Meetings are a key driver (and drain) of productivity and effectiveness for any project. Effective meetings accelerate work, achieve buy-in and consensus, ensure consistent communication, and get results. Ineffective meetings waste time, pull key resources from important tasks, create confusion, and stifle progress.
In this session, project managers are introduced to key techniques from Accelerated Facilitation, a structured methodology to deliver highly interactive, streamlined meetings that generate high levels of participant productivity, collaboration, consensus and buy-in. Using these techniques, PMs will be able to get more done in less time and reach clear consensus on decisions and priorities.
Attendees were introduced to each technique, then applied the techniques in a small group.
Topics
1. Accelerated Facilitation Overview
2. Idea Generation
3. Prioritization
4. Risk/Performance Assessment
5. Incorporating Accelerated Facilitation into Project Meetings
Consensus Facilitation Workshop Handout | IA Summit 2010Gabby Hon
This is the handout I wrote for participants in the Consensus Facilitation workshop to take home.
The session itself was an actual consensus facilitation workshop for the 22 attendees. We used the focus question, "How can we improve the IA Summit?" and worked through individual brainstorming to small groups to full group sharing, organizing and naming.
This booklet is part of Step 4 – Communicating Information of the five-step documentation process (Step 1 – Capturing Information, Step 2 – Structuring Information, Step 3 – Presenting Information, Step 4 –Communicating Information, Step 5 – Storing and Maintaining Information). This booklet provides some basic tips, techniques, approaches and exercises for understanding and practicing how to apply documentation practices for creating highly effective meetings.
This toolkit outlines ten advanced facilitation methodologies - describing what each one is, when to use it, and how it works. These best practices are designed to support you in choosing and executing facilitated session. Designed in booklet format. Redacted for external use.
Consensus Facilitation Workshop Handout | IA Summit 2010Gabby Hon
This is the handout I wrote for participants in the Consensus Facilitation workshop to take home.
The session itself was an actual consensus facilitation workshop for the 22 attendees. We used the focus question, "How can we improve the IA Summit?" and worked through individual brainstorming to small groups to full group sharing, organizing and naming.
This booklet is part of Step 4 – Communicating Information of the five-step documentation process (Step 1 – Capturing Information, Step 2 – Structuring Information, Step 3 – Presenting Information, Step 4 –Communicating Information, Step 5 – Storing and Maintaining Information). This booklet provides some basic tips, techniques, approaches and exercises for understanding and practicing how to apply documentation practices for creating highly effective meetings.
This toolkit outlines ten advanced facilitation methodologies - describing what each one is, when to use it, and how it works. These best practices are designed to support you in choosing and executing facilitated session. Designed in booklet format. Redacted for external use.
One-on-one reviews with management are crucial to delivering supportive, constructive and developmental feedback. This communication allows employees to improve their performance and develop their potential for future opportunities. Presently, many organizations are eliminating their outdated and indefensible performance appraisal programs with a new approach to talent development. In this interactive session, discover the principles and practices associated with conducting successful one-one-ones.
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)
Discombobulation, Fire-Breathing Dragons and Wet Noodles: Creating Productive...bkoloski
Workshops! We go in with big hopes for collaboration, collective insights and great ideas. Then come out with… a whole bunch of post-it notes and unresolved arguments.
Running a great workshop means being prepared to deal with a lot of potential situations, including: the fire-breathing dragon, who tries to dominate the workshop with angry naysaying; the wet noodle who won’t participate; and utter discombobulation when the workshop goes totally off track.
This presentation will give practical advice for dealing with these and other common, but scary, situations in running workshops.
Hands on collaboration has become a dominant approach to designing new solutions whether they be for products, services, environments, etc. But bringing people who have different perspectives of a topic, ways of expressing themselves, and levels of comfort in working together can be tricky. Taking the time to think through why, how, and when to best bring people together and intentionally design your design workshops helps to ensure that at the end of your event you walk away with the information and answers you need.
Leading effective meetings facilitator guideLaura Staley
A facilitator guide for a class on leading effective meetings. It goes with this presentation - http://www.slideshare.net/LauraStaley1/leading-effective-meetings-slides.
Group Interaction Patterns - The Keys for Highly Productive Teams (Better Sof...Michael R. Wolf
Development teams often fail to recognize the complex group interactions and multi-person relationships that are critical to build and maintain a highly productive team. Instead, they adopt follow-the-crowd practices such as stand up meetings or Kanban boards without understanding the underlying fundamentals. Michael Wolf introduces group interaction patterns of highly productive development teams to provide a framework for understanding group interactions and a vocabulary for discussing ways to improve. Michael will facilitate a highly-experiential introduction to techniques from 4 group work practices:
* Liberating Structures
* The Core Protocols
* Group Works Card Deck (& Group Works Pattern Language)
* Personal Kanban
Describing brainstorming briefly with its techniques and types with simple images giving a text to the audience , containing references , summary , and the objectives of studying this document .
Stephanie Cooper - Genuine Curiosity - Conversations for ChangeAgileNZ Conference
People often ask for the golden phrase, the silver bullet they can use to convince their teams, managers or executives to ‘go Agile’. While it would certainly help to talk about outcomes and benefits over practices and methods, it can sometimes be your own mindset that is holding back your ability to influence change.
In this session, Steph looks at mindsets (the values and assumptions you make) and explore how a lack of genuine curiosity can provoke defensive behaviours in others and stop organisations from resolving the issues that really matter, but are challenging to address.
She’ll use the setting of a small conversation to explore and better understand these ideas. While organisational change is big, the momentum for change can often be won or lost in small conversations. Becoming better in small conversations will help you grow your role in influencing organisational change. When you approach conversations with genuine curiosity about the other person’s point of view, you will not only have a more productive conversation, but build the trust needed for the work ahead.
These ideas and techniques are popular as they are accessible and relatively easy to adopt.
One-on-one reviews with management are crucial to delivering supportive, constructive and developmental feedback. This communication allows employees to improve their performance and develop their potential for future opportunities. Presently, many organizations are eliminating their outdated and indefensible performance appraisal programs with a new approach to talent development. In this interactive session, discover the principles and practices associated with conducting successful one-one-ones.
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)
Discombobulation, Fire-Breathing Dragons and Wet Noodles: Creating Productive...bkoloski
Workshops! We go in with big hopes for collaboration, collective insights and great ideas. Then come out with… a whole bunch of post-it notes and unresolved arguments.
Running a great workshop means being prepared to deal with a lot of potential situations, including: the fire-breathing dragon, who tries to dominate the workshop with angry naysaying; the wet noodle who won’t participate; and utter discombobulation when the workshop goes totally off track.
This presentation will give practical advice for dealing with these and other common, but scary, situations in running workshops.
Hands on collaboration has become a dominant approach to designing new solutions whether they be for products, services, environments, etc. But bringing people who have different perspectives of a topic, ways of expressing themselves, and levels of comfort in working together can be tricky. Taking the time to think through why, how, and when to best bring people together and intentionally design your design workshops helps to ensure that at the end of your event you walk away with the information and answers you need.
Leading effective meetings facilitator guideLaura Staley
A facilitator guide for a class on leading effective meetings. It goes with this presentation - http://www.slideshare.net/LauraStaley1/leading-effective-meetings-slides.
Group Interaction Patterns - The Keys for Highly Productive Teams (Better Sof...Michael R. Wolf
Development teams often fail to recognize the complex group interactions and multi-person relationships that are critical to build and maintain a highly productive team. Instead, they adopt follow-the-crowd practices such as stand up meetings or Kanban boards without understanding the underlying fundamentals. Michael Wolf introduces group interaction patterns of highly productive development teams to provide a framework for understanding group interactions and a vocabulary for discussing ways to improve. Michael will facilitate a highly-experiential introduction to techniques from 4 group work practices:
* Liberating Structures
* The Core Protocols
* Group Works Card Deck (& Group Works Pattern Language)
* Personal Kanban
Describing brainstorming briefly with its techniques and types with simple images giving a text to the audience , containing references , summary , and the objectives of studying this document .
Stephanie Cooper - Genuine Curiosity - Conversations for ChangeAgileNZ Conference
People often ask for the golden phrase, the silver bullet they can use to convince their teams, managers or executives to ‘go Agile’. While it would certainly help to talk about outcomes and benefits over practices and methods, it can sometimes be your own mindset that is holding back your ability to influence change.
In this session, Steph looks at mindsets (the values and assumptions you make) and explore how a lack of genuine curiosity can provoke defensive behaviours in others and stop organisations from resolving the issues that really matter, but are challenging to address.
She’ll use the setting of a small conversation to explore and better understand these ideas. While organisational change is big, the momentum for change can often be won or lost in small conversations. Becoming better in small conversations will help you grow your role in influencing organisational change. When you approach conversations with genuine curiosity about the other person’s point of view, you will not only have a more productive conversation, but build the trust needed for the work ahead.
These ideas and techniques are popular as they are accessible and relatively easy to adopt.
Facilitating change utilizing Starfish for an Institutional Approach to Stude...Hobsons
Facilitating change utilizing Starfish for an Institutional Approach to Student Success Ramapo College of New Jersey
Presented by Joseph Connell and Christopher Romano
Hobsons University 2015
It is the skill of drawing every member to actively discuss a particular topic, leading to a group consensus and actionable response from each participant
A summary of theories about work motivation as they relate to behaviour in meetings. Part of a module on Workshop Facilitation on MSc Agile Software Projects
A framework for workshop facilitation - UX Ireland 2016Matthew Ovington
How many workshops have you been to that are poorly thought out or badly run, that drift aimlessly or have vague outcomes?
Workshop facilitation is a design skill that you can apply in all kinds of situations including ideation, gathering requirements and building consensus with cross functional teams. It's also an essential skill for anyone trying to reconcile differing viewpoints or align diverse needs.
This session will provide you with:
an understanding of what facilitation is and when to use it
an easy to remember framework for planning workshops
tips and tricks for making workshops go smoothly
ways to build trust, encourage participation and stay focused on outcomes
Slides to a two day workshop about hosting meetings and large events for communities and organisations. It\'s aimed at participant participation , experience and dialogue orientated.
English Language - Spoken Interaction Part 2Goh Bang Rui
Link to part 1 of Spoken interaction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1RbChWPd58
Subscribe to my channel for more upcoming education videos.
bit.ly/gohbangrui
These slides are used to explain the idea of part 2 of Spoken Interaction of oral examination for O Level English Language Examination in Singapore. Students are introduced to the concept of Spoken Interaction which consists of 20 marks or 67% of the Oral Examination. Students are expected to carry out a conversation based on the given picture after given 10 minutes to practise reading as well as using the picture as stimulus. They are then expected to answer given prompts and provide well-developed responses related to the theme given in the picture.
The video is divided into three sections.
1. Introduction
2. Why conversations break down (02:55)
3. 10 tips from examiners (09:48)
4. Practices (13:30)
If you have any feedback, please comment and like it if you find it useful.
Subscribe to my Youtube channel if you like what you are watching.
Thank you
At the opening session of Agile Consortium Belgium online conference 2021, I created a space for connection and interaction, facilitating with Liberating Structures Impromptu Networking, Appreciative Interview, and 25/10 Crowdsourcing.
Wild Apricot Free Expert Webinar - Leading Great Board MeetingsWild Apricot
Do your board meetings go on and on without any decisions getting made? Or do you feel like there is never enough action between meetings?
This session will introduce you to key principles and essential tools for building clear decisions and effective follow-up actions to make your board more active and engaged!
http://www.wildapricot.com/academy/expert-webinar-series/leading-great-board-meetings
Want to learn how to facilitate interactions for outcomes?Anita Rao
We spend so much time interacting with colleagues but not enough progress is made to get to specific business outcomes. Learn how to facilitate meetings, workshops, brainstorming sessions to drive to specific outcomes. Be effective, efficient and use resources wisely.
Essentials of Building a culture of feedback - pulse surveyXoxoday
A complete guide explaining the Importance of Feedback in the growth of Organisation. How employees pulse surveys and feedback helps to decrease employee turnover and to increase employee engagement.
Session materials from interactive workshop on business hackathons. Business Hackathons are immersive, dynamic events that bring together business and technology to imagine, design and build innovative solutions.
All projects and programs are designed to deliver lasting and successful change. Yet research on project management confirms that most projects fail to meet the triple constraint (time, budget and scope) and fail to deliver the expected ROI. The most important barriers to success are "soft", people-related factors such as sponsorship, communication and culture. These are more important than "hard" factors such as resources, business process, and technology. This presentation covers the linkage between change management practice and project success, provides tips on diagnosing and addressing resistance to change, presents a framework to understand the factors affecting change capacity (skill and motivation), and describes the key roles, deliverables and best practices for change management within the project lifecycle.
An approach to implementing Web 2.0 using Communities of Practice. Describes the process and deliverables involved in establishing a Community of Practice.
Describes how to initiate and plan a Community of Practice to meet strategic objectives. Describes metrics for CoPs. Lists common Web 2.0 features for CoPs.
Describes the factors affecting individual competence and motivation and a process to manage organizational change. Presented at 2010 PMI Global Congress - North America in Washington DC.
4. Session Outcomes
At the end of this session, you will be able to:
1. Articulate principles for effective meeting facilitation
2. Use structured techniques to make meetings more
interactive, efficient, and effective
3. Apply structured techniques to a variety of situations
4. Request an electronic copy of session materials. (Leave a
business card and write, “AF Materials” on the back.)
5. Principles for Effective Meeting Facilitation
Ineffective Meetings Effective Meetings
1. Waste time 1. Accomplish real work
2. Have an open discussion 2. Have a task list and
agenda structured techniques
3. Value input based on 3. Gather input from all
position and/or personality participants
4. Have unclear outcomes 4. Produce visible output
5. Have unclear ownership 5. Create buy-in, ownership
and next steps and clear next steps
6. Accelerated Facilitation Principles
1. Advance planning.
2. Separate facilitator (process) role from participant
(content) role.
3. Focus participants on tasks, one task at a time.
• Inspires creativity and innovation
• Separates generating ideas from judging ideas
4. Each task:
• Starts with a question
• Ensures everyone’s input is captured
• Uses participant time efficiently and effectively
• Eliminates or structures debate and discussion
• Produces visible output
7. Accelerated Facilitation Benefits
Sessions are structured to
maximize participant time,
Productivity allowing them to get more done
in less time than in traditional
meetings.
Sessions are designed to fully
engage all participants and ensure
Participant everyone’s ideas and opinions are
Satisfaction captured. This results in high
levels of participant buy-in and
commitment.
8. Accelerated Facilitation - Roles
Facilitator Role Participant Role
• Determines topics and • Follow instructions and
techniques in advance complete tasks
• Plans inputs and outputs • Provide content and
• Prepares materials perspective
• Provide clear instruction • Separate generating ideas
• Manage process from evaluating ideas
• Asks questions • Generate visible output
9. Accelerated Facilitation Materials
Paper and Spray Glue Tape
(or Whiteboard or Sticky Flipchart Paper)
Voting Stickers
Cards Markers
(or Sticky Notes)
10. Accelerated Idea Generation – Simple
Inputs None
Outputs List of Ideas
Benefits • Generates many ideas quickly
• Eliminates debate, discussion and judging
• Structures idea generation to ensure everyone
can provide input
• Reduces influence of position and personality
• Gives ownership to participants to state and
clarify their ideas, creating higher buy-in and
ownership
12. Accelerated Idea Generation - Facilitator
Work as a team to:
1. Select a facilitator and timekeeper for the group.
2. Print the question “What meetings are required to lead successful projects?” on
a card.
3. Facilitator starts at their right and moves left. Each participant takes a turn stating
one idea. Do not debate, discuss or judge.
4. Each participant writes their idea on a card and sticks it to the wall.
– It is okay to pass.
– It is okay to write an idea before your turn, then state it when it is your turn.
5. After one round, facilitator asks, “What other ideas do people have?”
6. Participants state their additional ideas, write them on cards and stick them to the
wall.
7. After all ideas are captured, facilitator says, “I’ll read each idea. Let me know if any
ideas are not clear.”
8. Facilitator reads each idea. If any ideas are not clear, participants re-write on new
cards and stick to the wall. Participants can write new ideas.
15 minutes.
13. Accelerated Idea Generation - Participant
Work as a team to:
1. Select a facilitator and timekeeper for your team.
2. Generate ideas to answer the question: “What meetings are
required to lead successful projects?”
3. At your turn, state one idea. Do not debate, discuss or judge.
4. Write your idea on a card and stick it to the wall.
5. State any additional ideas, write them on cards and stick them to
the wall.
6. The facilitator reviews the cards with the group.
15 minutes.
15. Accelerated Prioritization
Inputs List of ideas
Outputs Prioritized list of ideas
Benefits • Prioritizes ideas quickly
• Eliminates debate and discussion
• Ensures everyone provides input
• Eliminates influence of position and personality
• Produces visible output created by participants,
creating higher levels of buy-in and ownership
17. Accelerated Prioritization - Facilitator
Work as a team to:
1. Select a facilitator and timekeeper for your team.
2. Facilitator writes, “In which meetings is it most important to gain buy-in and consensus from a
group?” on a card and posts it to the wall.
3. Facilitator gives each participant 10 voting dots.
4. Without discussing, each team member places dots to vote on most important items.
– Place dots on cards
– More dots = More important
– You may place as many or as few dots as you want on each item.
– You must use all your dots.
5. Facilitator counts the number of dots on each card and writes the total on the card.
6. Facilitator arranges the cards in order, highest to lowest and says, “<Idea name> is most
important and gets <#> votes. <Idea name> is next most important and gets <#> votes . . .”
Voting – 7 mins
Summary – 3 mins
18. Accelerated Prioritization - Participant
Work as a team to:
1. Select a facilitator and timekeeper for your team.
2. Use voting dots to answer the question: “In which meetings is it
most important to gain buy-in and consensus from a group?”
3. Distribute your 10 dots to the most important items.
– Place dots on cards
– More dots = More important
– You may place as many or as few dots as you want on each item.
– You must use all your dots.
4. The facilitator summarizes the votes.
Voting – 7 mins
Summary – 3 mins
20. Accelerated Assessment
Inputs List of ideas
Outputs List of ideas - assessed
Benefits • Evaluates ideas quickly
• Structures debate and discussion
• Ensures everyone provides input
• Eliminates influence of position and personality
• Produces visible output created by participants,
creating higher levels of buy-in and ownership
22. Accelerated Assessment - Facilitator
Work as a team to:
1. Select a facilitator and timekeeper for your team.
2. Facilitator writes, “To what extent are these meetings currently successful gaining buy-in and
consensus from a group?” on a card and posts it to the wall.
3. Facilitator posts assessment (1-5 column) card next to top 3 items from previous exercise
4. Facilitator gives each participant 3 voting dots.
5. Without discussing, each team member places dots to assess top 3 items from previous
exercise.
– Place dots on assessment (1-5 column) cards
– You have one rating vote (dot) for each item.
– Dots on the line do not count
6. Where the highest and lowest votes are more than 1 column apart, Facilitator says, “There are
some different opinions on <Idea name>. Why is that?” Participants volunteer opinions. Do not
discuss ideas where there are dots in 2 columns or fewer.
Rating Scale
5 = Definitely
Voting – 5 mins 4 = To a large extent
Discussion - 10 mins 3 = To some extent
2 = Only slightly
1 = Not at all
23. Accelerated Assessment - Participant
Work as a team to:
1. Select a facilitator and timekeeper for your team.
2. Use voting dots to answer the question, “To what extent are these
meetings currently successful gaining buy-in and consensus
from a group?”
3. Without discussing, distribute your voting dots to assess top 3
items from previous exercise.
– Place dots on assessment (1-5 column) cards
– You have one rating vote (dot) for each item Rating Scale
– Dots on the line do not count
5 = Definitely
4. The facilitator discusses the results.
4 = To a large extent
3 = To some extent
Voting – 5 mins
Discussion - 10 mins 2 = Only slightly
1 = Not at all
26. Application of Core Techniques
Sample applications include:
1. Stakeholder feedback
2. Project/program charter development
3. Work breakdown structure (WBS) development
4. Requirements gathering and analysis
5. Solution planning
6. Risk planning
7. Issue identification, prioritization and assessment
8. Vendor evaluation
9. Brainstorming
10. Small groups (up to 10)
28. Application of Additional Techniques
Sample applications include:
1. Strategic planning
2. Product and service innovation
3. Project/program planning
4. Organization effectiveness
5. Process improvement
6. Training
7. Team offsite
8. Larger groups (10 – 100+)
29. Final Tips
Move from discussion agenda to task list and structured
techniques. Think about inputs, outputs and flow.
Incorporate techniques into your meetings to generate
ideas, prioritize and/or evaluate.
Replace cards and paper with sticky notes and
whiteboard/sticky flip charts as needed.
Request an electronic copy of course materials. Leave a
business card and write, “AF Materials” on the back.
30. Contact Information
Accelerated
Consulting Staffing Training
Facilitation
Brian Richardson, PMP
• Email: brian@richardsonconsultinggroup.com
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/briandrichardson
• Twitter: @briandrichardso
• Web: www.richardsonconsultinggroup.com