Facilitation Skills
"Good facilitation makes the difference between event success and failure"
This is a sample learning overview that we can design and deliver specifically for your organisation.
Calling upon a good facilitator can mean an end to inconclusive meetings, unbalanced group dynamics and innovation drought. As someone tasked with ‘facilitation’, your job is not to provide the answers, but through questioning, challenging and listening you will skilfully guide the group towards making their own decisions.
Being an effective facilitator can be a tough job. You will need to establish a structured process for your event, meeting, workshop or project; confidently optimise participation; diplomatically channel conflict; and ultimately get the best results for the team and organisation.
We have designed a highly practical 2-day facilitation skills training course to help you do just that. During the two days, tutor input will be brought to life as participants choose from a flexible facilitation skills toolkit to practise a real-life scenario twice through. The interim feedback from peers and tutor, and your self-assessment, will transform how you facilitate for real when you return to work.
By the end of the workshop, you will be able to:
- Understand what makes a good facilitator
- Explain the role of a facilitator and how it will support learning in your business
- Identify the knowledge, skills, behaviours and mindset of an effective facilitator
- Effectively plan and structure engaging facilitation sessions
- Adopt an appropriate facilitation approach and style to bring the best out in individuals and teams, encouraging learning, retention and application
- Apply a flexible toolkit of facilitation techniques with confidence
- Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of facilitated sessions using a structured process
Programme –
Welcome & Objectives
- Workshop objectives
- Who are you and what is your facilitation experience?
- What are your strengths as a facilitator?
- What are your concerns about facilitation?
- What are your learning objectives for the next two days?
Defining what we mean by facilitation
- What facilitation is and what it isn’t
- The Facilitation Continuum – how facilitation is different to presenting and training
- The Facilitation Cycle: engage, design and develop, facilitate, review
- Defining the knowledge skills and behaviours required to facilitate successfully
Coffee
Your role as a facilitator
- The Facilitation Cycle and Framework – what is required of you as a facilitator
- Self-assessment activity v the framework: identifying your current strengths and areas for further development
- Introduction to the practical facilitation tool-kit and how we will use it during this workshop
Lunch and networking
Planning and preparing to facilitate
- Creating your facilitation high level design including logistics, methods and session plan
- Understanding how people learn and how facilitation methods support this
- Selecting your methods of facilitation – reviewing the tools and techniques from your tool-kit
- Practical work on your real-life facilitation design document in preparation for your first practice delivery
- Peer review of the facilitation design and input into each other’s sessions
Coffee
Facilitation practice 1
- Facilitate your first practice using new found tools and techniques
- Receive feedback from the trainer and your peers
- Observe fellow participants and contribute to their feedback
- Review of learning
- Create your development plan based on feedback
Welcome back
- Interactive and facilitated review of the learning from day one
- Objectives for day two
Managing group dynamics, conflict and challenging situations
- Indentifying the potential challenges facilitators can encounter
- Tactics to prepare for and deal with challenging situations
- Facilitating through resistance
Coffee
Preparing to facilitate practice two
- Review current designs and update as requires – using new tools and methods
- Prepare for any resistance during practice two
Lunch and networking
Facilitate practice two
- Facilitate your first practice using new found tools and techniques
- Receive feedback from the trainer and your peers
- Observe fellow participants and contribute to their feedback
- Review of learning
- Ceate your development plan based on feedback
Motivating and evaluating your sessions
- How to evaluate your facilitated sessions
- Checking learning at all levels
Coffee
Taking your learning forward
- Review of workshop objectives
- Application plan
- Next steps – how will I grow as a facilitator?
Explore our subject areas
Learning channels
A wide range of learning methods ensures we deliver learning that is appropriate, specific and drives sustainable change.
These include