If you are to help other people to be useful in meetings, first you have to be sorted in yourself, Part of a Workshop Facilitation module on MSc Agile Software Development

1. Managing Self

2. SKILLED FACILITATION
Core values are:
 Transparency
 Curiosity
 Accountability
 Informed choice
 Compassion
Ground rules are:
 State views and ask questions
 Test inferences and assumptions
 Jointly suggest next steps

3. CREATING A SUPPORTIVE CLIMATE
Counsellors aspire to provide core conditions (Rogers)
o Genuineness
o Respect
o Empathy
o Confidentiality
What can you DO to demonstrate that you provide these?
Do these behaviours come naturally?

4. IS FACILITATION EMOTIONAL LABOUR?
If the required behaviours don’t come naturally, is this emotional labour?
Emotional Labour = display of emotion for wages
Oppressive outcomes emotional dissonance leading to:
emotional numbness, self-estrangement, feeling “phoney”,
effort to maintain self-esteem, physical illness, guilt, burnout
Liberating outcomes task effectiveness, creativity, self-expression,
better interaction with delegates, enjoying your own performance
Aim eventually to create personal behaviour that:
o Expresses your distinct identity AND
o Creates a supportive climate for delegates
What can we do to achieve liberating outcomes?

5. COPING WITH EMOTIONAL LABOUR
What can we do to achieve liberating outcomes?
o Use limited dissonance to practice behaviours
Repeat, until you feel these behaviours more genuinely
o Air genuine concerns to the group, constructively
o Think up better strategies for next time,
o Review events in the role of altruistic service provider
o ‘Blow off’ in confidence but beware of reinforcing critical attitudes
o Use supervision or an action learning set
o Do the left-hand column tutorial
o If problematic emotions persist try:
yoga / meditation / counselling

6. PROFESSIONAL SUPERVISION
Other professions make similar demands on a practitioner
Clinicians, psychotherapists, counsellor …
They often require supervision - someone to talk to:
 Offload frustrations, identify sources of stress
 Think through dilemmas, consider ethical issues
 Evaluate interventions, devise action plans
 Interpret unusual situations
 Plan CPD, keep up to date with developments
 Interpret policy, devise new approaches
Your professional supervisor should not be your line manager
Any evaluation role is incompatible
Ideally they won’t even work for the same organisation
Professional supervision is expensive, but it is a true luxury

7. ACTION LEARNING SETS (Revans)
Action learning sets seem to be cheaper than supervision
An action learning set:
o Is a group of 4-7 people
o Has no leader but may call in an expert to help with a particular issue
o Meets regularly to support members in their professional learning
o Reflects on real work issues to create better responses
o Reflects on the experience of members to apply new ideas
o Shares how things are done elsewhere to build on good practice
o May (exceptionally) do everything that supervision does
o May (exceptionally) use an external facilitator
o Benefits from a senior sponsor
o May attempt to apply learning theories

8. WITHIN AN ACTION LEARNING MEETING
Each member in turn:
o Describes the outcome of any actions planned last time
o Presents a new issue from their work experience
Colleagues ask questions (never give advice)
to explore perspectives / assumptions / barriers
The issues-owner decides on next actions
The group reflects on what has been learned this time
The group may also reflect on their learning process
An individual may also (separately) suggest some reading
or anything else that may be generally useful
The group may agree to request action from management

9. FEEDBACK
You need feedback from workshop delegates.
Use a democracy wall to get feedback.
How did this meeting go?
How did I do, as a facilitator?
Invite people to write comments on the wall
Provide 5 sheets with headings:
 I discovered that …
 I noticed that …
 I felt that …
 I learned that …
 I would like to suggest that …

10. CAPABILITY MATURITY
You need your own benchmarks to aim for.
Capability maturity models track improvement
What CMM will you use to evaluate your CPD?

11. CAPABILITY MATURITY
You need your own benchmarks to aim for.
Capability maturity models track improvement
What CMM will you use to evaluate your CPD?
You might adapt an old CMM for systems analysts:

12. CAPABILITY MATURITY
Stage 1: Denial
Developers were unaware of human issues. If human
issues got in the way, they denied all responsibility. They
claimed that people should not question the system and
should do what the system tells them.
Stage 2: Angst
Some developers accepted responsibility for human issues.
Whenever a problem arose, they felt responsible for
solving it. They had no confidence in their ability and felt
bad about it.

13. CAPABILITY MATURITY
Stage 3: Confidence
Some developers found confidence in a systems approach.
They saw more complexity and problems than before. They
were exasperated when colleagues declined to use their
new ideas. They were popular with customers but their
managers questioned their loyalty.
Stage 4: Balancing
Some software developers knew that confidence was an issue
and aimed to be assertive rather than unduly diffident or
over-confident. The effort of maintaining this balance made it
difficult for them to concentrate on the task at hand.

14. CAPABILITY MATURITY
Stage 5: Holistic
The best developers focused on the task at hand and felt
responsible for human issues. Their sense of responsibility
showed as quiet assertiveness. If people ignored them, they
were progressively more insistent, until they controlled the
situation.
Plot your journey to capability maturity.
Start from the beginning (some time ago).
Where are you on the journey? Celebrate your progress so far.
Plan developments, but (being agile) keep your plans fluid.