultant: Ten Questions to Ask
Reasons to Hire a Professional Facilitator
Cost
of Hiring a Facilitator
Core Skills of a Facilitator
Whatever one's beliefs about the best nature of facilitation, the practice usually is best carried out by someone who has strong knowledge and skills regarding group dynamics and processes -- these are often referred to as process skills. Effective facilitation might also involve strong knowledge and skills about the particular topic or content that the group is addressing in order to reach its goals -- these are often referred to as content skills. The argument about how much "process versus content" skills are required by facilitators in certain applications is a very constructive argument that has gone on for years. The following skills are important for facilitators regardless of the type of group or application (groups and applications are listed next in this topic).
Core Interpersonal Skills for Facilitators
Although facilitators work primarily with groups, those groups are comprised of individuals. A good facilitator needs strong expertise in working with individuals as well as groups. The following list includes skills that would be very useful for a facilitator to have.
Body
Language
Coaching
Conflict
(Interpersonal)
Feedback
(Sharing)
Handling
Difficult People
Listening
Morale
(Boosting)
Motivating
Negotiating
Power
and Influence (Managing)
Presenting
Questioning
Trust
(Building)
Diversity and Inclusion
Core Group Skills for Facilitators
Although facilitators work primarily with groups, those groups are comprised of individuals. A good facilitator needs strong expertise in working with individuals as well as groups. The following list includes skills that would be very useful for a facilitator to have.
Group-Based
Problem Solving and Decision Making
Group
Conflict Management
Group
Evaluations
Group
Learning
Group
Theory and Dynamics
Meeting Management (agendas,
ground rules, etc.)
Planning
(many kinds, including strategic planning, business planning,
etc.)
Team
Building
Ten
Terrific Tips for Group Facilitation
Types of Groups and Applications
Common Types of Groups
There are many types of groups. The following list is to some of the most common. Facilitators should be familiar with purposes and processes used in at least the first grouping of links. The second grouping is becoming common as facilitators work in organizations to guide and support change.
Committees
Dialogue Groups
Discussion Groups
Focus
Groups
Peer
Learning
Teams
Virtual Teams
Large-Scale
Interventions
Open-Space
Technology
Guidelines,
Methods and Resources for Organizational Change Agents
Projects
Self-Directed
and Self-Managed Work Teams
Process Consultation for Organization Development
Popular Group Applications and Activities
The following list includes many of the most common applications, or purposes of groups, and suggests many of the types of activities in them. Good facilitators will be familiar with the purposes and processes in most of the following.
Action
Planning
Business
Planning
Cost
Benefit Analysis (for deciding based on costs)
De
Bono Hats (for looking at a situation from many perspectives
Grid
Analysis (for choosing among many choices)
Pareto
Principle (for finding the options that will make the most difference
-- (20/80 rule")
for solving seemingly unsolvable contradictions
Project
Management
Rational Decision Making
Strategic
Planning
SWOT Analysis (to analyze from strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats)
Voting
Work
Breakdown Structure (for organizing and relating many details)
Doing Facilitation
Preparing to Facilitate
It's difficult to facilitate -- to help group members decide
the purpose of their group and how to work toward that purpose
-- unless you clearly are ready to facilitate. The following article
will help you.
Preparing
to Facilitate
The Role of the Facilitator
Ice Breakers and Warmup Activities
Ice breakers and warmup activities help group members to more quickly become comfortable around each other. They're useful in almost any type of group, especially where members do not already know each other well.
Warmup Activities
The
10 Best Icebreaker Activities for Any Work Event
Icebreakers
Icebreakers – The Who, What, When and When
Not to Do Them
Why Use Icebreakers When There’s No Ice?
Basic Tips for Successful Facilitation
The basic tips in this section are for people who do not seek an in-depth understanding of facilitation, rather they have a few applications in which they would like to facilitate groups.
Facilitating Face-to-Face
When to Facilitate, Train or Coach
Facilitator Competencies
Ten
Terrific Tips for Group Facilitation
Facilitating Online Groups
The ability to facilitate virtual groups -- groups where members use telecommunications to communicate with each other -- is increasingly an important skills for facilitators.
An Overview of Online Facilitation
Online Community Toolkit
Facilitator Competencies
Internet Resources From the Electronic Discussion
on Group Facilitation
The
Art of Hosting Good Conversations Online
Roberts Rules?
Roberts Rules is comprehensive a set of specific rules by which
members of meetings can conduct their meeting process in a very
orderly fashion, thereby helping to ensure that members get the
most out of meetings. These rules are usually used in very formal
meetings, for example, meetings of Boards of Directors. A facilitator
is not likely to need expertise in the rules unless his/her clients
specifically have adopted them as the procedures to run their
meetings. Facilitators can become highly skilled in the set of
rules and achieve the status of registered Parliamentarians.
Jim Slaughter,
parliamentarian (see his "cheat sheets")
Roberts
Rules Online
Rules Online
many resources about Rules of Order
Staying Centered During Facilitation
It can be quite a challenge for a facilitator to work with a diverse group of people, sometimes under high-pressure situations, to get clear on what they want to do and how to do it. A good facilitator is not easily unsettled -- the facilitator does not take challenges and conflicts personally. The following links are to resources that can help the facilitator to stay centered -- grounded in the type of person that he or she wants to be when facilitating. Be sure to also review some of the resources in the earlier topics Core Interpersonal Skills for Facilitators and Core Group Skills for Facilitators.
Assertiveness
Attitude
Burnout
Cynicism
Emotional
Intelligence
Financial
Fitness
Job
Satisfaction
Motivating
and Inspiring Yourself
Physical
Fitness
Self-Confidence
Stress
Management
Work-Life
Balance
Business of Facilitation
Professionalism and Ethics
Although some of the following links refer to consulting, the guidelines in the resources also apply to practitioners who do facilitating.
Understanding
Yourself as an Instrument of Change
Principles for Effective Consulting
Types
of Clients (to answer critical question: "who is current client?")
Defining Success Between Consultants and Clients
Ethical Consulting
Boundaries for Consultants
Multicultural Consulting
Minimize Consulting Liabilities and Risk
When to Bail from a Consulting Project
Are
You Doing OD? Training? Consulting? Coaching? All of These?
Working
on Ourselves, as Consultants
How
"Disconnected Conversations" Can Kill Consulting and
Collaboration
Daily Tips for Consultants
2011 Management Consulting Salaries
Why I Left McKinsey | Shortcomings of Management
Consulting
Why I Left McKinsey | The Benefits of a Consulting
Background
Credentials
Becoming
a Professional Certified Facilitator
IAF
Certification
Starting a Facilitation Business
This subtopic assumes that you already have some expertise in facilitation as described in this overall Library topic, and that you also are thinking about starting a business to be a professional facilitator. The guidelines in this subtopic are focused on helping you to start a new organization, expand a current organization, or start a new service.
Are You Really an Entrepreneur?
Are
You Really an Entrepreneur?
Preparation for Starting a New Venture
Starting a New Organization?
Should
You Start a For-Profit or a Nonprofit?
Starting
a For-Profit Organization
Starring
a Nonprofit Organization
Planning Your New Organization
Strategic
Planning
Business
Planning
Deciding the Legal Structure of Your New Organization
U.S. Enterprise Law -- Forming Organizations
Or Expanding a Current Organization?
Or Starting a New Product or Service?
Marketing Your Organization, Product or Service
Getting and Keeping Clients
Sales
Customer Service
Customer
Satisfaction
Close More Business (Get More Clients)
Getting Paid
Getting
Paid What You’re Worth
What
To Do When Your Client Doesn’t Pay
Dealing With Clients
Types of Clients (to answer critical question: "who is current client?")When Do You Fire a Client?
Defining Success Between Consultants and Clients
When to Bail from a Project
When to Bail from a Consulting Project
Minimizing Risk
When
Should Consultants Buy Liability Insurance?
Minimize Consulting Liabilities and Risk
Risk Management
General Resources
Various Organizations About Facilitation and With Many Resources
Many of the following organizations also have websites that list many free resources about facilitation.
National
International
Association of Facilitators
International Society
for Performance Improvement
Institute
for Cultural Affairs -- World-Wide
Institute for
Cultural Affairs USA and the Technology of Participation (ToP)
Midwest
Facilitators' Network
Minnesota Organization
Development Network
National OD
Network
Project Management
Institute (PMI)
Society for Human
Resource Management
Facilitate.com
Facilitation Tips
Local
Minnesota
Facilitator's Network
Minnesota Organization
Development Network
Southern MN
Chapter of American Society for Training & Development (ASTD)
Twin Cities Human
Resource Association
Free Facilitation Tools
Numerous
Tools and Methods for Problem Solving
Small Group Skills
Learn More in the Library's Blogs Related to Facilitation
In addition to the articles on this current page, also see the following blogs that have posts related to Facilitation. Scan down the blog's page to see various posts. Also see the section "Recent Blog Posts" in the sidebar of the blog or click on "next" near the bottom of a post in the blog. The blog also links to numerous free related resources.
Library's
Leadership Blog
Library's
Supervision Blog
Library's
Team Performance Blog
For the Category of Facilitation and Teams:
To round out your knowledge of this Library topic, you may
want to review some related topics, available from the link below.
Each of the related topics includes free, online resources.
Also, scan the Recommended Books listed below. They have been
selected for their relevance and highly practical nature.