How to Be a Facilitator: March 2011

Visual Facilitation - Conference Recording

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

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?

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

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

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?

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

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

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

(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?

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

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