Facilitation Skills

This course is currently available as E-Learning, or a private instructor-led class scheduled to suit your availabilty. You can click here to inquire further or you ask us for recommendations on similar classes.

Recommended Prerequisites

No prerequisites are required for this course.

Course Overview

It is impossible to be part of an organization today and not attend meetings. Staff meetings, project meetings, and planning and coordinating meetings all take time.

There has been a growing realization that we have to pay attention to the process elements of meetings if we want them to be effective. With its focus on asking rather than telling, and listening to build consensus, facilitation is the new leadership ideal, the core competency everybody needs. Managers and supervisors are often asked to facilitate rather than instruct or manage their meetings and training sessions.

How can you facilitate, rather than control, group decision-making and team interaction? With no formal training, people may find it difficult to make the transition from instructors or managers to facilitators.

This course has been created to make core facilitation skills better understood and readily available for your organization. It represents materials and ideas that have been tested and refined over twenty years of active facilitation in all types of settings.

Learning Objectives

• Distinguish facilitation from instruction and training
• Identify the competencies linked to effective small group facilitation
• Understand the difference between content and process
• Identify the stages of team development and ways to help teams through each stage
• Use common process tools to make meetings easier and more productive

Course Outline

1. Course Overview
2. Defining Your Role
3. Facilitation, Training, and Chairing
4. Making Connections
5. How Facilitators Work
6. Key Skills
7. Facilitation Skill Levels
8. Facilitation at a Glance
9. Establishing Ground Rules
10. Content and Process
11. Types of Thinking
12. Divergent Thinking and Convergent Thinking
13. Grey Matters
14. Handling Controversial Issues
15. Communication Skills
16. Getting Started
17. Active Listening
18. Asking Questions
19. Non-Verbal Messages
20. Listening For Common Ground
21. Common Facilitation Techniques
22. Top Techniques
23. Making Connections
24. Providing Effective Feedback
25. Giving Feedback
26. The Feedback Process
27. One Step Further
28. Managing Divergent Perspectives
29. The Language of Facilitation
30. Applying the Language
31. Case Study
32. Building Agendas
33. Dealing with Difficult Dynamics
34. Mix and Match
35. 12 Easy Ways to Intervene
36. Building Sustainable Agreements
37. Stages of Team Development
38. The Five Stages
39. Making Connections
40. Analysis Tools
41. Personal Action Plan
42. Recommended Reading List
43. Post-Course Assessment