Comments on: Today’s Facilitation Guidelines (because tomorrow they’ll be different!)

By: Viv McWaters

Viv McWaters — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 02:37:14 +0000

Hi Steph – thanks for dropping by. I’d be happy for you to use my list – and I love your additions, especially ‘a little less control’. I was facilitating an open space gathering yesterday and someone came up to me and said they thought people were looking for direction. They were in the midst of discussions around a really complex community and environmental issue, so I suggested that if they couldn’t self manage in a workshop how on earth were they going to manage to make a difference in the midst of all the uncertainty and complexity that surrounds their issue. It was a good reminder to me (again) not to step in and fix things – as you say, to allow them to ‘play in the muck’
Cheers
Viv

By: Stephani Roy McCallum

Stephani Roy McCallum — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 01:18:22 +0000

Hi Viv – I’ve been cruising around, looking for inspiration on an article I need to write, that I think might be about applying Crowdsourcing principles in a face to face setting…..and it’s not coming together. So I thought I’d wander around and see what comes to me. I ended up on Chris’ site (Hi Chris), and from there found your list. It’s a great list, and I too would like to use it in a facilitation class I’m teaching next week. I might add two more – Question the assumptions in the room – yours and those of participants. Perhaps also – A Little Less Control, A Little More Freedom. Let the group go where they need to go, lose the structure wherever you can, even by letting thing get a little uncomfortable. That discomfort is a great place to bring out the deeper answers, and I’m a big fan of playing in the “muck”.
Thanks
Steph

By: Viv McWaters

Viv McWaters — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 22:48:59 +0000

Stuart, Yes! It’s their content, and God forbid that I would want to try and learn all that stuff before facilitating – apart from being impossible, who would want to? I do play ‘clarifier’ though, on behalf of those in the group who may not speak up for fear of being seen as ‘dumb’. For example, I’ll ask, for technical terms or jargon to be explained. Yesterday it was: “Explain to me again the difference between mitigation and adaptation – in 20 words or less?’

Chris, thanks for reminding me of the lead up – warming a group up to a workshop is, of course, important. Makes our job as facilitators much easier. And yes, please use my stuff wherever it’s helpful. I’ll probably keep adding to it and publish it on resources over on my Facilitating With Confidence site.

By: Chris Corrigan

Chris Corrigan — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:23:43 +0000

This is good stuff Viv. I like the extended event horizon and I think there is a corollory to that: the invittion process leading up to the event should be an extension backwards in time of the start of the meeting.

At any rate this is a good list…I might include it in an upcoming workbook for some Art of Hosting training if that\s all right…

By: Stuart Reid

Stuart Reid — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:44:58 +0000

I’d offer:

Don’t worry about the content – your job as facilitator is to support an opportunity for the participants to have a conversation about something that matters to them. If it matters to them, they can deal with the content, so you won’t have to.