Some things to consider are:. To build a safe as well as comfortable environment, a good facilitator has a few more points to consider. How do you protect folks who are worried their ideas will be attacked or mocked? How do you hold back the big talkers who tend to dominate while still making them feel good about their participation?
Much of the answer lies in the Ground Rules. Most meetings have some kind of operating rules. Some groups use Robert's Rules of Order parliamentary procedure to run their meetings while others have rules they've adopted over time.
When you want the participation to flow and for folks to really feel invested in following the rules, the best way to go is to have the group develop them as one of the first steps in the process.
This builds a sense of power in the participants "Hey, she isn't telling us how to act. It's up to us to figure out what we think is important! Common ground rules are:. As we've already said, the facilitator is responsible for providing a "safe" climate and working atmosphere for the meeting. But you're probably wondering, "What do I actually do during the meeting to guide the process along? Few of us start our meetings on time.
The result? Those who come on time feel cheated that they rushed to get there! Start no more than five minutes late, ten at the maximum and thank everyone who came on time. When latecomers straggle in, don't stop your process to acknowledge them. Wait until after a break or another appropriate time to have them introduce themselves.
Make a point to welcome everyone who comes. Don't complain about the size of a group if the turnout is small! Nothing will turn the folks off who did come out faster. Thank all of those who are there for coming and analyze the turnout attendance later. Go with who you have. There are lots of ways for people to introduce themselves to each other that are better than just going around the room.
The kinds of introductions you do should depend on what kind of meeting you are having, the number of people, the overall goals of the meeting, and what kind of information it would be useful to know. Some key questions you can ask members to include in their introductions are:. Go over what's going to happen in the meeting. Check with the group to make sure they agree with and like the agenda.
You never know if someone will want to comment and suggest something a little different. This builds a sense of ownership of the meeting and lets people know early on that you're there to facilitate their process and their meeting, not your own agenda. The same is true for the outcomes of the meeting. You'll want to go over these with folks as well to get their input and check that these are the desired outcomes they're looking for.
This is also where the ground rules that we covered earlier come in. This is one of your main jobs as a facilitator. It's up to you to get those who need to listen to listen and those who ought to speak. Encourage people to share their experiences and ideas and urge those with relevant background information share it at appropriate times. Groups have a tendency to wander far from the original agenda, sometimes without knowing it. When you hear the discussion wandering off, bring it to the group's attention.
You can say "That's an interesting issue, but perhaps we should get back to the original discussion. Sometimes, it's easier for groups to discuss the color of napkins than the real issues they are facing.
Help the group not to get immersed in details. Suggest instead, "Perhaps the committee could resolve the matter. Getting commitments for future involvement is often a meeting goal. You want leaders to commit to certain tasks, people to volunteer to help on a campaign, or organizations to support your group.
Make sure adequate time is allocated for seeking commitment. For small meetings, write people's names down on newsprint next to the tasks they agreed to undertake. One important rule of thumb is that no one should leave a meeting without something to do. Don't ever close a meeting by saying "We'll get back to you to confirm how you might like to get involved.
Sign them up! Many groups will discuss things ten times longer than they need to unless a facilitator helps them to recognize they're basically in agreement. Summarize a consensus position, or ask someone in the group to summarize the points of agreement, and then move forward.
If one or two people disagree, state the situation as clearly as you can: "Tom and Levonia seem to have other feelings on this matter, but everyone else seems to go in this direction.
Perhaps we can decide to go in the direction that most of the group wants, and maybe Tom and Levonia can get back to us on other ways to accommodate their concerns.
Some groups feel strongly about reaching consensus on issues before moving ahead. If your group is one of them, be sure to read a good manual or book on consensus decision making. Many groups, however, find that voting is a fine way to make decisions. A good rule of thumb is that a vote must pass by a two-thirds majority for it to be a valid decision.
For most groups to work well, they should seek consensus where possible, but take votes when needed in order to move the process forward. The facilitator protects the shy and quiet folks in a meeting and encourages them to speak out. There is also the important job of keeping domineering people from monopolizing the meeting or ridiculing the ideas of others.
Sometimes, people dominate a discussion because they are really passionate about an issue and have lots of things to say. One way to channel their interest is to suggest that they consider serving on a committee or task force on that issue. Other people, however, talk to hear themselves talk.
If someone like that shows up at your meeting, look further ahead in this chapter for some tips on dealing with "disrupters. Sometimes issues will arise in the meeting that are so important, they will take much more time than you thought.
Sometimes, nobody will have thought of them at all. You may run over time or have to alter your agenda to discuss them. Be sure to check with group about whether this is O. If necessary, ask for a five-minute break to confer with key leaders or participants on how to handle the issue and how to restructure the agenda. Be prepared to recommend an alternate agenda, dropping some items if necessary.
Before ending the meeting, summarize the key decisions that were made and what else happened. Be sure also to summarize the follow-up actions that were agreed to and need to take place.
Remind folks how much good work was done and how effective the meeting hopefully was. Refer back to the objectives or outcomes to show how much you accomplished. Take a minute to thank people who prepared things for the meeting, set up the room, brought refreshments, or did any work towards making the meeting happen. Thank all of the participants for their input and energy and for making the meeting a success. People appreciate nothing more than a meeting that ends on time! It's usually a good idea to have some "closure" in a meeting, especially if it was long, if there were any sticky situations that caused tension, or if folks worked especially hard to come to decisions or make plans.
A nice way to close a meeting is to go around the room and have people say one word that describes how they are feeling now that all of this work has been done.
You'll usually get answers from "exhausted" to "energized! Even with a well-prepared agenda and key points you must make, you need to be flexible and natural. If people sense that you are reading memorized lines, they will feel like they are being talked down to, and won't respond freely. Are people shifting in their seats? Are they bored? This is a simple way to come to quick conclusions. If a meeting involves lots of conversation, separate into smaller discussion groups so the quietest participants can contribute to the decision-making process.
Give the dominant personalities jobs to keep them focused and to encourage them to contribute their energy toward productive tasks.
Break up serious discussions with fun, low-stress team-building or trust-building exercises. These games help keep attendees positive and productive. If you notice power imbalances and hierarchies developing within a group, bring the focus back to the discussion through questions, solutions to problems, summaries and reflections. Keep positively energizing the panel. By being attentive, you can ensure the proceedings stay on track and the meeting progresses as planned.
Once you have established the main theme of the meeting, ask all the attendees to pause and think about it. Ask them to write down a few thoughts or ideas before the group begins discussing the topic together. Get the group's perspective and feedback on the meeting's proceedings.
This minute exercise can help the facilitator understand what went well and what they can change for future meetings. Clearly document the meeting's proceedings and outcome, so everyone understands the concluding details. Summarize the meeting verbally as well as in writing. Find jobs. Company reviews. Find salaries. Upload your resume. The difficulty of working with someone who is sitting somewhere else can be reduced when you see each other or you are watching the same screen via screensharing.
The solutions to this were pioneered by Skype and Google Hangouts initially, with some other really noteworthy options emerging in the last few years. Have you ever had to generate ideas or brainstorm with people who were at different locations? Or even planning a series of workshops with a remote team? Seeing each other while video conferencing makes remote working easier.
Complex problem solving often requires a visual platform to brainstorm and online whiteboards can help replicating the feeling of working together in person. They are not only useful for preparing your workshop with a remote team, but also for online meeting facilitation. Online whiteboards offer an endless flexible space where you can collaborate and share ideas.
You can create an online canvas and use that as a simple whiteboard for jotting down ideas, or as an infinite board for building a project with a remote team.
They allow the creation of mockups and schemes, you can quickly add stickers, write down ideas and leave feedback. Successful workshops and meetings are built on effective communication and this is even more true in online settings. While many meetings can be done over free video chat software, finding online communication tools that work asynchronously or allow groups to work together over longer periods have their place in your toolbox too.
Do you have an endless to-do-list while having multiple facilitation assignments? Set a meeting with your next client, replace all the missing pieces of sticky notes and wallpapers from your magical workshop kit, checking in with the catering about the planned breaks and lunch for your session tomorrow, prepare and send a survey to participants for your next event… the list is endless when you juggle multiple meetings and workshops that you need to facilitate.
There are a vast amount of task management software tools available on the market. Some are part of complex project management suites, while others are dedicated only to keeping your tasks in order. You can find our favorite ones below:. All three of the tools above have easy-to-use mobile versions and allow syncing over devices. With either of them you can drop lengthy email threads and out-of-date spreadsheets so you can get your tasks organized and collaborate effectively with your co-facilitators.
Noting down various bits of information during a session design process is crucial: when talking with clients, jotting down some personal follow-up steps, saving useful links and so on.
Having your trusted notebook with you is essential to register all the information you need in one place, but organizing, finding, and sharing your notes is easier when using digital tools. Doing this online has never been easier. There are plenty of apps that allow you to write down thoughts, sync them across devices and share them with your colleagues.
Below you can find the most popular options with somewhat different strengths:. Although they differ in the way they work, what they have in common is the most important advice for using any software for taking notes and getting your documents organised: you actually need to remember to use it.
These tools really become useful when all your notes are in the same place and you can use powerful search and sharing features. If you are planning to facilitate a group session that spans more than a couple of hours and you have different workshop activities, theory blocks, team building games and energizer activities, then you likely need to have some sort of agenda to plan the sequence of these activities.
If you want to avoid having dozens of different versions of Excel or Word files, then an online editable agenda might come handy. Have you ever run a workshop or meeting where you wanted to quickly poll the opinions of all your participants? Workshops and training sessions are meant to be interactive, two-way communication helps to keep your group engaged.
As long as the size of your group allows, you might use plenary conversations so each participant is able to share and elaborate their opinion on the subject at hand. However, there might be some scenarios where the live interaction gets difficult.
Imagine running a large group session with dozens of participants. Or a virtual session. Having a meeting facilitation software that allows your participants to easily interact with each other can be useful in such cases — for instance to easily poll your participants and visualize the results. This is where classroom engagement tools come into the picture where we will focus on three solutions:.
When running sprints or design workshops, being able to collaboratively work on visual assets for product and marketing initiatives can often mean the difference between a productive or unproductive session.
Files uploaded to conversations are saved in the channel root folder. If someone tries to organize the files and move them into different folders, then the file links in the conversations break. This sometimes leads to time wasted doing manual replications. The sound quality and network can be unreliable.
Communication Slack A real-time messaging platform that brings all your communication together in one place. Lack of privacy in Flock. It seems like everything you do seems to be visible to your colleagues. Ease of setting up different questions, and having the results either live or hidden until the reveal. Note-taking and Productivity Evernote A hub that brings all your ideas in a single place. Loom Video recording tool where you can record your camera, microphone, and desktop simultaneously.
You can move around the entire presentation, jumping from one place to another, entering images, moving the background, making turns, and even add music. No contact or calendar management, but you can book meetings directly within the platform. All users are also able to add their own profile, which helps to align user interests and skills.
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