Facilitation Skills Workshop

Course Duration 1 Day 

Facilitation is often referred to as the new cornerstone of management philosophy. With its focus
on fairness and creating an easy decision-making process. Creating a comfortable environment through better facilitation will give your participants a better understanding of what a good facilitator can do to improve any meeting or gathering.

The Facilitation Skills workshop can help any organization make better decisions. This workshop
will give participants an understanding of what facilitation is all about, as well as some tools that they can use to facilitate small meetings. A strong understating of how a facilitator can command a room and dictate the pace of a meeting will have your participants on the road to becoming great facilitators themselves.

Course Objectives

At the end of the course participants will be able to :

  • Define facilitation and identify its purpose and benefits.
  • Clarify the role and focus of a facilitator.
  • Differentiate between process and content in the context of a group discussion.
  • Provide tips in choosing and preparing for facilitation.
  • Identify a facilitator’s role when managing groups in each of Tuckman and Jensen’s
    stages of group development: forming, storming, norming and performing.
  • Identify ways a facilitator can help a group reach a consensus: from encouraging
    participation to choosing a solution.
  • Provide guidelines in dealing with disruptions, dysfunctions and difficult people in groups.
  • Define what interventions are, when they are appropriate and how to implement them.

Course Outline

Understanding Facilitation

What is Facilitation?

What is a Facilitator?

When is Facilitation Appropriate?

Process vs. Content

About Process

About Content

A Facilitator’s Focus

Laying the Groundwork

Choosing a Facilitated Approach

Planning for a Facilitated Meeting

Collecting Data

Tuckman and Jensen’s Model of Team Development

Stage One: Forming

Stage Two: Storming

Stage Three: Norming

Stage Four: Performing

Building Consensus

Encouraging Participating

Gathering Information

Presenting information

Synthesizing and Summarizing

Reaching a Decision Point

Identifying the Options

Creating a Short List

Choosing a Solution

Using the Multi-Option Technique

Dealing with Difficult People

Addressing Disruptions

Common Types of Difficult People and How to Handle Them

Helping the Group Resolve Issues on Their Own

Addressing Group Dysfunction

Using Ground Rules to Prevent Dysfunction

Restating and Reframing Issues

Some of the ways of restating and reframing includes

Getting People Back on Track

About Intervention

Why Intervention May Be Necessary

When to Intervene

Levels of Intervention

Intervention Techniques

Using Your Processes

Boomerang it Back

ICE It: Identify, Check for

Agreement, Evaluate How to Resolve

Download this outline as a PDF.

Facilitation Skills Outline – Full Day