How to Be a Facilitator

The Parable of the Plates

2012-02-02T07:34:00.006+10:00

# I sat two plates on the bench. (One for me, and one for my wife.)

# I then retrieved two pieces of bread from the freezer, which I could not separate.

# I put the two pieces of bread in the microwave to unfreeze them so they could be separated.

# I fetched butter, Vegemite and honey.

# I looked at the bench. There was only one plate. I looked again. There was still only one plate.

# I went to the drawer and took out another plate.

# I heard the microwave bing, and removed the bread.

# I separated the two pieces of bread and put them in the toaster.

# I looked at the bench. There were now three plates.

# I looked around for the practical joker. There was only me and my three plates.

Yes, this actually happened as described. Yes, it took me a few moments to figure out that the second plate (and ultimately the third plate) had been in the microwave holding the frozen, stuck slices of bread.

What lessons can the facilitator draw from this parable?

((((Elevator Music))))

I'm going to have a turn at this. The lessons I identified are:

(This is an old teachers' trick.) Don't turn your back on the group, even if they appear catatonic.
What appears to be magic is likely to have a plausible explanation.
Do not try to do too many things at once.
Use a minimum of resources.
Pay more attention to what is going on around you.
Never facilitate when you have just woken up.
Learn to laugh at yourself.
Have a bowl of cereal instead.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Facilitation & Marley

2012-01-30T16:36:00.000+10:00

The Book Cover

I have just read the book Marley & Me by John Grogan, and thoroughly enjoyed it. There is also a film of the same name, which does a pretty good job of presenting Marley's story.

So, what can a Facilitator learn from Marley?

Towards the end of the book John Grogan writes (page 401):

Was it possible for a dog - any dog, but especially a nutty, wildly uncontrollable one like ours - to point humans to the things that really matter in life? I believed it was. Loyalty. Courage. Devotion. Simplicity. Joy.

The process of facilitation is sometimes a rollercoaster ride - like being out with Marley. You are not sure what is around the next corner, and that is both scary and exhilarating. But beneath the fear should be a solid foundation.

The foundation includes loyalty (commitment to the client) and simplicity (goals and a basic roadmap for the session); and even courage (to get up and do this job) and joy (when things click into place after all the hard work). Devotion is a tricky one to account for, but I'm sure it is there with my long-term clients. I am certainly devoted to their success, and my facilitation is a tool to accomplish that.

So there you have it. Marley & me, & all of you too!

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Activities to Encourage Empathy - How Well Do We Know Each Other?

2012-01-03T21:51:00.000+10:00

In the excellent book A Whole New Mind Dan Pink writes about an interesting activity which he calls "A Day in the Life". I have not used this approach, but I hope to soon.

The activity is for working with an intact group in which people seem to lack insight into the work situation of their colleagues. I think this will be particularly valuable if some of the colleagues work off-site or are quite introverted or isolated for other reasons.

The approach (with minor tweaking) is:

Have each participant take a piece of Butchers' Paper and fold it in half twice (to make four equal-sized quadrants).
Ask them to write their name on the top of the sheet, and to label each quadrant: My Highs, My Lows, My Frustrations and My Rewards.
These 'posters' are blue-tacked around the walls.
Everyone circulates around the room, writing what they think are the answers for their colleagues (not themselves).
Then each person in turn stands in front of their poster and responds to their colleagues entries and explains what their workday is really like.

If you've tried this approach, or a similar one, please add a comment about your experience.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Ask a Question, Then Let Them Answer It

2011-12-24T18:36:00.000+10:00

When you ask a question, please wait for it to be answered.

I was listening to a podcast from the ABC' (Australian Broadcasting Commission) Big Ideas series yesterday. Bret Easton Ellis was being interviewed by Simon Marnie at the Byron Bay Writers Festival in 2010. It was a great interview in which Ellis said a lot about how and why he writes. The interviewer saved a question for last. It was a question from his 17 year old son, who had been studying Ellis's American Psycho at high school. We waited with bated breath for the question to be asked. The interviewer took questions from other people first, and then posed his son's question. Ellis said it was the best question of the session, people laughed and applauded, and then the interviewer closed the interview. He did not let Ellis answer the question, even after it had been identified as the best question of the interview.

I appreciate that the interviewer may have been following the maxim, 'always leave them wanting' (attributed to both Walt Disney and PT Barnum). But I saw it as a lost opportunity to learn more about this fascinating and complex writer.

You really need to know a bit about Ellis's work to appreciate the question. The question was, 'Why are you such a sick f--k?'

Some people will think a while before responding. This may be uncomfortable for you, but assuming your question was valid and useful it is probably not uncomfortable for them. So be prepared to wait, and then listen with all of your being to the response.

I think this also applies to the sometimes overused technique of asking 'rhetorical questions'. As a facilitator, I'd rather ask a genuine question and listen to the answer, than pose a question without giving that opportunity.

(The podcast is available here.)

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Writing Clinical Notes & Daria

2011-12-10T07:56:00.001+10:00

Daria Logo (source: en.wikipedia.org)

Last year I was asked by Centacare to work with clinicians on writing clinical notes. This is important for both counsellor and client. Well-taken notes have limited impact on the counselling session, while providing useful information for clinical records and to guide future sessions.

Counsellors have an unenviable task. Anything that can be done to maximise outcomes and conveniently meet practice standards is valuable for these people.

I was struggling to figure out how I could give the participants a practical exercise in writing clinical notes on a low budget. The solution I came up with was to show a dysfunctional family scene, and ask the students to write clinical notes summarising what they saw happening.

In asked the participants to take notes on the same scene, as I was interested in what was common across the participants' notes, and what they saw differently. As I was teaching the SOAP Method of recording clinical notes, I was also interested in which elements they each recorded under each label - Subjective, Objective, Assessment and Plan.

I considered programs like Married with Children, Friends, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, Neighbours, and others. I kept coming back to Daria - a tv show about a sensitive, practical girl who is a goth (or what we would have called 'alternative' in my teenage years) growing up in a family in which she is misunderstood. (That's a very short version of what it is about. It is a show I really enjoy, and I commend it to you.)

The segment I chose went for about two minutes. Daria was in hospital with a stress-induced rash. Her family was interacting with Daria, with each other, and with Daria's doctor. Daria's perspective was being ignored, and Daria was developing a crush on the doctor.

The segment from Daria may seem trivial - after all, it is just a cartoon. In the workshop, it generated about 20 separate points, and resulted in a 30 minute discussion about the interactions and what they tell us about the relationships. There was plenty of rich content to be turned into SOAP Notes.

Popular culture can be a useful piece of common ground, and the apparently trivial can lead to powerful interaction.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Learning from Others

2011-12-07T20:03:00.000+10:00

There is so much we can learn from observing other people when they facilitate. In meetings, presentations, lectures and facilitated workshops I am sometimes distracted. This may be due to daydreaming, but is more likely to be because my brain is operating on another plane. On that plane I am asking questions like:

What did they just do?
Why did they do that?
What will they say in response to that interjection?
Will they address this obvious problem with their statement?
What will they do next?
Could or would I do what they just did?
When would it be appropriate to do what they just did?
What could they have done differently then?

I am not completely somewhere else when I am doing this, but I couldn't say I am strictly attending to the topic in hand either.

I recently came across some notes I took at a seminar a couple of years ago - I was not writing this blog at the time, but I had been developing a Presentation Skills workshop. I wrote down:

Use the names of people in the audience, lots of people.
Don't stand in front of the screen.
Don't look at the screen.
Don't just acknowledge VIPs, have something to say that is relevant to their portfolio/interests.
Start the session with a question or a confrontational statement.
DON'T read from the slide.
Check the size of the text on your slides (at the venue, on the venue's equipment)!

Pay attention, there is a lot to learn from other people's performance.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Wordle's Are For Presentation, Attraction & Analysis

2011-12-07T15:08:00.001+10:00

Wordle on Performance People Webpage (created at www.wordle.net)

Wordles are visual representations of sets of words (see the wordle above that I have on the front page of my website - it is clearer there). The individual words are presented with more frequently used words being larger and less frequently used words being smaller. They are also presented randomly (in a jumbled manner), so that any connections within phrases and sentences are severed.

Just recently two people have asked me questions about Wordles. One did not know what they were, or perhaps just what they are called, and the other was trying to transfer the Wordle they had created to another place. So I thought I would post about wordles, and their potential uses.

If you are familiar with Escher's explorations of absurdity and infinity, you will appreciate how pictures can entice you to look more closely. Wordle's can have this effect, especially if you are familiar with the topic. The Wordle at my website is also on a banner, and people often look more closely to the Wordle, to see what it says.

Wordle in Facilitation 101 (created at www.wordle.net)

Wordles are also a great way to present a big chunk of information in a novel way. I use the Wordle above for this purpose. It is the content of a Facilitation Skills workshop, and I put it up during the breaks. It 'feels right' in this context, and reinforces key terminology from the workshop.

Wordle of 10 Blog Posts (created at www.wordle.net)

And finally, Wordles can be useful tools for the superficial analysis of large chunks of wordy information.

In the example above, the Wordle is from the first 10 posts of this Facilitation blog. The biggest words are 'project', 'people' and 'PowerPoint'. I think 'facilitation' and 'facilitator' should appear more often. On closer examination of the 10 blog posts: three are about projects in appropriate ways; one long one is about PowerPoint; and I use the word 'people' a lot. I made a mental note that my other professional life (in project management) should not take centre stage in a blog about facilitation; and to use words other than people more often.

Other ways to use Wordles for analysis include:

Identifying aspects of an organisation's culture or its values by Wordle-ing their last five Annual Reports.
Wordle-ing a speech to check for overuse of words (like 'people').
Putting a report into Wordle for some pointers towards your conclusions or to assist in writing your executive summary. (Or in less formal situations, using a Wordle instead of an Executive Summary.)

The Wordle website is here: www.wordle.org. I suggest you go and have a play.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Your (Carefully Crafted) PowerPoint is Unavailable

2011-12-02T20:23:00.000+10:00

There are numerous reasons why your PowerPoint slides may not be available to you. These are the slides that you carefully planned and meticulously constructed, and they are absent for some reason - sometimes technical and sometimes human error. Whatever the reason, this post is about what you can do about it.

Always have a Plan B - a set of printed slides for you to follow. These are not just for PowerPoint failing. It also means that you always know which slide is coming next. I have used PowerPoint's "9 to a page" handout for years. I now use "6 to a page" so the content is more readable.

You might even have a Plan C. If you have a laptop with the relevant file, you can set it up in front of you and read from it. A co-facilitator did this many years ago at a coaching session for BHP Coal. It looked a little unusual, but was certainly effective.

Always consider having a handout with your key points for your audience, not in case of PowerPoint failure, but to give them something to take away at the end. These become even more useful when PowerPoint fails.

To maximise the likelihood that the PowerPoint file you need will be there when you need it, do not just email it to the organiser or bring it on a USB stick, do both.

Cut your losses early. Switch to Plan B, and don't have someone sharing the stage with you trying to get the PC working. And if someone is trying to get it working, definitely switch the projector off, so your audience is not watching this person navigating around in Windows or playing with Display Settings.

PowerPoint failure should never be 'the end of the world'. (To keep your spirits up, you might need to have "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor running through your head, preferably the version sung in the desert in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.)

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

For more tips on using PowerPoint, click on the PowerPoint label immediately below.

Some Notes on Preparation

2011-11-28T20:41:00.001+10:00

I wrote earlier about the way Carla Rogers of EVOLVE has written about working in facilitation with Indigenous people in a post called 'Facilitating Difference From Oneness'. I wrote in the earlier post about her theme of exploring difference through a rich appreciation of what we have in common. (Click here to read the earlier post.)

In the post, Carla also wrote about preparation and flexibility while facilitating. She sees it as important to have a gap between preparation and facilitation in order to be truly present as a facilitator. I would go a step further and suggest leaving a gap between everything and facilitation, although that might be a bit impractical. In the past I have done this by walking away while people were gathering. Now I feel the need to relate to participants before commencing, so I need to get into my personal space earlier. Being in nature is a good way to do this, as is being with children you love.

Carla also wrote that she could be criticised for undertaking very thorough preparation, as it stifles flexibility when you facilitate. However, although she undertakes thorough preparation, she is happily flexibly, even subscribing to the guiding principles of Open Space Technology. (Whoever comes is the right people; whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened; whenever it starts is the right time; and when it’s over it’s over. More on these here.)

Juxtaposing thorough preparation with flexibility is an interesting challenge. Carla writes 'usually what happens dramatically departs from the plan in terms of approach, while remaining true to the intent and values that we have jointly articulated'.

I believe that when you are working for a client or a cause, it is important that the intent and values be articulated early, and that they are considered while being flexible about other aspects of the session. Being in the moment and being flexible should then be achieved within the context of the larger purpose that brought the group together.

If you haven't been there already, you can read Carla's post 'Facilitating Difference From Oneness' by clicking here.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Presenting Content from a Report or Other Document

2011-11-26T17:51:00.002+10:00

Images adapted from AGSO 2000 'Natural hazards and the risks they pose to South-East Qld'.

At a recent conference, a presenter wanted to show the audience some important information from a recent report. He had the report on the laptop attached to the projector. He opened the report and located a graph.

It may have been a great graph, but as it had been prepared for publication in a paper-based A4 report, it did not scale to 'readable' when projected onto the screen. Also, he had to 'flick' some pages to get to the graph - with blurring content projected onto the screen, and the top of his head prominently displayed to his audience for quite a while.

There is a right way to do this, and it takes some preparation time. First, you need to get the graph out of the report. If possible, go back to the source (often Excel), and manipulate the scales and labels to make them at least 18 point text. If this is not possible, consider recreating the graph using your drawing skills in PowerPoint. As a worst case, copy and paste directly between the report and PowerPoint. You can overlay larger labels inside PowerPoint.

Consider remaking the graph as a 'build' - starting with the X and Y axes, then adding the bars or lines into the graph one at a time, so you can explain each element. On a bar graph, you may put up a bunch of prior years' data in one go, and then add more recent years one at a time. On a line graph, adding a line at a time allows your audience to absorb the content.

In PowerPoint, show the report cover (assuming the title is big and bold) on a slide, to set the context. Then add slides with the elements of the modified graph - readable and able to be explained for the benefit of the audience. You can add other content, such as key points or recommendations, but only if you summarise them to key words only.

In conclusion, even though you can open documents on the laptop, try to avoid it if at all possible.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

No Sledging Please

2011-11-24T19:51:00.002+10:00

You need to take care not to sledge people when you facilitate.

(Sledging is a sporting term in Australia. I believe the US equivalent may be 'trash talk', but I could be wrong. There are sure to be similar terms in other languages. Sledging is when you talk in a nasty way to someone, often to cause them to lose their self-control and make mistakes. Sledging is often passed off as joking; but I think this is overly generous when it is used in situations where 'losing your cool' can result in losing or failing.)

I believe that sledging while facilitating or in any kind of presentation situation is a sign of nervousness. A case may be made for it being linked to low self-esteem, under-preparation or unmitigated disaster. However, in each of these situations there are more functional ways of acting.

My admonition to take care not to sledge people when you facilitate seems pretty obvious, but many times we sledge the person who is most vulnerable at the time. No, I'm not talking about the participant in the wheelchair, or the one with the speech defect, or the one who has verbal diarrhoea. No, I am talking about you. You are the most vulnerable person, as you are in no position to defend yourself once you start, and once you start, your nerves may push you to escalate the sledging.

So don't start. And if you catch yourself doing it, stop.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

A Smarter Intro

2011-11-22T13:08:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I attended an Urban Water Security Symposium held by Queensland Conservation with support from CQUniversity Australia and other organisations. It was a fantastic event with excellent speakers and topics, and great technical content clearly presented and supported with examples of real world application.

Alan Hoban of Water by Design started his presentation with: "Imagine that an alien came down to Earth. How would you describe what water is?"

Alan went on to talk about water being colourless and odourless and transparent; and how we often talk about water in terms of the aspects that are not water, like whether it is salty or fresh. And then he was off and away telling us about significant design projects harnessing the qualities of water.

In a leadership training session I recently asked the audience to chat among themselves and try to answer the question: "What is this leadership thing about?" This question was purposely extremely broad. It is also very intentionally not a definition from the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, or even the (unsourced) Google Dictionary.

Think about starting your next session by asking people to try to explain the thing you are to discuss. This could work for any topic from organisational growth to genetic mutation to genealogy to governance.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Make It Your Own!

2011-11-08T12:35:00.028+10:00

Some time ago I created a train-the-trainer package for a workshop that has been delivered by someone else. This excellent material can get to a significantly larger audience if more people are able to deliver it. (Not quite the scale of Al Gore's climate change presentation, but definitely along similar lines.)

I had been looking at the existing materials, and admiring the current approach, and considering how to train people in using these materials. My initial thoughts were around the structure of the train-the-trainer workshop.

Then I remembered an old adage from my project management days at Andersen Consulting. When you inherit someone else's project plan, you should 'make it your own'. This was a common situation. For various reasons you would inherit someone else's plan. For example, one person plans the project while writing the proposal, and now you are the engagement project manager, maybe months later, depending on the length of the sales cycle. Or you might be 'parachuted in'; to rescue a project that is not going well.

Once I made a project my own, I tended to stop double-guessing the previous project manager; or constantly considering I could do it better - because it was mine now.

'Making it your own' can be done in various ways. In a project plan the most basic step is to replace the former project manager's name with your own in the document footers. It may involve changing the file name to conform to your file naming standards for the project. In MS Project it might involve changing the colour scheme on the Gantt chart.

For a more extensive job of making the project your own, and the real essence of making it your own, you need to get into the guts of the project. One person may have split the tasks up on conventional Henry Ford 'compartmentalisation of task' lines; when you prefer a 'work package' approach, so people see their part of the project through from inception to implementation. Or you might re-jig the organisation structure to establish some seniority to give opportunity to delegate leadership roles. Or you might rearrange the schedule, bringing forward some tasks and delaying others.

Back to the topic in hand, I decided that rather than simply admiring the work that has been done, I needed to 'make it my own'. To do this I:

Put some more structure into the Running Sheet - bigger font size, more spread out, and some colour coding.
Developed a 'mini-running sheet' with highlights from the more detailed version.
Developed PowerPoint slides to support the structure of the delivery, including some introductory stuff that may currently be spoken. So that the slides can reinforce the spoken word.
Created a 'look and feel' that was recognisable across all materials, including fonts, logos and other aspects of presentation.
Developed some basic handouts to supplement the existing materials.
And finally, I moved some content around.

Consider the ways you can take ownership of material you have inherited, and 'make it your own'.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Buzzz... Local People Sharing Their Stories, Their Perspectives

2011-11-05T21:54:00.004+10:00

My family and I put on an event in early November 2011. We did a lot of planning and preparation, and the work paid off as the evening went very well. The speakers were great - talking on the topic "Inspiration: Who or what inspires me". This was the first of these events, and we hope to do many more.

If you would like some more details, click here.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

The Rule of Despite

2011-11-05T21:34:00.000+10:00

Geoff's Law

I have done a short Google search to rule out the 'prior art' conditions in intellectual property law, and decided to declare Geoff's Law, also to be known as The Rule of Despite. Murphy was certainly onto something, although I find him a bit negative. So I have a new law. This law is a bit negative too, but ultimately should result in good outcomes. It is more a recognition of negative aspects of a situation, rather than a prediction of negative outcomes.

The Rule of Despite is: "(Not to be negative, but) managers must progress innovation, support workers' efforts and pursue great outcomes for clients, despite the circumstances in which they find themselves and their teams."

I find that many people see the barriers and not the enablers; in SWOT-speak, they see the weaknesses and threats, and not the strengths and opportunities.

Although this is a message much broader than 'facilitation', it is relevant to the facilitator at two levels.

Firstly, the old saying 'the show must go on' is frequently relevant for the facilitator. The laptop is in a tailspin of downloading updates and rebooting spontaneously; there are chairs but no tables for people's workbooks; the air-conditioner has broken down and sweat is dripping off your nose; your shoes are too small and your markers are all fuzzy; but the show must go on.

Secondly, in facilitating commitment, you may confront significant resistance due to external circumstances. Members of your audience may have been conditioned to be 'the devil's advocate' (by the way, I'm never sure where to put the apostrophe in that phrase - are they advocating on behalf of one or more devils?); or they may be having a bad day; or they may be resistant for many other reasons. Whatever the cause of resistance, it is important not to let too many excuses get in the way of progress.

Sometimes we need to ask people to commit, despite their circumstances.

I commend to you, Geoff's Law.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Not Finishing Quite Yet; Maybe Never Finishing

2011-10-31T17:13:00.000+10:00

Urgh. I've been here for hours. The chairs are not comfortable. I am not enjoying the session. The topic is wandering. I have a strong streak of super ego saying, 'stay, you made the commitment, now stay to the end'. The time they published to finish is long past. (No, not 5 minutes passed, although I thought Urgh at about that time too. No, about 35 minutes past - which is a more than 25% overrun, and counting.) I actually need to do other things, even if my diary is blank for the next few hours. The air is stuffy. And they just keep going. Why me? Why now?

OK. Let's get some perspective here. All over the world there are people genuinely suffering. I attended a school where speech night tended to go into the wee small hours. This is good practice if I am ever approached to do a part (or worse, understudy) in 'Waiting for Godot'. I could pull out my phone and catch up on email/Plants vs Zombies. I could do Latin declensions in my head (if I'd paid attention at school). I can continue to catalogue the body language of the other participants. I could even pay attention, although I seem to be doing that, and it is not sufficiently interesting to dominate my attention. I could doodle another 5 pointed star. I could close my eyes, just for a moment. No! Don't close my eyes. That would definitely be a mistake, compounded by my head rolling about on my shoulders, or crashing to the table.

Why can't they offer to let people go (if they need to go)?
Why can't they tell us what else they are going to do?
Why can't they tell us how much longer they expect to go?
Why can't they apologise for going past the published finish time?
Why can't they ask permission to keep going?
Why can't they start to wrap-up?
Why can't they suggest that we reconvene in a couple of days?
Why can't they ask whether a small number of people would like to reconvene in a couple of days?
Why can't they call a break so the ones who have to go are not embarrassed to get up and leave?
Why can't they finish? Just finish.

These bullet points are not the result of a rambling mind. (Well, maybe they are a bit.) They are your choices when you go over the allotted time. Whether you allotted it or someone else did, you are still responsible for the consequences of going over time. So check the list and take appropriate action. If you cannot or are unwilling to do the last one, do at least three of the others - any three, just make sure that they are relevant. And if you do some things that result in us keeping going, make sure you keep it interesting and clearly on-topic, and that you finish soon.

Thank-you,

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Celebrating Difference

2011-10-19T20:39:00.015+10:00

I love the way Carla Rogers of EVOLVE has written about working in facilitation with Indigenous people in a post called 'Facilitating Difference From Oneness'. One of her themes was the importance of exploring difference through a rich appreciation of what we have in common. This can be done in 'cultural sensitivity training' by first discussing what we have in common, and moving on to our differences.

I really like this. The concept of moving from our similarities to our differences is like the subtle process in the SWOT of beginning with our strengths, so our weaknesses feel less overwhelming (and similarly with our opportunities and threats).

If we are about building bridges between people and between cultures, then this is a great insight into meeting as people.

You can read Carla's post 'Facilitating Difference From Oneness' by clicking here.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

I found Carla's blog through the AFN-L mailing list. Anyone interested in facilitation in Australasia can benefit from dipping a toe into the often rushing waters of this mailinglist, or even better, diving right in.

Facilitation & The Great Circle Navigators

2011-10-16T15:55:00.000+10:00

The Readers Digest Great World Globe (Instagram with Rise filter)

What can we learn from the Great Circle Navigators?

John Kapeleris, entrepreneur and General Manager at the Australian Institute of Commercialisation, blogs on a range of interesting topics around innovation, commercialisation and setting and accomplishing goals. I am a regular troll and some time commenter at his blog. This weekend he incited me to respond by writing about the Red Queen Effect, based on the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll's (1871) Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There.

As an aside my Dad, Ian, has been facilitating a discussion series about Lewis Carroll's two Alice books at U3A (University of the Third Age) over the last few weeks. He is interested in how Alice's experiences, and those of the other characters, align with the very real 'through the looking glass' lives we lead.

Back to John, he explains the Red Queen Effect very well (see his post here), so I won't go into detail except to re-quote two of his quotes from the Red Queen: “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place” and “If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

My interest in John's post stems from a common issue we experience in trying to keep up with the 'fire hose' flow of new knowledge. (The fire hose analogy is about the difficulty of drinking high pressure water flowing from a fire hose, and the impossibility of drinking it all.)

In a comment on John's post, I wrote about the potential to use the concept of Great Circle Navigation to see the challenge differently. (You can catch up on the concept of Great Circle Navigation here.) These navigators found that travelling in a large arc is quicker than going in a straight line.

My example is...

I often read up to 5 business books in a month and hope the content will stick. Instead I could pick 1 business book; read it two or three times; reflect on how it applies to my situation; encourage a colleague to read it too, and have a coffee with her/him and discuss how it applies; then do something differently as a result. It could take less time than reading 5 books, and result in tangible change.

Maybe there is something you could do differently, rather than falling into the insidious 'work harder trap'.

Further Study: If you are interested in my analogy, you might be interested that for air flight, the Great Circle route may be slower than a different route that takes advantage of high altitude 'jet streams'. (See the Aviation section in this Wikipedia article.) I wonder what this means to my theory?

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Facilitation & Yoga

2011-10-03T22:01:00.000+10:00

Val, my Yoga teacher, has a great approach. She manages to teach a whole class while making each student feel like they are of personal interest to her.

There is a problem with this - from the perspective of a blogger/commentator. While I am 'in the zone' it is difficult to work out quite what Val is doing to achieve this. And I suspect it would be poor form to say, "Excuse me. Can we just stop a moment, Val? What did you do just then? Cos it made me feel special, and it did not seem to impact on the enjoyment of others."

So I have been keeping my eye out. (Not Yoga 'best practice' I am sure, but at least I am not distracting others this way.) And what I have observed Val do is:

Not panic - she is calm and measured in her manner and voice at all times.
Observe each of us - she is vigilant without making us feel uncomfortable - this might be called 'paying attention'. I am sure she knows what she expects to see too, so she can see when we are 'out of place'.
Achieve a natural rhythm - the class involves a sequence of unfolding activities. We may be told that today we are working on the strength in our lower back or similar, but there is no agenda, and I suspect that Val is open to variation. (Although without an agenda I cannot be sure of this.)
Give clear instructions & demonstrate when necessary - Yoga is about a mind body thing. Val tells us what to do, and shows us too, especially the tricky bits.
Repeat as if for the first time - although Val has said "Lift your left arm back towards the ceiling, then turn your head and look along your left arm towards the ceiling" hundreds of times, it sounds like the first time every time. And for my left shoulder and neck, it mostly feels like it is the first time.
Keep on-time, subtly - there is a bit of a rush on because a class of exercise bikes follows us, but this hardly impinges on our consciousness, although I am sure that Val is aware of it.
Treat us all with respect - Val seems to like each and every one of us, even when we do awful things to what should be graceful and serene.

These are pretty subtle. I had to observe and reflect to see them, and their effect. As a facilitator, not everything I do is obvious. An effective workshop is a combination of lots of things.

If you have been to a Yoga class, you could tell us about your experience in the Comments below.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Product Review: My Awesome Kensington Wireless Presenter

2011-10-03T21:59:00.004+10:00

I thought it might be time to write about a tool I use weekly, and sometimes daily. For those of you familiar with Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts comic strip, it is my Linus blanket. I find it comfortable to use and (with charged batteries) reliable. It is familiar, robust and satisfyingly chunky.

It is a presentation remote or wireless presenter. It is made by Kensington, and must be getting 'long in the tooth', as the model I have is no longer on sale in Australia. Unusually for tech gadgets, the form factor has been retained, and its functionality extended. (In my experience much of the tech I love goes off the market a little before my old one wears out. Yes Microsoft, I am talking about that sleek black laser mouse I could never find again. I haven't forgotten.) The updated version is a Wireless Presenter with Red Laser & Memory (the link is to the Australian Kensington site). It is like mine except that, as the name indicates, the 'usb dongle' with the wireless smarts also has 1Gb of memory to store your presentation files.

Kensington Wireless Presenter & USB Dongle
(all rights reserved)

There are four buttons on the remote. This may seem lean when compared with the alternatives on the market, but is more than sufficient to me. In fact, I mainly use two buttons - the right (advance slide) button and the left (go back a slide) button. These two simple buttons allow me to wander untethered by my keyboard or mouse. I can roam around the room, and advance and retreat slides at will.

The other two buttons are effectively redundant. I so seldom use the 'blank screen' button that I could as easily press the 'b' key on the keyboard; and I am reluctant to use the laser pointer, as the pointer wanders around the screen, making me look nervous (even if I'm not). I should note that the laser pointer is good for entertaining cats, but I chose to buy a cheaper laser pointer for this purpose, so I would be able to find this one when I need it.

The 'usb dongle' provides the wireless signal. It is stored inside the base of the unit. This storage solution also saves my batteries by disabling the device while it is stored. It does pop itself out at times, but this is unusual.

I mostly use it with PowerPoint. The response is quick, although not quite instantaneous. I might be able to place the blame for this on my laptop, rather than the wireless presenter. I have also used it with Prezi, and it was effective with Prezi too.

Many competing devices are sleeker and/or lighter than this gadget. However, I find the weight of the Kensington wireless presenter reassuring and comfortable (hence the Linus blanket comment earlier); and I find the shape very comfortable, with my thumb easily moving to the correct button. Lighter wireless presenters often feel flimsy, and I do not find the 'pen style' form-factor as comfortable in my hand. I have also had trouble finding the correct button on some pen-shaped devices.

I have not been able to figure out the exact age of this gizmo, but it's about 5 1/2 years. The symbols on the buttons are showing no wear at all (not even the predominantly used 'slide advance' button); and the case is still clean. I am pretty sure I've only used two sets of batteries in that time, and I am confident that I have advanced slides more than 5,000 times.

If you are interested in other reviews of wireless presenters, here are a couple that I think are well-written and balanced:
Julie at The Gadgeteer on Kensington's green laser wireless presenter. (Spoiler alert: Julie has loaned this differently shaped wireless presenter to a colleague who likes it enough to keep using it.)
TopTenReviews's roundup of wireless presenter reviews. (This one was great, as it told me that the led on the usb dongle changes from green to red when the batteries are going flat - I didn't know that before seeking out this review. Interestingly, they see the 4 buttons as too few buttons.)
Tobias Winkler at Notebook Check on the Logitech Wireless Presenter R400. (Which comes across as a viable alternative.)

I love this gadget. It is well-made, durable and above all comfortable to use.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Selling Facilitation Services

2011-09-12T11:22:00.000+10:00

Schmoozing on the Lawn Before
the Business Excellence Awards Dinner

I have not posted about selling facilitation services until now. This is a tricky area. I am prompted to write by a question posted by Dana at the Professional Facilitators Network group on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com).

Dana says that she is not motivated to sell her facilitation services, and she needs a sales person. I have posted a slightly modified version of my reply to Dana here:

=================
I would suggest that most facilitators struggle with the sales and marketing side of the business. I am unsure whether 'motivation' is the right word. If you really want the work, you probably need to motivate yourself. If you meant that you do not know how to do this, get down to your public library and borrow some books on selling services (or even better, there are some great motivational tapes about selling).

A salesperson typically works on a retainer and commission basis. You could find a salesperson, but unless your business ramps up swiftly, you are not going to be able to pay them their retainer.

If you start small, you may not need a salesperson. I believe that 'soft sell' is the only way to sell facilitation. Sales people are often not great at doing this, as they see their commission at risk if they do not sell. Also, when sales is separated from operations (you), people can over or under promise, or even fail to recognise the service solution.

I think you need to get out there: you need to find people in your area that could benefit from your services, and you need to talk to them about what you do. You need to do this constantly.

Some things you could do include:

Offer your services to government at all levels (especially those closest to home).
Offer your services to not-for-profits.
Offer your services particularly to organisations in industries with which you are intimately familiar.
Ask people to recommend you, and to recommend who might benefit from your services.
Join a services organisation (Rotary or other).
Blog about facilitation.
Put a video about you up on YouTube and link to it in your email footer.
Offer presentation skills training.
Become a conference speaker.
Join the [afn-l] mailing list and keep up with it.
Find your local open university or adult learning college and offer classes.
Join the local chamber of commerce (or similar) and become involved.

If this is going to work, I believe that you are your best advertisement, and you are best able to communicate your service offering to prospective clients.
=================

I am not doing all of these things, but I am doing many of them. I am sure you can too.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

The Dictionary Method

2011-08-22T21:14:00.005+10:00

Difficulty: Not really.
Audience: People wanting to think laterally about a problem or opportunity.
Suggested Time: 5 to 20 minutes.

The Dictionary Method involves identifying a random word, and attempting to see how the word can help to better understand or address a specific challenge or opportunity. Then identifying another random word and doing it again. This is repeated a few times, taking notes all the while.

Many of the people who have used this method have been surprised by the results. For example, people who participated in the Facilitation 101 workshop found this one of the most useful approaches attempted at the workshop. When used and compared with the Six Thinking Hats and the Creative Whack Pack, a few groups have found the Dictionary Method easier and more likely to generate useful ideas.

One group was dealing with a challenging upcoming project for which a knowledge of government guidelines will be necessary. The words they found included machete, animal spirit, romance, thalidomide and remount. All were found to have links to the project - some comical and others serious.

Some people have not been impressed with the technique - the words have not been useful in furthering their understanding and thinking laterally. This seems to be more likely to happen if the group feels the need to reject a number of words early in the process.

You might like to try it. You (literally) never know what might eventuate.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Agree on the challenge/opportunity.
2. Open the dictionary to a random page.
3. Without looking directly at the page, point a finger at a word.
4. Read out the word and (if necessary) it’s definition
5. Try to figure out what the word could tell you about your challenge/opportunity.
6. Give some time to ponder, but if there is nothing, move on to another word.
7. Finish by identifying highlights of the discussion.

See Things from Another Perspective

2011-08-20T12:56:00.004+10:00

Difficulty: Not very.
Audience: People who are stuck and may be seeing their problem from one or a limited number of perspectives.
Suggested Time: 5 to 10 minutes.

If you are in a hurry or short on resources, it is good to have a quick technique up your sleeve. This is useful if people have a problem that seems intractable, or to deflect potential conflict, or even as an ice-breaker. This approach encourages the important value of 'empathy', while being a useful method for solving problems.

The approach is to ask people to see something from the perspective of someone else. Here are a few ideas to get your started:

How would you see the situation/act if you were a twitcher?
Or a 'roadie' with a rock band?
Or a telecommunications engineer?
Or a sculptor?
Or a scout leader?
Or your Mum?
Or a script writer?
Or a sheriff in the wild west?
Or your grade 4 teacher?

This approach relies on some imagination, and often works well when people are in small groups, so they can pool their ideas.

If you have some other 'perspectives', please add a Comment.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

The Forced Analogy Method

2011-08-15T12:45:00.005+10:00

Difficulty: Not particularly.
Audience: People looking for a new perspective on a challenge or opportunity.
Suggested Time: 5-20 minutes.

Forced Analogy is a method of encouraging people to see a problem differently. The method involves comparing and contrasting a problem or a product or a service or a situation with something completely different.

A Forced Analogy process I use with undergraduate students is to encourage the students to think of a mobile phone as a boat, and then as a tree. I ask them what ideas a phone manufacturer like Nokia could draw from these analogies.

The boat analogy has resulted in:

How can we waterproof the phone?
Could we use timber in the construction? Or fibreglass?
The white iPhone may be more nautical than the black one.
Would the phone float or sink if it was waterproof?
How can we learn to compact things? (A small boat's galley is like a shrunken kitchen.)

The tree analogy has resulted in:

Again, the potential to construct in timber.
Could the phone network be drawn as a tree? What represents the roots hidden underground?
Tree branches are irregular for easy grasping or gripping.
Could phones be organic?
Can photosynthesis replace or supplement battery power?
Trees are often suited to their environment. (Unfinished idea...)
Trees like to grow together. (Unfinished idea...)

Give it a try. What if your problem, or your product, was a tree? Or a fence? Or a piece of legislation? Or an artificial limb? Or a house in disarray?
(I'd love you to tell me about some ideas you identified in the Comments.)

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

The Bootcamp Bootleg (Stanford Design School)

2011-08-14T10:18:00.000+10:00

Cover of the d.school Bootcamp Bootleg

Stanford Design School has developed a great tool for designers that is also of value to creative and innovative facilitators (and people facilitating creative and innovative processes). The free PDF is full of tried and true methods to encourage people to identify and refine ideas.

Some methods from the Bootcamp Bootleg

Some of the methods are:

Extreme Users - people whose needs and solutions are amplified by their situation. Can the layout of a car's dashboard be improved by examining the dashboard in a jumbo jet or a nascar?
Saturate and Group - plaster your immediate environment in cues about your project, using Sticky Notes or even miniature models; then group like-with-like.
Bodystorming - move beyond discussing, sketching and imagining, and set up a situation and act out the situation in a range of ways. (I am yet to get one of my groups to try out this technique - I find it intriguing.)
Wizard of Oz Prototyping - I'm not giving this one away. Go and find it and see for yourself what this is about, but first use your imagination: What could this be?
User Capture Grid - this is a method of collecting feedback along the way or at the end - a useful technique for every facilitator.

As well as providing detailed instructions for each method, the PDF provides some excellent general advice on how to facilitate sessions, including: "show don't tell" and "embrace experimentation".

I encourage participants in a couple of workshops to explore these techniques for their own purposes.

You can download the current (2010) version here.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

The Creative Whack Pack Revisited

2011-08-13T12:34:00.001+10:00

I have previously posted about Roger von Oech's Creative Whack Pack (including providing directions for using the cards). The Creative Whack Pack is a set of cards with advice on how to be creative. I thought I would return to this tool, given that the cards have been used in some of my recent innovation and facilitation workshops.

To recap, there are four types of cards: ones with blue writing are the explorer cards which are used to understand the problem; the orange ones (artist cards) and green ones (judge cards) are used to create new ideas and review new ideas (respectively); and the red warrior cards give advice for implementing ideas. Each card tells a story and encourages you to ask some questions about your situation, your problem and/or your potential solutions. For an example click here to see a card at Roger von Oech's website.

At these workshops, responses to this creative method varied. Everyone enjoyed reading the cards and discussing them. Some people felt that the cards assisted them in addressing their opportunity or challenge; others felt that the cards were reliant on a longer lead time and other events to succeed.

One group using the cards were able to see their problem from some different perspectives. They identified and gave consideration to some stakeholders that may be able to assist in overcoming a significant challenge. They were also led by the cards to see some new ways to overcome barriers to implementation of their solution. They felt that the cards were very useful.

Another group expressed reservations. An example that they used to explain these is a card which suggests that dreams can assist in finding creative solutions. They felt that this did not help with their problem 'here and now'.

A problem which I expected was that some groups were distracted from dealing with their problem by the excitement of reading the cards. This is overcome as people become familiar with the cards; but is common for groups when they are introduced to the cards for the first time.

I love the cards, and have enjoyed using the recently released iPhone app as a prompt for seeing things differently.

If you want to get the cards, you can order them through Amazon and other outlets. Click here to go to iTunes if you are interested in the iPhone and iPad app. You can also read Roger's blog here.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Changing 'On the Fly' (& Being Bitten by the Creative Bug)

2011-07-21T13:02:00.001+10:00

Sometimes you are bitten by the creative bug, and you wonder whether to ignore it or scratch it.

This morning while walking from my car to the venue of my Decision Making workshop I was bitten. The creative bug got me right on the topic I'd spent half an hour prepping this morning over breakfast (no, not last minute creation, but last minute 'putting my head in the right space'). The topic I'd prepared was a case study examining decisions made during a fire on the HMAS Westralia that killed four sailors.

The creative bug was of the 'keep it relevant' variety. My audience are not sailors. They are not with the Navy or any branch of the armed services. They do not work with fire. They are at a very low risk of being exposed to sudden and fatal fire in any aspect of their lives. Westralia is not relevant.

I helped to set up the room; and before turning on the projector I 'hid' the slides I'd created on the Westralia, including a great photo of the ship at full steam ahead. And I created a slide that said:

Universities are becoming “dual sector”. As members of the University Council, you are considering whether to become a combined University and TAFE.

How will you decide?

This topic is relevant at Central Queensland University, and it is current (as noted by the Vice Chancellor, Scott Bowman in his blog). The participants are 'emerging leaders' at the University.

I asked the participants to work in table groups and answer the question on the slide, and they went for it. As I hoped, they discussed process, risks, culture, stakeholders, decision making criteria and implementation challenges. We covered these topics during the session, and this became a cornerstone topic for the rest of the session.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Speed Storming (Brainstorming on Steroids)

2011-06-18T21:17:00.001+10:00

Difficulty: Moderate.
Audience: People seeking ideas to address a problem or opportunity.
Suggested Time: 10 minutes.

There are many ways to spice up brainstorming, from getting people to type their input onto a common electronic whiteboard to getting people to rotate between different small groups at intervals.

I like to spice up brainstorming by asking people to do it really quickly.

The rules for Speed Storming are a lot like those for any brainstorming, but with tight deadlines. You might wish to use a PC-based tool like the timer at www.online-stopwatch.com, or if you have a smartphone there will certainly be a timing app.

The rules are:

Identify the Topic
Be Positive
Admire others’ contributions
Make constructive suggestions
Smile
Build on Ideas
Pay attention to others’ input
Make suggestions that ‘grow’ ideas
Be Bold
Make BIG suggestions
Ignore costs
Verbalise
Say ‘I think we could …’
Or ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we …’
Instead of ‘Yes but’, say ‘Yes and’
Move Fast
Make a suggestion & move on
Take Note
A scribe writes the ideas down
(Number the suggestions)
Be Self-disciplined
Leaders go last
Everyone puts in
Get Ready
Be clear on the topic
Assign a scribe & timekeeper
Later
Select the Top 3 (only 3!)
List actions with due dates
YOU HAVE 5 MINUTES!
Then you'll have 3 minutes to select your Top 3 & write brief action plans for each.

I have used this approach with students in an innovation lecture. The topic I set is "Mobile phone batteries suck", and they tend to have lots of ideas to overcome or avoid this issue.

Image by Agripolare (no restrictions)

A risk with this approach is of course that there is no time for reflection, and the potential for responses resulting from reflection is diminished. There is also a risk that people will not generate enough suggestions to make short-listing possible. This has not been the case when I have used this method. In fact, given the time-pressure (or perhaps due to it), it is amazing how many ideas can be produced.

This can be a great quick activity to get people to participate in small groups.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Your Calendar & The Strategic Plan

2011-06-04T19:37:00.000+10:00

(If you are short on time, skip the text below and go straight to the blog entry this is all about.)

It is always great to find a blog entry that provides a simple-important-message-with-punch (SIMWP - it is up to you to decide how this acronym is pronounced, but I like symwup with a rising 'up' at the end.)

Sometimes we follow a tortuous path to find a gem. In this case I was catching up on discussions in the Professional Facilitators Network, including a discussion about how to transfer content on flip charts to Word. In a different discussion, Rebecca Twitchell posted a link to a recent blog at consultancy 'half full' called '5 Reasons Why a Calendar May be THE Single Most Useful Tool for the Success of Your Strategic Plan'. The author makes some excellent points about the value of the calendar in making your strategic planning efforts sustainable and regular.

I enjoyed the blog entry, which discusses the importance of what happens after the strategic planning session, or more accurately, between strategic planning sessions. It focuses on the value of adding appointments to your calendar - even suggesting you go out 5 years into the future.

I commend to you... 5 Reasons Why a Calendar May be THE Single Most Useful Tool for the Success of Your Strategic Plan

(half full is a facilitation consultancy, possibly based in New Jersey.)

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Approaching 'How to Facilitate'

2011-05-29T15:05:00.001+10:00

I expected delivering Facilitation 101 to be like delivering Presentation Skills.

I am quite self-conscious when delivering Presentation Skills. You say, 'make sure you are familiar with the sequence of your slides so you can lead into the slide with a relevant comment', and then incorrectly guess what is on the next slide. You say 'don't fig leaf' then catch yourself fig leafing while the video of Steve Jobs is running. You say 'be prepared' and forget to bring the speakers you need so people can hear the video. (OK, that hasn't happened yet, but it is certainly on the cards.)

Facilitation 101 was not like this. I relaxed; I really 'got into it'. My main challenge seemed to be not being too effusive about the potential of facilitation to lead to social change and ... world peace.

I suspect that I relaxed for two reasons: The people participating had a genuine reason to be there; and I am enthusiastic about facilitation. You can tell the salesperson who is parroting the company line from someone with a genuine passion for their product. I love to see facilitation done really well, and I am horrified (more frequently than I'd like) at the alternative.

I do a lot of preparation for both presentation skills and facilitation skills. My slides have had a huge amount of attention (for me), including changes right up until the night before delivering. I visualise how each slide, and for some slides how each point, will work. I avoid 'scripting'. I need to know the slides and other materials, and I jot down the odd 'key point' instead.

(By the way in case you are concerned, I love to deliver presentation skills too.)

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Facilitating a Session on How to Facilitate

2011-05-26T21:30:00.000+10:00

Thanks to the great people involved in Communities of Practice at CQUniversity Australia, I was recently asked to deliver a two-part session on 'how to facilitate'. I called this Facilitation 101 - Theory and Prac.

The session was targeted at CoPs Champions - the people responsible for facilitating the work of the Communities of Practice. The theory went for half a day, and we covered:

The Facilitator's Role - including self-examination and discussions about confrontation, nurturing and some 'do not's.
Facilitation Skills - covering personal, interpersonal (c/o Covey) and process skills; stressing the challenge of 'being in the moment' while being the person responsible for the process.
The Facilitation Process - which was a modified problem solving process.
Facilitation Tools - in which we discussed, and used, tools for convergent and divergent thinking.

The 'prac' involved everyone coming back the next day for another half day. Each participant facilitated a 25 minute session using one of the tools from the course materials - brainstorming; Forced Analogy/the dictionary method; von Oech's Creative Whack Pack; the affinity diagram method; flowcharting; the nominal group technique; or De Bono’s six thinking hats. I also made special mention of the tools in the Stanford d.school Bootcamp Bootleg and IDEO's Human Centered Design Toolkit.

The whole thing was an absolute blast. Thank-you Dr Peter Reaburn for giving me this opportunity!

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Roger von Oech's Creative Whack Pack

2011-05-22T21:53:00.001+10:00

I have been using Roger von Oech's Creative Whack Pack with various groups for years. (Actually, it is my wife's copy - I believe that she was given it at an Andersen Consulting seminar more than 15 years ago.) The cards never fail to excite people's imagination. Participants are enticed into reading more cards and the stories they contain. I often have to remind participants that they have been given the cards to solve a problem.

There are four types of cards - the Explorer (understanding the problem), Artist (creating new ideas), Judge (choosing or refining existing ideas) and Warrior (implementing solutions).

To be most effective, it is important to know what the problem is you are seeking to address, and what stage you are at with the problem, so you can read the cards of the appropriate type. It is not very useful to read Explorer cards if you are seeking ideas on how to convince people of the value of your idea. In that case you need the Judge or Warrior cards.

Below I have included the instructions I give to make good use of the Creative Whack Pack.

In preparing this post I saw that there is an iPhone app of the Creative Whack Pack called Be Creative (click here). I just purchased it, and asked it to hit me with a card. The card is called "Listen to Your Dreams". It talks about the influence of dreams on some scientists I am not familiar with, and on the books of Robert Louis Stevenson, including Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The 'card' even describes some example dream situations in case I cannot recall my own dreams.

Click here to go to Roger von Oech's website. He has other creative thinking tools, and he provides a link to the Creative Whack Pack at Amazon.com.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Discuss a decision that must be made in terms of ‘what has to be decided’ and ‘why’.
(Someone should write down what has to be decided and why.)
2. Ensure that everyone agrees with this short decision definition.
3. Split into pairs (and one group of three if you have an odd number).
4. Each pair takes three cards and places them face down on the table without looking at them.
5. Taking it in turns, a person reads out a card.
6. Discuss how the card applies to your decision. Take notes if you like.
Note: You might find that some cards are not relevant.
7. When you have finished with that card, the next person reads out a card.
8. Keep repeating until all cards have been discussed.
9. Get back together as a whole group.
10.Write a list of alternatives you have as ‘decision options’.
The key to this process is being able to look at a problem from a number of different perspectives. This can be challenging, and you may find the process a bit alien.

Sources of Wisdom

2011-05-22T21:23:00.000+10:00

My parents taught me a lot about facilitation. They are ministers of religion in the Uniting Church, and have had a huge impact on my life, and the lives of many other people. Here I thought I would share some of what I have learnt from them about facilitation.

I learnt from my Mum:

The importance of people. Stories are about people. Relationships are about people. Our experiences are generally about being with people. Even the financial stuff is ultimately about people. At core, it is all about people.
The value of 'targeted preparation'. This means sitting at your desk and focussing your attention on preparing a script. For my Mum this was close to word-for-word. For me this is not word-for-word, but it captures the key content areas I need to cover, and key points to be made in these areas. And it makes me more professional.
The potential for engagement that comes from asking questions when they are least expected - and listening closely to the answers.
The benefits of practice.
The need to take a moral stance and do the right thing.

I learnt from my Dad:

The importance of fun. Laughter must be the greatest ice-breaker.
The value of 'eclectic preparation'. This means reading widely around your topic, so you understand the context of your topic, and you can talk knowledgeably about related topics.
The potential for props to make your message memorable. (From giant cardboard Mr Men to a cuddly near-life-sized wombat.)
The delightful unexpected that can come from not practising.
The need to know your own mind and do the right thing.

Thank-you Mum and Dad!

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Design Thinking - Selective Application is OK

2011-05-16T21:30:00.001+10:00

My friend Justin has complained about the time he frittered away reading various articles on the Internet after reading one of my blog posts. He jumped from article to article, enjoying the reading, but re-discovering that it is easy to 'lose' considerable time in the endeavour. (His complaint was tongue in cheek, I think.)

I recently had a similar experience - in reading criticism of the design thinking movement. I was led from reading Helen Walters to reading Fred Collopy. Fred writes about the risk of turning design thinking into an arcane art, as happened to systems thinking, a former supposed management panacea.

Fred writes:

Each of systems thinking’s various manifestations demands some degree of subscription to an orthodoxy (a particular view of just what systems thinking is). And each requires that the user master a large number of related ideas and techniques, most of which are not particularly useful on their own.

He then notes that this does not mesh with how we prefer to learn - a little at a time, trying things out and looking for surface validity (I added that last bit). The 'tablets handed down by the high priest' approach appeals to some people - as I saw more than a decade ago among proponents of neuro-linguistic programming (not all of them, but more than I was comfortable with). There is no room for critical thinking in the blind acceptance model. It may get you a critical mass of adherents in the short term, but the behaviour change is unlikely to be sustained.

Fred goes on to encourage us to treat design thinking as "an arsenal of methods and techniques", and to provide "users of design thinking with 'trial-size' access to a growing body of knowledge".

The message here is that if you want to try out design thinking, just do it. Who could deny that there is huge value in observing people interacting with your products, in order to produce better products? The introduction to the the Stanford Design School's Bootcamp Bootleg states that it is OK to just do an exercise. So go on, pick a page from the Bootleg, and do the exercise.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

How Important Is Attitude?

2011-05-16T21:26:00.001+10:00

This blog is not about teaching you how to suck eggs, or even to teach you how to be a better person. However, it is appropriate that I have the odd 'Yoda moment':

If you do adequate preparation, keep an open mind and expect the session to go well, it probably will. The converse also occurs. If you expect it to go badly, your pessimism will show through, and you are unlikely to connect and get a good outcome.

I believe I have an open-minded, eager and optimistic approach as a facilitator. This is not the only way to facilitate, but it is the only way that works for me.

For those unfamiliar with Yoda, you might like to watch this video. (Or a shorter version of the same message here.)

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Finishing, Concluding, Ending, Stopping (4)

2011-05-08T18:43:00.000+10:00

The Highlights Reel from a 10-week Series of Training Workshops
(All Rights Reserved)

In an earlier post I made reference to the way I finish up a fairly long training workshop series: "don't just list the topics that were covered - take advantage of the opportunity to reinforce key aspects of what has been learnt".

I have been taking this approach with a leadership program called the Emerging Leadership Program at CQUniversity. We generally have lunch with a prominent leader to conclude the program, and during lunch I run a PowerPoint loop which has key slides from each topic (see the graphic at the top of this post) and photos of the participants at work. The photos are taken from the more 'active' activities that the participants undertake. Also, when I ask questions like 'What is leadership?', I write the participants' answers on the whiteboard, and then photograph them to include in the PowerPoint slides.

Some slides from one of these 'highlights reels' is included above.

PowerPoint Concert Review

Stellar, who participates in the trainingzone group 'PowerPoint Users' shared details (below) of a similar approach which she calls 'a PowerPoint Concert Review':

"This works best for slides that are not full of words or content heavy - but then best practise would suggest that applies to all slides.

Make a copy of your slides from your presentation or workshop (around 20-30 slides is probably a max - that would represent 2-3 days slides for me)

Annotate each slide as if you were talking people through the sessions e.g.
'You arrived yesterday and started discussing ....'
'then we moved on to ....'

Include some reflective questions that will help people think about content e.g. 'what did you think about these 3 features of... '

Each slide needs some a message at the top - make the message look a bit different to any other writing on your slides so it stands out.

Automate all the slides so they automatically move on after a fixed time - I find about 8-9 seconds is about right.

Then add an additional slide at the beginning inviting people to sit back, relax and enjoy the show - leave this one controlled by a mouse click so you can move it on when you are ready. And another at the end asking them to reflect on what they have learned/ understood/ want to know more about - depends on your purpose.

You can either record a piece of music to run with the Powerpoint or I find it easier to just switch on a CD - usually more reliable than fancy AV equipment

Use a piece of reflective music - no words - 60 beats per minute has been found to be most effective.

Sit back and watch everyone go back in time to the beginning of your session - I've had really powerful responses from people, including tears and rounds of applause. Almost everyone is amazed at how much they've covered.

Reviewing is one of the key features of helping people to learn or absorb information and this is a great way to do it particularly if you're short of time. I did it in 5 minutes at the end of a very full 'Communicating to Influence' workshop the other day. That just gave everyone time to reflect before filling in their action plans."

(Thank-you for permission to use this content Stellar.)

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

The Impartial Facilitator

2011-05-08T09:00:00.000+10:00

At it's purest, the facilitator should not have an opinion one way or the other about 'content'. You are responsible for 'process' and 'recording', and nothing else. Sometimes this will be the case. In fact, you might be asked to facilitate a particular session for just this reason.

Do not use impartiality as an excuse not to do your homework. You are expected to be neutral and unprejudiced, not ignorant. Make sure you do your homework (see the post 'Do Your Homework').

In many situations you will have a larger interest than this. For example, you may be facilitating a meeting of your industry colleagues on a topic of interest to you.

So what can you do?

Hold off on making a contribution. Save this until late/last.
Ask a question rather than making a statement. For example, rather than 'I think we need to pay more attention to our competitors'; you might ask 'do you think we know enough about our competitors?'
Make your contribution verbally, and look for signs of confirmation or rejection from the group. If you find confirmation, add it to the recorded input. If not, be willing to give it up.
When you are recording input, use the words of the inputer, rather than your own words

At all times be aware of the need to demonstrate even-handedness. If arguing your opinion could reduce your effectiveness as a facilitator, shut up or step aside.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Contagious Difficult People

2011-05-01T08:36:00.001+10:00

I am coming back to an old topic: Dealing with Difficult People.

(Note: There is some 'politically correct' language I'd like to address here. I am all for "naming behaviours rather than naming names", and I was tempted to re-title this post 'difficult situations', so as to depersonalise these situations. But realistically I am not talking about a situation devoid of players. I am talking about how you deal with the fact that someone is standing out from the crowd for the wrong reasons. Wrong for me as facilitator; wrong for the process we are following; wrong at this point in the process; and/or wrong for other participants who want to participate.)

Difficult people are a problem, as they put barriers in the way of success. They can stop you from doing what you want to do, or take you where you do not want to go.

They are also a problem as their aggression/frustration/refusal cooperate can be infectious. It can affect one or two people, or lots of people. Some processes rely on people being forthcoming about topics they are uncomfortable about. These can fail when someone rails against you or your process. (Be careful here, I have intentionally used 'you' and 'your', as facilitators often have an inflated level of ownership of process, and even of the audience, but that is definitely a topic for another post.)

The infection can also affect you. As the facilitator I am not immune. I can be deflated by someone's negativity. I may lose my way, or just feel negative about the approach. I need to come across as confident or I will not be convincing.

I'd like to say that this contagion can be positive. Maybe I'm being overly negative, but I'm really not sure that it can. Here are some possible positives:

You get to see some shortfallings of your process, and can address them 'on the fly'.
This person gets their issues 'off their chest', and turns around to become a positive contributor.
Someone else (with or without influence) asks the person to cooperate.
By becoming aware of issues you can 'work them into' the process later in the session.

This is a tricky area. Good luck with your difficult people.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Design Thinking is Not a Panacea

2011-04-21T17:57:00.001+10:00

Following my post Design Thinking & Facilitation, I continued reading and pondering about the concept of 'design thinking'. I have been a 'practical rather than a theoretical instructional designer', and not a 'design school designer'. So I am looking at this topic from the outside.

I guess I am interested in design thinking because I am interested in what might help my clients and my students produce better products and services, and better organise the work they do. I am surprised at some of the criticism I have read about design thinking. I really like Blanchard and Zigarmi's Situational Leadership Model, but I wouldn't throw out Colonel Tom Kolditz' concept of 'leadership identity', and I recently started teaching adaptive leadership, but I still wont throw out my materials on the other two topics.

Similarly, in strategic planning, stakeholder analysis and SWOT analysis are complementary, not contradictory.

So I cannot see why anyone would treat design thinking as the sole and ultimate solution to business issues. It is another tool. (I nearly wrote 'just another tool', but that might devalue design thinking.)

Helen Walters has some excellent things to say on this topic. She is interested in Steve Jobs' approach to achieving greatness at Apple. She quotes him as saying, "It isn't the consumers' job to know what they want." Implying that observation and experience are not sufficient for product innovation and excellence. But he does not seem to be suggesting that his designers ignore the consumer.

Helen writes "beware the snakeoil salesmen who promise you’ll never take another wrong step again if you buy into design thinking". This is useful advice.

The need to choose between a range of tools, and to combine them to get a good outcome, seems obvious. Beware not to fall into 'silver bullet thinking', seeking one tool to solve all of your problems.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Creating Effective Handouts

2011-04-20T21:28:00.000+10:00

Handouts can be a wilful waste of your and other people's time, or a useful future reference and promotional tool.

To make it as useful as possible, consider it's current and future purpose. For example, 'current' as somewhere to jot some notes during the session; and 'future' to apply the models in the real world and to provide participants with a reminder of the key points.

PowerPoint has a Handouts function. It is great for keeping track of your slides, but not great as a handout unless you are very short on time to prepare handouts, and handouts must be provided. The ones that are available vary from 2 to a page, as shown on the right.

... to 9 per page, as shown to the left.

I suggest that a useful handout provides key content; provides your contact details; cross-references other useful resources; and is easy to read. I do these in Word, rather than PowerPoint. As shown below.

Be considerate of your readers when creating handouts. Provide a useful summary, and references for further reading if you can. If you are setting homework, don't forget to list it on the handout too.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Design Thinking & Facilitation

2011-04-20T08:43:00.002+10:00

Message From andymangold, who says, "Design is much more than my job."

If facilitation was design, how would you do it?

The 'design thinking' movement is infiltrating business and management. Some examples include:

The increasingly popular TED Talks put design alongside technology and entertainment when discussing 'Ideas Worth Spreading'.
David Kelley of IDEO is an evangelist for design thinking; including in the magazine Fast Company (another forum bringing together design and business concepts) and in a video at the Design Thinging blog.
Care of Edward Tufte, and more recently David McCandless, visualisations bring business data and often social data into the design realm. For more on this, Cameron Chapman has posted a list of 50 Great Examples of Data Visualisation.

My friend Simon Terry introduced me to Edward Tufte and his excellent book Visual Explanations many years ago, which incited the curiosity about visualisation and design that has led to this post.

Design thinking is about shaping people's experience. It is a very user-centric approach. It is about colour, movement, emotion and involvement. It is also a process - from idea to implementation and beyond. And it is hyper visual.

For the facilitator, there are some useful ideas here, including:

Focusing on the user, or in your case, participant. Shape the session around their wants and needs. Or better yet, hand the reigns over to them. (I have written about doing this with sticky notes and telling organisational stories.)
Use colour. Black markers on a white background may give a retro monochrome look, but is not particularly interesting, and you will struggle to distinguish between different pieces of information (such as pros and cons or headings and key points) in a single colour.
Use movement. You don't want people to sit still too long, and don't stand or sit too long yourself. Movement keeps your blood running, and creates dynamism.
Emotions are tricky for the facilitator. However, they can also be powerful in drawing people in, and in making an experience memorable. Ignore the value of emotion at your peril.
Involvement is about getting participants to participate - they are not an audience, so don't treat them as such for long.
Many times when you facilitate you are seeking new ideas, or at least trying to lodge new ideas into the minds of others. There are many processes for doing this, from brainstorming and flowcharting to experiential learning, such as imaginary and real simulations. For some great ideas, see the Stanford Design School's Bootcamp Bootleg, a free online resource. The Creative Whack Pack is also a great resource for identifying new ideas, transforming ideas, and evaluating and implementing ideas.
By referring to 'implementation and beyond' above I mean that implementation is seldom an event, it is an ongoing process that can continue after the session is finished.

There are a lot of links in this post. If you only have limited time, I commend to you the article about David Kelley in FastCompany, in which he describes why IDEO started using the term 'design thinking', and the TED presentation by David McCandless which shows an amazing way to appreciate really big amounts of money.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Sesame Street & Facilitation

2011-04-19T18:35:00.001+10:00

Elmo's Song at youtube.com

What can we learn about facilitation from Sesame Street?

Sesame Street is more than 40 years old. It was established by a small group of people after a dinner party at which they were bemoaning the parlous state of children's television. The host of the dinner party, Joan Ganz Cooney, became the first producer. She had been producing documentaries very successfully, and had a great future in this field ahead of her.

Joan did not fall into this role, she had to fight for it. It was assumed that she would 'hand the concept on' to be implemented by someone else. But she was not prepared to let it go. Also, she spent months undertaking an extensive series of interviews with educators and wrote a paper spelling out the educational aspects of the upcoming tv show. Cooney also had to fight for the involvement of Jim Henson with his influential puppets - the Muppets.

According to Wikipedia, Sesame Street is "known for its combination of Jim Henson's Muppets, animation, short films, humor, and cultural references" (click here). It also includes cameo appearances by a huge number of celebrities - from Cher and Cheryl Crow to Hilary Clinton and Michelle Obama.

The setting of the show, an inner-city street is novel. As a child it seemed to me to be a great place to 'hang out'. I am sure that many of us are still looking for that friendly neighbourhood. (This might be the attraction of a well-run online community such as an open source software project - not the street setting, but the casual friendliness and willingness to go out of your way to help out.)

So what does this mean for the skilled facilitator?

Great ideas can arise when you least expect them. Keep an open mind, and be prepared to jump when an opportunity comes up.
Be persistent - fight for the roles that you are confident you can do, and fight for the involvement of others who you see as critical to your success.
Do your research. You need to know what you are talking about - you need to know more than you cover, so if you stray you are still within your area of knowledge.
If what you are doing is critically important, consider writing a paper, or a business plan, or a positioning statement.
You can entertain while educating. Consider how your audience will take in your key messages.
Be fussy about who you involve, whether it is the Muppets or a celebrity - and don't just ask them to turn up, give them a job to do.
Consider interesting (and familiar) settings. It is possible to ask people to use their imagination for this. A few selected props can help out too.

Many of my insights here are from an ABC Australia podcast on the program Life Matters with Michael Davis, author of Street Gang: a Complete History of Sesame Street. I also checked out the Sesame Street website, and Wikipedia entries on Sesame Street and Joan Ganz Cooney.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Dealing With Difficult People

2011-04-14T18:58:00.001+10:00

I am not particularly knowledgeable about Emotional Intelligence. In fact, I keep saying I am going to look into it a bit further. In the absence of sound theory, here are some things that have worked for me and others in the past.

Firstly, listen to what they have to say! People seldom disrupt with completely inappropriate comments.

If you are aware of the potential for disruption, before the session:

Talk to the person, and ask them for their cooperation; or at least ask them to share their concerns with you. (You may be able to address some of their concerns from the front of the room, rather than waiting for questions from the floor.)
Talk to someone else who can influence the person, and ask them to approach the person and talk to them; or sit beside them and temper their approach if necessary; or just ask them to speak up in favour of settling down/ continue as relevant in support of your facilitation.
Set some ground rules in your introduction that you can refer back to during the session. Such as, give consideration to the views of other; be open-minded; and save issues for discussion after the session if required to stay on-schedule.

If disruptive behaviour arises during the session:

Listen and acknowledge their concern.
Give equal (or slightly more) eye contact to the other people attending.
Tell the person you would be happy to talk further with them later, and (not 'but') that you would like to continue.
Ask them to cooperate or ask them to hold off and let others speak.
Make a joke of it - not making light of their behaviour, but giving them a message without them needing to lose face.

In a break, if you get the opportunity:

Tell them that you appreciate their enthusiasm/good ideas; explain that you need everyone to have a chance to participate; and ask them to hold back and let others make a contribution. (If they do as you ask, make a point of going to them at the end of the session, and telling them that you appreciate their restraint.)
Ask someone else that they respect to speak to them.

I prefer to talk to the person myself, either before the session or during a break. Sometimes other approaches are needed.

If someone else chooses to confront the behaviour during the session, be careful not to contradict this person if you agree with what they are saying. If you are not careful you might find yourself defending the person who has been irritating you and others, to avoid that person losing face or out of embarrassment.

If you are in dire straits, you might ask the person to leave, or ask someone else to do this. As this is an extreme approach to take, I would recommend against it if there is anything else you can do.

For some more suggestions, you might want to read Dr Neil Flanagan and Jarvis Finger at Just Ask TOM on this topic. For example, they suggest breaking into small group activities to give the person a smaller audience; or a role reversal by inviting the person to argue the other side of the issue for a while.

Good luck with difficult people. It is a truism that they can be our best defenders if we can bring them around.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

How to Facilitate Using PowerPoint

2011-04-13T10:58:00.000+10:00

This is a co-post with How to Create a Slideshow in PowerPoint. I again had some assistance from the participants in the trainingzone group 'PowerPoint Users' in contributing to the content in this post.

(These tips are also relevant for working with other presentation software.)

Be familiar with your slides.
Print out the 6 to a page handouts page to keep track of what is coming next.
Before you start, put up your 'busiest' slide and go to the back of the room. If it is unreadable, delete it. Now move to the next busiest and continue the process. You are better off explaining the content verbally than insulting your audience with avoidably unreadable content.
Also, before you start, check that the slides fit on the screen/wall on which they are being projected.
If available, a wireless presenter is very useful. Otherwise, the arrow keys on the keyboard can be more accurate and easier to find than the buttons on your mouse.
If you spontaneously want to blank out your slideshow, press the letter b on the keyboard (for black, the same works with w for a white screen). Press any letter key to display the current slide again.
Avoid using a laser pointer - the quivering of the 'dot' on the screen makes you appear to be nervous. (Especially if you are nervous.) Instead, flap your arm near the relevant content, and tell them what you are referring to.
Don’t 'read out' the exact words on the slide unless you are quoting or doing so for effect.
Talk about the slide while it is up; and talk about other stuff if you like.
Don’t talk about a slide people cannot see. If it is important, it may be worth going back to the earlier slide.
And finally, you can look at the screen to refer your audience to specific content (such as a location on a map) and early on just to check that the projector is working. Other than that, look at the computer/laptop monitor, which should be positioned in front of you.

The most important thing is that you are the facilitator. The slides are only there to support you. If you need to depart from the 'script', press 'b' to blank the screen and get on with verbally facilitating.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Finishing, Concluding, Ending, Stopping (3)

2011-04-07T09:48:00.000+10:00

In finishing, different types of sessions call for different approaches, such as:

If you are wrapping up a training session, don't just list the topics that were covered. Take advantage of the opportunity to reinforce key aspects of what has been learnt.
If it was a session in which people provided input, let them know what will be done with what you have collected, and about any ongoing involvement they can have.
If you presented information, give people an opportunity to ask questions. (Don't scrimp here - a pet hate of my friend and colleague Claire Rodgers at Fitzroy Basin Association is leaving insufficient time for questions that do justice to your topic.)
If you set homework during the session, remind participants of the homework.
If people volunteered to do something, remind them of their commitment.
If there is one really important message in what you have communicated, finish by restating the message.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Finishing, Concluding, Ending, Stopping (2)

2011-04-05T13:02:00.000+10:00

Depending on the circumstances, you may tell the participants that the session is finished. In other cases, it might be appropriate to ask the people in attendance whether it has finished. The more unstructured the session, the more likely that you could use the latter approach.

Don't be afraid to say that it is finished if people appear to not be willing to let go. You can do this by stating that anyone who wants to continue discussing the topic of the session is welcome to stick around. That lets other people know that they can go.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Finishing, Concluding, Ending, Stopping (1)

2011-04-02T16:51:00.001+10:00

Concluding a session can be tricky. Sometimes it is just a matter of recognising that the session is finished.

Ted Scott, a business leader in my community, has been heard to say, "I think that we actually finished a while ago, we just haven't stopped yet." Don't go on and on and on. Draw discussion to a close. If people want to keep talking, give them the opportunity to do that while letting others go.

In other cases, you need to draw the session to a logical conclusion. Don't expect this to just happen. As the facilitator, you need to bring it to a close.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Do Your Homework

2011-04-02T14:38:00.000+10:00

Before a session, have a think about what you need to know. There are some generic aspects, but mostly what you need to know will be driven by the situation in which you are facilitating.

Some of these questions should be asked during the session. Others will need to be answered before the session. Lots of these questions could be asked both before and during the session.

You may not be able to ask some of these questions outright - for example, in some circumstances you should not ask, "How tolerant are the key decision makers of dissenting views?" This means you need to read between the lines to find out the answer. The answer will generally be available, but you may need to be creative in your questioning, or simply listen hard to find the answer.

GENERIC ASPECTS

Why is this session being held?
How could 'success' be recognised?
Who is going to attend?
Why are these people attending?
What do they want to get out of the session?
Who are the key decision makers?
How tolerant are the key decision makers of dissenting views?
When is the session being held? Why?
Will the session start on time?
Is finishing early or late OK?
What is the venue?
What equipment will be available/needed?
What do I need to bring?
Is butcher's paper OK? (This may seem to be a strange question, but I've been caught out on this before. Some people just seem to have something against butcher's paper.)

Example 1. STRATEGIC PLANNING
All the generic aspects, plus:

Is this the right time to be doing strategic planning?
Are the right people able to participate?
How does the organisation see it's purpose?
What is the organisation's history?
Is there a past strategic plan? Has performance been evaluated?
Is there a documented Vision, Mission & Values?
Do these need to be revisited?
Who are the organisation's key partners and other stakeholders?
What are the relationships like with key partners and key stakeholders?
Who are the 'competitors'?
What pressures are there on the organisation?
What does the organisation want to achieve?
How is the organisation funded?

Example 2. TRAINING
All the generic aspects, plus:

Why training and not some other approach?
What are the skill and knowledge gaps?
What are the learning objectives?
What organisational policies/procedures/practices/systems should be covered?
What are people's preferred learning styles?
What is this history of learning approaches? (What will people expect or reject?)
Is collated feedback from prior training events with this audience available?
Is evaluation required? How strict should it be?

These lists are not exhaustive, but I hope that they provide you some ideas to work with.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Visual Facilitation - Conference Recording

2011-03-31T22:39:00.001+10:00

I have a couple of degrees - one pre-digital, the other mid-digital. Many changes happened in the intervening years. The most prominent of these was probably the journal repository. I spent weeks, maybe months, cumulatively in the dungeons (the basement journal stacks at the Baillieu Library at Melbourne University) in the late 1980's. When I studied in the 2000's in Rockhampton, a small regional city, I did not crack open a single physical journal in 6 years of study. But I referenced and quoted from hundreds of journals, all available online in password controlled databases.

When I studied the first time I could put the complete notes from a 2 hour lecture onto the front and back of an A4 sheet of paper. I did not summarise. Instead I shrank my writing to about 6 point, and scrawly. I had a great group of study partners, and none of them ever asked to borrow my lecture notes more than once. I seldom drew a picture, and I am pretty sure I did not link 'related ideas'. I certainly did not use more than one colour - blue biro.

When I returned to Uni for my second degree, I hoped to use mind-maps to record lectures. I found my spatial capabilities lacking. After many years of computing, I was unable to write more than a short paragraph without my hand cramping up. So I took to typing notes from the 'posted Powerpoint slides' (another new development) and the textbook.

Enough about my study methods...

I am not a practitioner of visual facilitation, conference-style, but I am fascinated by it. You might be able to see why. There is an obvious link between me and the visual facilitators who post their work on the Web. We both use a rectangular white surface to record presentations. In the past I did this for lectures, now I do it for facilitated sessions; and I have moved from paper to whiteboard and butcher's paper. And I aspire to use images in place of words especially to communicate the links between ideas and to make ideas more concrete. I do this a bit, and am working on doing it more.

There are others who do an awesome job of matching images and words to bring content alive. If you are interested in their work try some of these sites:

Sunni Brown's Tweeting on Weekends 'visual notes' from the recent SXSW conference in Austin Texas.
The Grove describes their work as 'visual meetings', and include ideas and resources here.
I love the work of Ninmah (Rachel Smith) who recently joined The Grove. Here is an example of visual facilitation on the iPad (with a video). Rachel's photostream on Flickr is also worth browsing.
Work samples of 'meeting graphics' from Whole Picture Thinking (Aftab Erfan)

There appears to be a lot of different terms for similar things. When I talk about 'visual facilitation' in my own work, I mean that I am capturing input from the participants, and sharing my own ideas through (mainly) a whiteboard. I think that most of the beautiful business art you can see at the links above is primarily people recording a presentation by someone else. I love their work, and am sure I can be a better visual facilitator by emulating some of their practices.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

A Series of Questions

2011-03-29T21:04:00.001+10:00

In many cases the work of a facilitator is simply to raise questions.

You may do this so that you can collect, collate and report the responses. I am currently asking people questions about their organisation's current and future strategy. I am enjoying this process, as it is about engaging people across the organisation in creating the new strategy. Many organisations restrict involvement in strategic planning to people in the most senior positions in the organisation. They do not ask people across the organisation about strategy.

Collecting, collating and reporting responses is a legitimate reason to ask questions, but not the only one. This post includes some more.

You might use questions during an activity to broaden or deepen the perspective that people are taking. In this case you are 'prompting' people to think in a particular way, or to try something. It is good to use a question here, as people have greater choice than they do if you give an instruction. They may choose to reject what you are suggesting, which is not necessarily a bad thing. (Unless of course you have all the answers, in which case, what you are doing may not really be 'facilitation'.)
When an organisation is going through change, questions may be used not so much to get answers, but to encourage people to see the world differently. I have worked with a number of organisations undergoing substantial change. Typically these changes involve changing beliefs and attitudes, rather than changing premises or lines of supervision (although these tangible manifestations of change may also be undertaken).

In communication training much is said about open and closed questions. However, I am more interested in the various forms that open questions take. Truly open questions should allow people to give simple and honest answers. Leading questions encourage people to answer in particular ways. There are many types of leading questions. Emotionally laden questions can use levers like guilt to encourage people to answer in particular ways. These may use family ties, organisational ties or other ties (like patriotism), to manipulate people's thinking and their answers. When questions point out conflict between 'word and deed', they can cause consternation.

Sometimes many similar questions are used to find out whether people can answer them consistently. This is used in interrogation as well as facilitation.

You may need to be careful when you use some of the techniques described here. It is easy to be patronising or to communicate your own prejudices.

Sometimes there is a question that you believe needs to be asked, but you do not know how to ask it without betraying your bias, or just seeming biased. Maybe it cannot be asked. Or maybe you should save it until you can see how to ask it without upsetting people.

It is good to prepare some questions (as illustrated by the extracts from my facilitator notes from a couple of actual projects). However, it is also important to be flexible. It may be useful to 'depart from the script' to pursue a new line of questioning, or to have a discussion which you had not planned. It is useful to allow extra time for this, so you do not feel pressured to 'get back on topic', possibly abandoning the new tack and missing out on unexpected insights.

There is a lot of 'gut feel' (intuition) in knowing what to ask. When you are preparing questions, be open minded and come back to your list a few times before you settle on a particular approach. And during the session, again be open minded. Don't be afraid to pursue an only partially related topic, as new insights can come that way.

When asking questions, you may choose to name a specific person. You may do this to draw them into the discussion, or to encourage them to share an idea or a perspective that they have previously shared with you. Use this sparingly, as it seems most useful that way.

Although you might be reluctant to allow it to happen, some people may be quite happy and comfortable observing and listening, but not obviously participating. I prefer to let this happen, unless I have a very good reason for drawing them into the discussion. (One important tip here is that you should not assume that silence means hostility. It can mean many other things, many of which are neutral to your process.)

The order in which you ask questions can be important. If you are trying to get people to make a commitment, it might be worth finding out their attitudes first; or if you are writing an action plan, you might discuss risks and constraints before you discuss the actual tasks, which helps to ensure the action plan is feasible and achievable.

I love to have a goal. Alongside the goal of achieving whatever outcome the session is primarily about, one of my facilitation goals is to ask sound and practical questions which elicit responses that the participants did not know they were going to share with me.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Who Are You Facilitating?

2011-03-28T21:42:00.001+10:00

Lots of people attend sessions that are being facilitated. At any session, some of the following people will be in the room with you:

Middle managers caught between worker and management preferences and expectations.
Reluctant changers who are trying to join in, but may not yet be fully committed.
Flexible thinkers who can see their situations from a range of perspectives.
Fast adopters who embrace new technologies and new ways of doing things.
Shy, taciturn people reluctant to speak their mind.
Dug in firm resistors who are willing to circumvent any attempts at change.
Overt wear my life on my sleeve types who are difficult to shut up.
A grieving person who just lost a significant person in their life. They are bereft and there is probably nothing you can do.
Genuinely psychologically disturbed people who do not see reality in the way others do.
"The Boss" who may or may not be able to hold back until others have had their say.
Frustrated facilitators who would rather have your role and be in control.
Analytical, scientists or engineers who crave factual information and tangible reality.
Distracted mobile device users who are only here in body while texting and tweeting.
A person who was told by their boss/colleague to attend, but has no idea about the topic.
Know-it-alls who (maybe correctly) believe that they have all of the knowledge they need on a topic.
Fatigue affected exhausted people for whom this seems a distraction from their real work (or sleep).
Caffeine and nicotine junkies who are twitching externally or internally awaiting their fix.
People with legitimate reasons to leave before you are finished, whether or not you finish when you said you would.
Reflective people who need to think things through before they respond. They are slow to participate, but are not necessarily reluctant.
Evangelists who have a message to share, which is not necessarily useful,
Someone who rushed in late, and missed the introduction, but really needed to be there for it.
Technical, concrete thinkers unwilling to engage in 'what if' and other conceptual discussion.

How you treat these people is your call. I am just letting you know that they are there. And remember, the person who was a 'distracted mobile device user' at the last session might be the most eager participant at this session. Leave behind any history you have, and try to treat everyone as a fresh participant every time.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Stakeholder Analysis

2011-03-24T21:06:00.004+10:00

Difficulty: Moderate.
Audience: People needing to better understand and involve stakeholders (eg, project managers).
Suggested Time: 20-60 minutes.

The Stakeholder Analysis can be used in a number of situations, including strategic planning, business planning, contract preparation, mediation, merger negotiations, etc.

It involves listing the organisation's stakeholders; identifying which of these are most important; and then closely examining the relationship the organisation has with these key stakeholders.

The first step is to create a mindmap of the stakeholders.

Example Stakeholder Mindmap

The second step is performed if you do not have the time or the inclination to closely examine all stakeholders. In this case, you identify the most influential stakeholders from the mindmap.

The third step is to complete the Stakeholder Analysis table.

Example Stakeholder Analysis Table

You can complete this process alone or with a small group of key project people; or, for maximum impact, involve the stakeholders in completing the table. They generally know best what they want, and how they might be involved. Be careful not to over promise if you are using this tool early in a larger process.

You can choose what to label the columns in the table, depending on what you need to achieve. I find the headings in the example above useful in many circumstances.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Having an Opinion

2011-03-24T20:22:00.002+10:00

One of the trickiest things for a facilitator is having an opinion...

...and holding it in.

The ethics of this situation are tricky.

It is not that I never share my opinion, but I often find myself kicking myself for doing so. The tenor of the session may change. People can look upon me as partisan. I may 'get in first' with my opinion, shutting down dissent or turning off the tap of creativity. When I start playing another part, the session can drift, rudderless.

I don't really know what other people are thinking, but I do know that I was not invited to facilitate so I could have a forum for my own opinions.

Back to the facilitator holding in that opinion:

You feel like you could burst.

You remind yourself of the last time your opinion leaked out. And tell yourself it wasn't so bad.

Hold on. Just hold on.

Write your opinion down, and fold the page over, so people cannot casually see it.

Whatever you do, hold the line. You are the facilitator.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

What Might You Do?

2011-03-22T12:50:00.002+10:00

This is a bit of a catch-all post. As a facilitator, there are many things you need to do. Some you can plan for, and others will just arise as the session progresses. At different times you will need to do the following:

Repeat what you just said, because people did not hear or understand.
Find a comfortable middle ground - with accommodation from all parties.
Encourage people to participate.
Recap your understanding of what people have been saying, to be sure you have it right.
Ask someone to speak up, as others (maybe you) cannot hear what they are saying.
Find compromise between clearly defined positions.
Ask "the Boss" to hold back and let others speak.
Ask someone who is not the Boss to hold back and let others speak.
Ask a question to get people thinking.
Say something that you do not agree with, just to be controversial.
Admit to a lack of understanding of something (or, on a bad day, everything).
Let people get away with saying or doing something you do not agree with.
Contradict the Boss who is not listening.
Call an unplanned break to gather your thoughts.
Ask that people give the process a chance.
Shut up and let the silence linger, or let the discussion go way off-track.
Ask if someone else can respond to a question, as you don't have the answer.
Stop the session, and wait for something to be done or ceased.
Settle for achieving less than you had hoped for.
Ask people for leave to continue past the agreed finishing time.
Lead people to a great outcome that surprises them.

How you do these things can sometimes be planned. For example, at a meeting before the session, let the Boss know that you might need to step on their toes for the process to be fair; and definitely ask the Boss to hold back until others more junior have had their say.

In other situations, you just need to respond to the situation you find yourself in. If you ever need to buy time, refer to my earlier post 'Just Plain Lost?'.

A basic requirement is to act with humility, but be confident in shutting topics down that are going no-where or in contradicting anyone in the room if you believe they are out of step with the rest of the group or are just plain 'out of line'. Never be afraid to speak out. You are The Facilitator, and the ground quakes when you walk. (Sorry, slipped into fantasy for a moment.) But really, you need to be in control, or you are not actually the facilitator (er, The Facilitator).

...Geoff

www.performancepeople.com.au

Thought of the Day

2011-03-22T12:36:00.001+10:00

Facilitation is exhilarating, and sometimes terrifying. When you facilitate, you put your credibility on the line. What else has a risk to reward ratio like this? Ski-ing fast? Juggling fire clubs?

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

SWOT Analysis

2011-03-15T21:41:00.005+10:00

Difficulty: Moderate.
Audience: People seeking to better appreciate their organisation or situation in terms of the internal and external environment.
Suggested Time: 60 minutes.

SWOT Analysis falls into and out of favour at times (a bit like butchers' paper). Although it can seem a little long in the tooth, if it is done properly it is a powerful tool for gaining a better shared understanding of the organisation and its context.

SWOT Analysis involves identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation, and the opportunities and threats that confront the organisation (Identification Phase); analysing them to learn from the content (Analysis Phase); and documenting the outcomes (Reporting Phase).

IDENTIFICATION PHASE

There are some simple questions you can ask to identify each of the elements of the SWOT:

Strengths: What are the great things we have? And, what things are we great at?
Weaknesses: What important things are we missing? And, what things do we do badly?
Opportunities: What product, customer-focussed things do we do? And, what is likely to happen that could give us an advantage over our competitors?
Threats: What things are happening (or might happen) that could blindside us/threaten our ability to achieve our goals?

Rather than standing at the front of the room and writing down the elements identified by the whole group, it can be good to put the markers in the hands of the individuals identifying the elements. You can do this by putting four pieces of butchers' paper in the four corners of the room, each with one label (strengths on one, weaknesses on another, etc). Then you ask people to go to all four corners, reading what has been written, and adding their own items. This can give participants a greater ownership of the process.

You may wish to separate navel gazing from looking outwards. To do this, you can talk about the characteristics of the organisation, and ask people to identify strengths and weaknesses. Then, you can separately ask people to identify opportunities and threats.

A big risk in doing a SWOT is superficiality. Five items per heading is not thorough. An even number of items per heading must be contrived. Lots of items means lots of thought. Also, short phrases do not provide the meaning behind the entries. It may seem excessive to ask for complete sentences. If so, make sure that everyone has a shared understanding of the meanings of the entries. And do not try to limit the entries. The more the merrier. There will be plenty of opportunity to shortlist or prioritise in the Analysis Phase.

It is not unusual to have contradictory entries - one person sees deep (rather than broad) technical skills as a strength, and another sees these as a weakness. They are a strength for as long as they are relevant, but they might result in a blinkered view. Having a deep expert in kerosene lamp design may have been a strength until the light globe and household electricity became commonplace. Having deep expertise in kerosene lamp design may have contributed to an inability to benefit from the new technology of electric light. I like to leave contradictory entries alone; perhaps asking for clarification from their contributors.

ANALYSIS PHASE

The analysis can take many forms, including:

Simply looking at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and discussing what these mean to the organisation.
Selecting the Top 3 in each list and identifying how to exploit the strengths and opportunities and how to overcome or avoid the weaknesses and threats
Literally drawing links (lines) between different elements - for example, seeking the strengths which help to extinguish a specific threat, or an opportunity that could assist in overcoming specific weaknesses, or the weaknesses that may diminish our ability to overcome a specific threat, etc.
Categorising each element before examining them in their category groups. Categories could include 'financial', 'human resources', 'products/services', 'reputation', and others.

REPORTING PHASE

Often a SWOT Analysis is reported by just presenting a 2 column by 2 row table with each cell labelled Strengths, Weaknesses, etc, and the relevant elements listed in each cell. This ignores the results of the 'analysis' - which was the point of the process.

Near to the table should be a list of questions, comments and conclusions that arose from the SWOT.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Some Fun With PowerPoint

2011-03-13T21:10:00.000+10:00

(Note: Some suggestions in this post may involve using images for which the intellectual property is owned by an organisation or individual, such as DC Comics and Fox Network. I believe that the activities I am suggesting here assist in promoting these properties, but the owners may see this differently.)

Photos and diagrams are often used in slideshows to communicate a message. There are other useful ways to get your message across. Cartoons are great popular culture, and when used appropriately can send a clear message, although sometimes only to those 'in the know'.

The Phantom is a great image of a mystical, helpful loner. However, without a knowledge of the cartoon, this message would be missed in seeing this image.

These 'tools' appeal to kids of all ages:

The Addletters Bart Simpson Generator

Image source: www.addletters.com; copyright Fox Network

If you prefer the clouds of The Simpsons' title screen, you can use The Addletters The Simpsons Title Screen Generator.

There are many of these 'generators' on the web, including at www.txt2pic.com (where I found the 'for dummies' image generator I used below, and a cool sticky note generator) and www.says-it.com. For many, many more, see The Generator Blog

Image source: www.txt2pic.com; probable copyright Wiley Publishing

If you would like to be a bit more creative, you can 'write a cartoon', for which there are a number of tools, from doing your own text in the last cell of a Dilbert strip to your own captions for the popular How Projects Really Work strip.

Finally, a tool that can be used for fun while giving insight is the 'wordle'. There are a few sites for generating these, but my favourite is wordle.net.

The words in my first three posts as a wordle (source: www.wordle.net)

I have used Wordles to summise a topic, reinforce key terminology, and to extract common words and phrases from brainstorming and other high input volume sessions.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Just Plain Lost?

2011-03-06T17:33:00.003+10:00

Lost your place?
Lost your way?
Uncertain of how to continue?
Lost confidence in the agenda?
Feel like you are blundering about?
Lost people's attention?
Just plain lost?

This will sometimes happen. Sometimes you have something like 'writer's block'; other times you may have been inadequately briefed, or inadequately prepared. Or you may have inadvertently strayed into a topic you are not prepared or able to deal with.

When this occurs you have a number of choices. Consider:

Pausing and telling yourself it will all be OK in your most convincing voice, then continuing.
Suggesting it is time to take a short break to stretch legs/get some fresh air.
Starting an off-the-cuff exercise, as a whole room, in small groups, or individually.
Asking a question of the group that is on-topic.
Asking someone to make a specific contribution.
Breaking early for morning tea/lunch/afternoon tea/dinner/the day.
Looking around the room for someone who can rescue you.
Coming clean and stating that you are not sure where to go from here, and asking for suggestions.

You might be surprised to find that the last of those listed above can actually work; particularly if you are working with people who are switched on and appreciate the challenges of facilitating in the situation you are in. It is not unusual for someone to speak up, and have a useful suggestion.

I do not suggest:

Telling a joke.
Dropping your notes on the floor to buy time.
Pretending to hear voices.
Running screaming from the room.

But there are likely to be situations in which even these approaches are OK.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

How to Create a Slideshow in PowerPoint

2011-03-05T22:25:00.007+10:00

This blog is only peripherally about slideshows and PowerPoint. However, some tips might be useful. (I had excellent assistance on this post from Humphrey, Roger, Ian, Shelley, Ellen, Caroline, David, Stellar, John, Neil, Max and Thomas, active participants in the trainingzone group 'PowerPoint Users'. This is a great group to join, especially if you are using PowerPoint as a trainer.)

I should note that these tips are also relevant for other presentation software.

As you can see, once I started I couldn't seem to stop:

Start with your purpose and audience - jot down some notes so you can stay focused.
Plan it on paper first (this may be anything from a list of bullets or a series of boxes representing slides to comprehensive storyboards).
Include an introductory slide with your name and contact details (if relevant), and copy this slide to the end too.
The less you put on a slide the better.
Each slide generally should include one idea.
A picture doesn't say a thousand words, and that's the point of it. Pictures, like words, must be clear and succinct.
Insert a black slide where you want the full focus on you, and a pause from the slideshow. (You can also spontaneously toggle between the current slide and black by pressing the b key on the keyboard; or pressing w to go to a white screen.)
Stick to a simple colour scheme (not slavishly, but certainly diligently).
Mix your font sizes rather than mixing your fonts. (Like many design rules, this one is made to be broken.)
'Build' complex graphics one or two elements at a time, either by having lots of slides, each with a bit more of the graphic, or by using the 'animation' functions if you are ok with them.
For a long session, consider 'topic slides' so you can (verbally) 'set the scene' for each new topic. (In PowerPoint 2010 you can use 'section slides', which are particularly useful in long slideshows.)
If you are confident or feeling adventurous, avoid using a standard PowerPoint template - they are recognisably not your work.
Although PowerPoint lends itself to a linear approach (one slide after another in a fixed order), consider a non-linear approach - to do this well, you need to know your slide numbers (they can be typed in to jump to a particular slide); or you could create 'hyperlinks' at useful junction points in your presentation. (Hyperlinks can even be added to elements on the Master Slide, such as your logo.)
Another non-linear approach is to use a tool like pptPlex or prezi. (Disclaimer: I have developed in pptPlex, but not prezi.)
Consider limiting the number of bullet points and the length of sentences. Such as 3-5 bullets, with none longer than two lines if you need people to pay attention. If you need them to take away specific content, you may add more information, or supplementary information in handouts or slide notes.
And importantly to avoid embarrassment or worse, before the session run through the slides in 'presentation mode', to check for obvious and avoidable errors. Do this at home, and then again at the venue (to check for readability from the back of the room and other issues).

I will cover handouts in another post. For now I suggest that you create a handout from your slide content, and avoid the standard PowerPoint-generated handouts.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Lollies & Other Stimulants

2011-02-22T21:07:00.001+10:00

Tempted?

Excessive sugar, caffeine, alcohol and other substances can cause people to act irrationally. These are not the only things that can cause irrational behaviour, but they are the topic of this post.

A good friend of mine, Cindy Plant, makes it very clear that anyone eating the lollies on the table must enter into a contract to sustain their intake for the rest of the day. She does not want to be dealing with grumpiness or aberrant behaviour when people come down from their sugar induced high.

The consumption of alcohol in small quantities may be 'social' in some settings. If you are facilitating, take a page from Cindy's book, and let people know what you expect from them. This also counts for 'the next morning' effects of alcohol consumption.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Visual Facilitation - Project Planning

2011-02-19T13:00:00.002+10:00

(This is a co-post with the one called "Choosing a Format - Project Planning".)

Project planning is a particular kind of process. (See the co-post on choosing a format for more on this.)

It is very important that people have a shared understanding of what a project is about. A great way to achieve this is to 'paint a picture' of the project. There are two kinds of project pictures. (Sure, there are probably lots more, but these are the two I most often find myself working with.) They are:

The project workplan or schedule - how the project will happen.
The project impact or 'end state' - what the project will accomplish.

Both of these can benefit from visual presentation.

The Project Workplan or Schedule

Always start documenting the schedule by documenting the major activities or stages of the project. This is often as far as you would go in a facilitated group session. Individuals or pairs can then go away and determine the detailed steps, durations and resource requirements.

An example from a very small group is simply documented with pen and paper:

Rough High Level Picture

In a larger group, this may involve a whiteboard:

Rough High Level Picture on a Whiteboard

The Project Impact or 'End State'

This is a trickier process, and does not always immediately lend itself to being done graphically. However, when I ask small groups to create a picture that shows what their project needs to achieve (and not how they will get there) some fantastic pictures are drawn.

Pictures have included flowers, buildings, people (lots of people), amoeba-like creatures, bridges.

As usual, how we got the picture is at least as important than what ended up in the picture. This is not just about 'painting pictures of the project'. It is about capturing people's ideas, understanding and hunches about the upcoming project, feeding them back to this audience, and documenting them for future audiences.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Choosing a Format - Project Planning

2011-02-19T12:59:00.002+10:00

(This is a co-post with the one called "Visual Facilitation - Project Planning".)

Sometimes a project is a bit complicated, or people are unsure how to get it started, or there are a bunch of stakeholders who do not necessarily see eye-to-eye, or the project manager is new to project management and seeking some direction.

These are great opportunities for facilitation. As facilitator you get to work with people who are passionate about the topic and getting ready to fully immerse themselves in it. And its great for the participants. When the facilitator is external to the project, the project manager, project director (if participating) and other stakeholders can participate, rather than getting caught up in determining the process.

At these sessions I believe the two most important things to establish are:

Why is the project being undertaken?
What does the project need to achieve?

Sometimes these can be answered almost immediately; other times you can spend hours. Either way I have always found this time well spent.

You can ask these questions directly, or sneak up on them. I quite like to sneak up on 'big questions' like these. For example, you might ask 'What specific events led to this project being identified?' or 'If this project is successful, what will be different?' The first question is a good one to ask everyone to answer individually (ask them to write down their answer).

The second question is potentially lots of questions - there are 'tangible deliverables', 'tangible short and long-term outcomes', 'intangible immediate outcomes' and 'intangible short and long-term outcomes'. And probably more I haven't thought of. Tom Peters talks about BHAGs (big hairy assed goals). And I like to ask people about their 'aspirational objectives'.

I don't think this post would be credible if I was unable to provide some examples, so here goes:

Why is the project being undertaken? should be answered by examining current conditions, such as "I have so many tools that I cannot park my car in the garage" or "My partner will leave me if I service my motorbike in the kitchen again".
What 'tangible deliverables' does the project need to achieve? could be answered with "building a shed which is also a workshop".
What 'tangible short and long-term outcomes' does the project need to achieve? - "a space where I can keep my tools and service my motorbike".
What 'intangible immediate outcomes' does the project need to achieve? - "new skills in shed building" and "my partner appreciates that I'm making an effort".
What 'intangible short and long-term outcomes' does the project need to achieve? - "a space apart in which I can do my own thing" and "household harmony".

Some other questions that you may need to answer include:

What is the project called?
Who are the key stakeholders? And what role do they need to take in the project?
What keeps/could keep the project manager awake at night?
What intermediary outcomes could be achieved 'along the way'?
And one possibly for another session: How will we get there? (tasks, people, resources, funds, etc)

As usual flexibility is important, as the session may not go as you expect. Or more likely, you will find out that a particular topic that you expected to breeze through actually gets you caught up. Or something you expected to take up a lot of time is finished almost before it started. This could be the topic of a whole post, but for now I'll just suggest that you bring a lot more topics/questions than you expect to be able to get through.

Watch for cues from the participants, as you (and maybe a small number of participants) might be intrigued by a topic that others have no interest in. Also, pull up before you exhaust people - a couple of half-days are much more likely to be fruitful than one full day.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Activities to Draw People In - Sticky Notes For All

2011-02-19T12:27:00.002+10:00

Difficulty: Moderate to High. (Needs firm facilitation and clear instructions.)
Audience: People seeking ideas to address a problem or opportunity.
Suggested Time: 1 to 3 hours.

A popular method of visual facilitation is to put sticky notes up on a wall. This takes many forms, from flowcharts or Value Stream Maps to organisational charts and brainstorming.

It is easy to control the session by being the one who sticks things on the wall, or to be even more in control by writing on the sticky notes and putting them on the wall. Give it up! Encourage the participants to share their ideas - by both writing on sticky notes, and putting them on the wall. Or in some other way making a direct and unfiltered contribution.

Sticky Noting in Action

EXAMPLE
My father lectures at U3A (University of the Third Age), and in a recent session on Islam he asked people to write on sticky notes what they know about Moslem people and Islam. He then asked them to put the sticky notes up on the wall, not randomly, but on pieces of butcher's paper with labels like About Rituals; About People; and About Attitudes. People were encouraged to sort their input under appropriate headings. (The headings were chosen by the facilitator. They were relevant to later topics.)

ANOTHER EXAMPLE
A client of mine (Fitzroy Basin Association) was producing a detailed report capturing the experiences in, and accomplishments of, lots of people's projects. In this session, 8 people responsible for projects were asked to present for 6 minutes each - telling their audience 1.What we learnt; 2.What we changed; and 3.Where we can go with this. The audience members were each given sticky notes and asked to write down the answer to the question "What is the key theme?" They were encouraged to capture as many themes as they could identify.

After the last presentation, the audience became participants. They put their sticky notes up on the walls - initially randomly, and then moving them around to group in whatever logical way they could identify. A group of about 20 people managed to write on 388 sticky notes that over an hour were sorted into 17 groups (or themes). The themes were given descriptive names (mostly 2-3 word phrases).

We wanted more than just a list of themes. For each theme we wanted to be able to tell stories. So the participants were asked to go to a theme, and individually or in groups write a story about real events that explain the theme.

Learnings: A. There was a high level of trust between the client, participants and facilitator in this session. This trust was sorely tested as the sticky notes rained down, unable to stick to the painted walls. Magic tape saved the day, with nearly 388 small lengths of tape being attached while people grimly held onto yellow pieces of not very sticky note - it was a hot day, and the wall had matt paint. Not a good combination.
B. 388 separate pieces of information can be difficult to collate. The first step was to take them off the wall, in groups, and stick them on butcher's paper. The butcher's paper was then carefully folded up. Each note was typed into Excel, and a short summary written to accompany the stories that explain the theme.

This was a great session for many reasons, including engaging all participants in collecting and collating information, and identifying a number of obscure themes that may not have been identified in any other way. The session was at times a little stressful (raining sticky notes), but overall a pleasure to plan and facilitate.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

You may wish to read what others have written about facilitating with sticky notes:

Eric Albertson at Duarte - Advanced Stickynoting
Chiara Ogan at Adaptive Path - How to Run a Concepting Workshop
And finally, a useful trick - Dave Gray at Communication Nation - The Amazing Sticky Note Trick

Activities to Draw People In - The Organisation's Story/ies

2011-02-17T21:36:00.000+10:00

50 Year History of
Central Queensland Local Government Association

I am constantly fascinated by other people's stories...

One of the things I regularly do is to ask for a potted history of the organisation - perhaps in the form of recent events, successes and things people are not so proud of. I ask questions like, "Is someone willing to tell me about the organisation's ‘recent successes’ and ‘notable incidents’?" I have heard stories of fundraising, team achievements, embezzlement, failed change efforts and huge effort from volunteers.

Sometimes I do not need to ask - people love to talk about their organisations and the people who make them great. If you feel that you need to know more about your client or their stakeholders, just ask. You may be amazed at the enthusiasm with which people answer.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Icebreaker anyone?

2011-02-14T18:39:00.001+10:00

(The free dictionary http://www.thefreedictionary.com borrows from the Collins English Dictionary, defining 'icebreaker' as a ship that smashes through sea ice; and "something intended to relieve mutual shyness at a gathering of strangers".)

As people who have attended sessions I have facilitated would attest, I tend to get people to introduce themselves in turn "Name, Role & Organisation". To spice it up I sometimes ask people to tell us what challenges they have with regard to the topic of the workshop - for example, in Managing Your Time and Organising Yourself I ask people to tell us what challenges they have in managing their time.

I have done icebreakers, but they are the exception rather than the rule. I tend to want to 'cut to the chase'. Apparently you can do that, as long as the icebreaker is relevant. So maybe it is time I spiced things up a bit - not by asking people to tell us something about themself that no-else knows, or asking the participants to pair up, introduce themselves, and each introduce the other person to the group.

I wonder what I can do? (I'll report back later on progress.)

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Whether to Use PowerPoint?

2011-02-13T21:45:00.004+10:00

One of the big questions in preparing for facilitation is whether or not to use PowerPoint.

PowerPoint (or similar software) is a way of presenting visual information. The form this information takes in your PowerPoint can vary substantially.

There are no hard and fast rules here. Factors include your personal preference; the content; the approach; the audience; the venue; and the equipment.

Before going too far, I would like to state that for about six years I did not use PowerPoint in any of my training courses. I used a whiteboard, butchers' paper and markers extensively. I was quite comfortable working without PowerPoint, but eventually felt the need to 'codify' my whiteboard scribblings - especially as my scribblings were not particularly graceful. Since starting to use PowerPoint I seldom facilitate without it; using it to support the spoken word and physical materials, but not in place of them.

Your Personal Preference
You may love or hate PowerPoint and choose whether to use it on that basis. This not a great justification either way, except that your personal preference may affect your proficiency and level of comfort using PowerPoint.

If ignorance of PowerPoint is holding you back, a short course, or even a few hours 'having a play' might make a big difference. Don't forget to present to friends initially if you have limited or no experience facilitating using PowerPoint. As with so many aspects of public speaking, practice and experience can make a big difference.

The Content
If the content you are using can benefit from visually presentation, PowerPoint can be excellent. This could be in the form of words or pictures. Unlike some facilitators, I use words more than any other content. These might include: the list of topics for the session; questions to be answered by small groups; a draft vision/mission; input collected during an earlier activity; or homework for participants.

Visual content can include a Gantt Chart showing a project timeline; a map showing a route or a location; a diagram explaining relationships, such as a mind map of stakeholders; the layout of a building or a room; a photo or schematic of a product; etc.

(If you are interested in a spirited defence of the value of PowerPoint, Ray Poynter has made some excellent points in a blog called "In Praise of PowerPoint" at the Future Place Blog, click here.)

The Approach
Sometimes your approach will lend itself to using, or not using, PowerPoint. For example, if you are going to be giving potentially confusing instructions, they can be supported by using PowerPoint, in order to make the initial message clear, and also left up on the screen, so people can follow along as they undertake the instructions.

Alternatively, you might avoid PowerPoint if you are going to be moving around from room to room; or if you do not know specifically what you will be doing during the session. It is unusual, but not unknown, to decide what you are going to do on the basis of what you find out immediately before or during the session.

The Audience
Unless you have been given explicit instructions, you may be surprised that your audience probably has few expectations regarding your use of tools like PowerPoint. Even if they do have expectations, if they are contrary, you may change their minds through the way you use, or work without, PowerPoint.

Another aspect to consider is that members of your audience may be blind or visually impaired, including those who neglected to bring their glasses, and are thus disadvantaged with visual content. Size of text and graphics can be useful, but can be insufficient. Many blind people are accustomed to use sophisticated technologies to 'read' written text, or even 'see' diagrams and other graphics. You are best to ask the person what you can do to assist them.

Another aspect of your audience is their ability to 'process' your messages - the biology of the human brain. There is an excellent post on this topic at the Brain Slides blog called "Why a neuroscientist doesn’t use PowerPoint" (click here). I could not have said it any better.

The Venue
The venue can have a big impact on your ability to use PowerPoint effectively.

It is generally not necessary to operate in a dark room. However, many projectors are not effective if used outdoors or in bright light. Projecting onto a screen rather than a wall (especially a shiny one) can help. Projecting onto a window is generally impossible, due to the bright reflection of the light coming from the projec

Some venues have excellent equipment. In these places it may seem to be a shame not to use it. However, this is a poor reason to use PowerPoint. As long as some equipment is available, you can judge for yourself whether you use it.

The Equipment
PowerPoint can be used in a number of ways, from using a personal computer, notebook/laptop or tablet (such as an iPad) with a small group, to connecting this device to large monitor or a digital projector and using a wall or a screen. In many cases the screen produces a much clearer picture than a painted wall.

Some barriers to the use of such equipment include ownership, affordability and confidence in setting up and/or using the equipment. You must work within your means. As described earlier, there are alternatifes to PowerPoint. If it is a luxury for you, or you are overly reliant on the support or patronage of others, consider going without.

Plan B
Failure of technology or organisation, or other reasons, may result in an inability to use PowerPoint. Always be ready and willing to work without PowerPoint. Consider how you might go about this ahead of time. Methods include, using a whiteboard and markers (or a blackboard and chalk); handing out a summary of your slides or the actual slides, a simply saying the things that you had planned to communicate using PowerPoint.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Choosing a Format - Knowledge Cafe

2011-02-10T19:56:00.004+10:00

A while ago I facilitated a Knowledge Cafe on project management at CQUniversity. It was a big event for me, as I had never facilitated a session quite like this one.

The usual aspects of this approach include:

Inviting people to come and participate in a workshop on a session of interest to them.
Telling people what is expected of them during the workshop.
Asking people to join small groups (in this case 4's).
Asking people to answer questions in their groups.
Asking people to report back points of interest that came up in their groups.

The unusual aspects of this approach include:

Asking half of the people to rotate to another table after some time, and answer the same questions at the new table.
The facilitator does not take down everyone's input and commit to taking action.
Expecting people to take their own notes, and take action as they see fit.

I did quite a bit of research for this session. The main place I went was David Gurteen's knowledge website (click here). I loved his story about travelling to London for public lectures, ending up in the pub, and finding that the most valuable information sharing happened in the pub rather than at the lecture. You could also try Wikipedia (here).

The Knowledge Cafe is a subversive process. It is not about generating a list of strategies and actions for implementation in a centralised manner. It is about helping the people with influence and capacity to see a way forward for their piece of the puzzle. It is about embracing the complexity of the system we work within. It is about energising people with influence and about giving voice to those without influence. It is about exposing people with influence to a range of knowledge, opinion, fact and emotion around their area of influence.

Knowledge Cafe Layout

I enjoyed introducing this session. I told the participants that Knowledge Cafe is subversive. I don't know whether they believed me. I also stated that it is 'more art than science; more conversation than action plan'.

One of my slides included: NOT Listing strategies & actions or Feeding into operational plans. But it IS Gaining insight, Developing professional network, Embracing system complexity and Taking your own notes.

The participants were asked to answer:

1. What’s the Uni up to in terms of project management?
2. Where to from here with project management?

In the introduction I explained that if the people participating hear anything that needs action, it is up to them to do something about it. Even after this, at the end some people expressed disappointment that no-one was taking away the findings to take action.

Apart from this criticism, the feedback was generally positive. People went away with extended networks; a greater appreciation of the range of project management roles being undertaken at the University; and a range of things to do to pursue project management excellence.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

Get Started (1)

2011-02-10T07:45:00.000+10:00

Starting out is one of the most important, and sometimes nerve-wracking, things you'll do as a facilitator.

I always tell myself it will be fine. I sometimes even believe myself. And most times it is. In fact, almost invariably it goes well.

I am not sure what I'm afraid of. Maybe that they'll smell my fear and reject me. Or that they will refuse to participate. Or ...

There are some things you can do to improve your chances of getting a good outcome. Such as:

Being genuine and caring about what you are doing.
Knowing the participants (especially their attitude to what you are doing).
Keeping your introduction brief and relevant.
Finding the balance between 'showing off' and 'communicating your credibility'.
Getting them to do something worthwhile. (You might need to explain why it is worthwhile.)

But most of all, know what you want to accomplish and how, and be open minded about changing the latter.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

What is Facilitation?

2011-02-09T20:34:00.005+10:00

For me, facilitation is:

Eliciting information from people in a group setting.
Encouraging participation by people in a group.
Introducing new ideas to people in groups.
Motivating people to share ideas and information with others.
Going on a rollercoaster ride with a group.

It is a great honour to be invited to 'lead' the group; taking them on a journey ... together.

(Note: I intentionally avoided reading up on other people's opinions on this topic, so I could give my own perspective. I may need to come back and add more later.)

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au

How to Be a Facilitator (First Post)

2011-02-09T17:37:00.002+10:00

This is my first post in this blog.

Being a facilitator means attending to lots of little things and some big things. This blog is about all of these.

Some of these include:

Get started confidently and with a worthwhile activity
Finishing off elegantly
Dealing with difficult people
Dealing with chronic interrupters
Knowing whether this is fact-finding, problem solving, briefing, training or something else
Choosing from a range of formats (eg, a Knowledge Cafe)
Breaking for Lunch
Dealing with distractions
People taking an intractable position
Aiming for (and sometimes achieving) consensus
Developing materials
Recording input and cisual facilitation

Read more posts to learn about these and other topics. And don't forget to add your own comments below.

...Geoff
www.performancepeople.com.au