Practical ideas for facilitating workshops & people development

Posts tagged ‘Facilitation’

Tips for facilitating large groups

2013-05-28 16.14.40Facilitating larger groups provides a different set of challenges for the facilitator. This week Sharon and I ran our Facilitation Skills Workshop in Qld with a group of 30 professionals who work with beef producers.

Here are a few tips for working with a group this size

  •  Have tables set up with five participants per table, this is the maximum I would have at one table to ensure everyone is involved. More that this reduces interaction and provides the opportunity for the quieter members to “hide” within the group.
  • Check visibility – sit in some of the seats prior to the participants arriving to check you are able to clearly see the front of the room, the flip charts, other participants etc.
  • Having two facilitators is very important for variety and the ability to engage with the smaller groups. Our rule of thumb is one facilitators per 12 participants.
  • When developing the group guidelines ask if participants will move tables after each break. This assist with the energy in the room as well as ensuring the participants get to know each other and work with different personality types.
  • Introductions and icebreakers can be carried out at each table, however I still believe it is important for everyone to introduce themselves briefly to the whole group. This can be simply their name and where they are from.
  • Instead of collecting an expectation from each person one at a time and writing these up on the flip chart give everyone a black texta and piece of A6 paper. We asked everyone to write up one expectation, put their name on the paper and stick it up on our “sticky wall”. We then read through the expectations so everyone was aware of what people were expecting. At the end of the workshop we asked everyone to take their expectation sheet back from the wall and write a comment on how well this had been met. These we collected as part of our evaluation.
  • Table activities become very important in groups this size and its important to provide a variety of activities. A few ideas include
    • Group discussion, writing up ideas on the flip chart paper and reporting back to the whole group.
    • Group discussion and then collecting one idea per table – going around until all ideas have been collected. The facilitator can record the ideas from the front.
    • Building on each others ideas – each table has a topic and piece of flip chart they write their ideas and then pass the paper onto the next table who builds on the ideas and so on. Eventually the paper will return to the original table so they can review all of the ideas.
    • The sticky wall can be used to collect ideas or points of view from everyone in the room using the a6 paper and read through by the facilitator.
  • As our session included some training and practice we divided the group into two for a practice session.

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Branding – How do we want to be seen by others?

IMG_0164I had never really seriously considered the concept of personal branding until I came across Matt Church’s books on Though Leadership. Matt talks about “signature style” and the need for it to be consistent, congruent and function.

I was reminded of this recently when Lindy Nelson from the Agri-Women’s Development Trust NZ was visiting Australia. Lindy presented to a rural women’s leadership program we were running and talked about identifying your leadership brand.

One way to get started is to think of some words you would like to come to mind when people think of you in that role. Then think carefully about the “how” you demonstrate this to the world. What have you done, or what will you do, to ensure the brand is congruent with “who” you are.

Asking others is a good way to get feedback and check in with the consistency of the message you are aiming to portray. Ask specific questions so you get clear worthwhile answers. A simple start is “What words would you use to describe me as a….”

As a facilitator, trainer and coach I have been thinking carefully about the brand thats important for me. The words that are important include: professional, inclusive, innovative, creative, outcomes focus, personable and sense of fun.

As Matt Church points out “its an expression of you, rather than an affectation of who you’d like to be.”

www.mattchurch.com

Branding must be true to who you are…what are the words that are important for your “signature style” and how do you portray these to the world?

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Effective Flip Charts

IMG_0801I’m an avid user of  the Flip Chart, or as I tend to call it “butchers paper”. As my skills in facilitation have increased my reliance on powerpoint has decreased to the point I now rarely use it.

Todays’s blog is a few strategies in how I use Flip Charts effectively

  • Use colour – Mr Sketch Markers are a fantastic facilitation tool. I like to use lots of colour, borders, headings in different colours and usually write each line in a different colour so it is easier to distinguish as a participant.Be careful of some of the lighter colours, orange can be hard to read – however it is still great for headings.
  • Always, and I mean always, use the participants words. As soon as you change the words you have taken the ownership away from that person. This can be challenging with some extraverts who like to talk. Let them talk and then ask “What would you like me to write up here to capture your thoughts?”. If you remember from an earlier post extraverts like to think and speak at the same time- they will work through their thoughts out loud and then are usually very good at brining it back to a sentence. Listen carefully to the key words used by participants and always ask permission before changing anything. If you don’t understand what they are saying ask them “What would you like me to write down?”.
  • Put the flip charts up around the room so people can refer back to them. Once you have turned over the page no-one can see what has been discussed. Participants have told us they like the sheets to be put up in order and numbered so they can follow the flow of the session more easily.
  • Don’t worry about spelling – we are all human, if, like me, there are times the spelling simply disappears from your head, tell the group and someone  will almost always help – or put a “spell check” button on the corner of the page and make light of it.
  • Practice writing on the butchers paper – use print and make it large enough that people can read it around the room. It takes time to write neatly in straight lines on a flip chart.
  • Whenever you can, ask participants to work in small groups and let them record their own ideas – this can create more ownership in the process.
  • Keep the process underway while you are writing on the flip chart if possible, however don’t talk to the chart instead of the group and don’t hide behind the chart when reading comments back to the group.

I have received lots of great feedback about my pieces of “butchers paper” and find it a fantastic interactive facilitation tool.

Hope you all enjoy a great ANZAC day.

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Tips for running great field days

EL Bill Fungicides 2Tips for great field days – thanks once again to the GRDC Extension group for their ideas. I have build on their brainstorm with some other thoughts collected from discussions over the last 12 months.

Tips for great field days …

  • Well located – think about where the field day site is to be located. Is it easily accessible? If it’s a very wet season will people still be able to access the site? What is the noise level like? Is there a busy highway or train line close to the site which will impact on peoples ability to hear speakers?
  • Run on time – start and finish on time, value the effort people have made to be there. This includes the sessions during the day – speakers don’t feel valued if they have prepared for 30 minutes are then are cut short because the  person prior has gone over time.
  • Know and “name” the outcomes to be achieved by the event. A few well formed outcomes are more achievable than lots and lots!
  • Local, relevant and topical – what are the key issues being faced in the district right now.
  • Credible topics – how can this be integrated into my farm business?
  • Recognised farmer – utilise farmers where possible to tell stories and value add to the research with their first hand experiences.
  • Evaluate – follow up, how effective was the event? Were the agreed outcomes achieved? What worked well and what could be done differently next time?
  • Good agronomy – make sure the trials are well presented and in line with district practice.
  • Interaction time – ensure there is time for participants to views trials, ask questions and discuss what they might have learnt amongst themselves.
  • Good food – this is vitally important! Poor food will be all that is reported on so get it right!
  • Focus – not heaps of trials or topics.
  • Crop trial inspection time – focus on a few trials is more effectively than overwhelming people with lots to view. Think about how much you can take in during one session.
  •  Add something that is a “bit left of field” or “blue sky” to create some interest
  • BBQ  & beer to finish off the day and allow some very important networking time.

What other ideas do readers have about what makes a great field day?

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Top tips for running training workshops & facilitated groups

2013-04-04 16.21.18Thanks to the GRDC Extension, Adoption Training and Support Group for their top tips on how to run effective training workshops and facilitated groups. The group met in Canberra last week where we reviewed farmer decision making, personality types, extension, adoption and evaluation.

The top tips are not prioritised – they were developed during a facilitated brainstorming exercise.

Training workshops

  1. Plan the event early
  2. Clear training packages and outcomes
  3. Topical and relevant dealing with current issues
  4. Accommodate different learning styles
  5. Evaluate the process
  6. Follow up after the workshop – ensure learning put into practice
  7. Interactive sessions – not all chalk and talk
  8. Recognise the knowledge in the room and draw this into the discussion
  9. Good presenters / facilitators
  10. Introduce the agenda and stick to it
  11. Practicality,think about – Relative advantage, trialabilty, observabilty, simplicity, compatibility
  12. Good take home resources
  13. Logical progression throughout the workshop
  14. Venue that works

Facilitated groups

  1. Establish the ground rules in an inclusive way
  2. Establish the group – take the time to do this properly and build ownership in the process
  3. Good facilitation skills to engage participants – ownership on driving the agenda of the group
  4. Good process and skill
  5. Group has purpose and expectations
  6. Understand the desired overview and stick to it
  7. Include everyone
  8. Stick to agreed timeframes
  9. Manage  the group and individuals energy
  10. Review and reflect effectively
  11. Evaluate
  12. Good planning
  13. Use a range of methods to accommodate learning styles

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Facilitating with passion

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I love to facilitate – both facilitation in the pure sense helping a group develop a new strategic plan or way to work together, to facilitation of workshops which include delivery of some material and lots of activities which draw on the knowledge and experience of the participants to deepen learning.

It’s been 12 months since I started Workshops with Wow and it has been an exciting year for me, I have travelled to many parts of rural Australia and New Zealand working with wonderful rural people dedicated to agriculture and rural life. It is so inspiring to see the passion of people for their industry, group or organisation and to play a small part in their ongoing development.

My work with the Agri-Women’s Development Trust in NZ has provided me with a unique opportunity to work with NZ rural women. As I have fortunate to be part of them learning to “own their skills and talents” and identify their passions – I have also developed a deeper understanding of myself, my passion for people development and ownership of my skills.

Facilitating with my life and business partner, Bill, on farmer decision making and extension and adoption in the grains industry has been a highlight. We hope to continue this into the future – traveling together instead of in different directions – combining our interests of people and agriculture.

Writing this blog has provided me with the opportunity to share my passion and desire to enhance adult learning and facilitation – particularly in rural and regional areas.

Thankyou for following my blog and sharing in my journey I have really appreciated your comments, emails and personal feedback and look forward to continuing the facilitation discussion. Please feel free to share my blog with your friends and colleagues.

May 2013 be an exciting fulfilling year for you all – Jeanette

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Learning to ski

2013-01-22 11.12.57Welcome back to Workshops with Wow and my first blog for 2013. I hope you have all enjoyed Christmas,a break and a great start to the year!

During January I was fortunate to travel to Japan, to Niseko, for a Skiing holiday with my husband Bill and son Will. I can’t ski ..so decided lessons would be good idea to get me started.

It was a great reminder for a facilitator and trainer to go through the process of learning a new (and challenging!) skill like skiing. My instructor was a young Englishman who had learnt to ski at the age of 2 1/2 ….he was completely unconsciously competent skier and had little teaching experience. For him I was a challenge – completely unconsciously incompetent !! I had no idea what I didn’t know and needed to be told exactly what to do in order to stay upright on those skis!

I left the lesson somewhat frustrated having learnt a few tips but not enough to get me off the magic carpet with the toddlers and onto the beginner slopes. Bill came to my rescue … a consciously competent skier … who had enough experience to know what he was doing and not enough that it had become a natural skill. After some mentoring by a very patient Bill I progressed to the beginner slopes.

The whole learning experience made me think carefully about the need as a trainer to be consciously aware of our unconscious competence! (That’s a bit of a mouthfull!) How important it is to go back and think through how we learnt the skill in the first place and then how we can teach that skills to a beginner. What were the key elements of the learning for us?

My poor young ski instructor learnt to ski as he was learning to walk …. how many of us could go back and teach someone to walk? Maybe more challenging than we think.

My other reminder was that there is a time to TELL – there are times when we don’t know what we don’t know. And equally importantly, when to move onto a mentoring or coaching role as people develop some confidence and practice the new skill.

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Group size

2012-12-04 15.11.36In the last few months I have facilitated groups varying in size from 25 to 6. What’s the best group size?

For me this depends on the outcomes required and the importance of a collaborative outcome.

In a perfect world my group size is 12 …

  • They are easily broken into groups of 3, 4, 2 or 6 …
  • Building the group at the start of the session is relatively easy with 12, people are happy to share thoughts and experiences. Once the number exceeds 12 the time taken to build the group trust is longer and some quiet members of the group will not interact at the whole group level at all.
  • I like to use U shaped tables in a workshop and this also works well with groups up to about 12. With more participants I perfer round tables with groups of 5 at each table. Each table can then be treated as “one” with table discussions feeding into the overall.
  • I encourage people to move around during workshop sessions – setting this up in the “How we will work together” so after each break we sit next to someone different. This assists with generating new ideas and thinking as well as creating networking opportunities for the members of the group.

Venues can be challenging depending on there shape and size – often not giving us the choice we would like for room set up. I prefer to see the venue before the workshop – however this is not always possible when travelling long distances.

The most challenging venue we have facilitated in was an old town hall in country Queensland – the floor was wood and the acoustics terrible. Bad venues can have a big impact on the outcomes of the workshop – as was reflected in the evaluation sheets from this particular one.

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The challenge of change

Working through change can be challenging – this includes changing a practice and/or taking on a new technologies with new skills. A framework I am finding useful is the stages of attitudinal change.

This simple model is highlighted in the photo in this blog.

When think about a new technology we are initially Ignorant of it, next we become Aware, followed by Intent to do something about it. We then reach a critical point where a decision is made to step over the line and Perform or not. Finally we maintain – continue to use or reject the technology.

The key to this model for me is how we present information at each stage of the model.

Ignorance – At ignorance people are not aware; we need to capture their attention. This is not a time to bombard them with fact sheets and information, these will most likely end up in the bin. We need to be thinking about the emotional hooks, what can we do to create attention to create the awareness.

Awareness – This becomes a time for information and fact sheets. However provide people with what they REALLY need to know, not every piece of information you have on the topic. Keep the information succinct, easy to follow and neatly packaged. Provide links to more information so the data hungry person can research themselves.

Intent – At this stage the thinking will be “how will this work for me?” , “How would I integrate this into my current system?” Provide coaching to assist with the decision making process so the ownership lies with the decision maker rather than the facilitator or coach.

Perform – Once the decision to take on the change has been made people move  to the “doing”. Support through mentoring is an ideal way to ensure the new skill is maintained. Further information and research may be required and the change may need to be “tweaked” to fit in with current systems or thinking.

Maintain – It is now necessary to evaluate the change, and modify or reject if required. In this fast paced world evaluation is a step that is often overlooked, a coaching or mentoring approach works well here. Further support to maintain the change may also be required.

This framework has been modified from  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transtheoretical_model by Bruce Howie whom I co- facilitated with in his workshop “How to drive adoption of technology.”

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Personality J’s and P’s

In NZ with Sara Heard

Welcome to the fourth blog about the Myers Briggs  Type Indicator (MBTI) and a few tips about how I relate this to facilitation.

Judging Types (J) like to get things settled and finished, work best when they can plan their work and follow the plan. Are self-regimented, purposeful and exacting. So yes you guessed it; J’s like to have the agenda and stick to it. They like workshops to run to time and finish on time. J’s can find it stressful if the workshop runs over time as they probably have something else in their schedule.

Perceiving Types (P) adapt well to changing situations, they are happy to leave things open for alterations as time progresses. They live according to the situation or moment and adjust themselves easily. P’s love a constant flow of new experiences -they are curious, flexible, adaptable and tolerant.

From a facilitator perspective (as a J myself) I always have breaks on time and finish on time. I have learnt over the years to take a flexible approach to the material or process in the workshop and not provide a “too exacting” or detailed agenda. (remembering to provide enough detail for the “S” Types) This approach enables to J’s to feel we are on time and a sense of control but enables to P’s to explore the material in the workshop and satisfy their curiosity.

One of the challenges for me is co-facilitating with a P who may not have the same “importance of time” I apply to my sessions. As a J something I find the most challenging is when we have agreed on a timeframe for topics and the P I’m working with runs overtime – reducing the time for my section of the agenda.

You have probably worked out the MBTI is a passion of mine – I love to observe personality and behaviour – link to frameworks and consider how this might apply to my work and life. I’m currently developing a workshop on adoption of technology which I’m finding really engaging – working in flow with the time disappearing as I become more creative! Typical behaviour for an INTJ 🙂

More of this in later blogs.

I would love to hear your thoughts or comments on my personality blogs areas for more discussion. 

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