1 of 11: Suggested Facilitation Strategies: Me, My Behavioural Preferences & My Facilitation Practice

There is no one perfect Facilitator profile. Whilst the International Association of Facilitators (www.iaf-world.org) describes 6 Competencies of a Facilitator that we must all master, when it comes to our profiles we can be extrovert or introvert; we can be thinkers or feelers; we can be debaters or peace-keepers; and so on.  What is key is that we know who we are, and that we have strategies in place to ensure that who we are affects our facilitation practice… for the good.

In our “Facilitation by Design” training programme – run within organizations convening many stakeholder conversations - we expressly address how who we are affects our facilitation practice.  With reference to the diversity of diagnostic tools and assessments that participants have engaged with prior to the training, we consider behavioural preferences and explore what this might mean for our work as facilitators. 

Take, for example, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) that suggests psychological preferences in how we perceive the world and make decisions; the Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation instrument (FIRO-B) measuring interpersonal needs and preferences with regards our interactions with others; and the StrengthsFinder personal assessment tool that identifies individuals’ top talent themes.  Reflecting on behavioural preferences - as illuminated by these tools and many others besides - we ask: “How are our preferences manifesting in our facilitation practice?” “How are they affecting how each of us works with groups in a facilitation role?” 

Building on these reflections, each participant then identifies three “Learning edges” or areas on which they would like to focus particular attention in order to strengthen their facilitation practice.  Possible strategies for doing so are suggested.  

In a series of 10 blog posts to follow, we will share insights into recurrent learning edges for facilitators and, for each, some suggested strategies for strengthening facilitation practice.  

Recurrent Learning Edges For Facilitators

1.   Building (a) my stature and confidence as facilitator; and (b) building the confidence of others in me as a neutral, authentic and legitimate facilitator.

2.   Designing a thorough and detailed agenda that is (a) structured, logical and outcome-driven; and at the same time (b) flexible, allowing for flow and emergence.

3.   Choosing methodologies that (a) are appropriate and motivating for the group; and (b) interesting for me.

4.   Feeling comfortable with (a) a group I know (too) well; and (b) creating rapport with a group I don’t (or barely) know (without making it too much about ‘me’).

5.   Having confidence in achieving the desired outcomes (a) when I’m not a subject matter expert; and (b) when I am a subject matter expert (but my role is as facilitator).

6.   Striking the right level of visibility and intervention: (a) Saying enough; and (b) Not saying too much.

7.   Knowing (a) when I should summarize and synthesize discussion for the group; and (b) when I should have the group summarize and synthesize.

8.   Keeping track of (a) group maintenance when I’mgetting swept up in the task and content of discussions; and of (b) the taskand content of discussions when I’m getting swept up in the group dynamics.

9.   Making sure my desire (a) for harmony doesn'tskew the process when debate may be beneficial / necessary; and (b) my desirefor debate doesn’t hinder agreement and moving forward.

10.  Ensuring (a) I valuablyand dependably guide the process and the group; and that (b) I handover to the group, fostering ownership and self-reliance.

Next > 2 of 11: Suggested Facilitation Strategies - Building Confidence in Yourself, and Others in You, as the Facilitator

Need Impromptu Speaking Practice? Try Toastmasters Table Topics (Bonus Topic Idea: "Why Did You Get That Tattoo?")

I recently took over the role of Table Topics Master at our Nyon Toastmasters Club, a role I had not taken before (Note: If you don't know about Toastmasters, I would highly recommend this wonderful  learning community focused entirely on public speaking.)

Table Topics are a regular feature of our Club, and I think of all Toastmasters Clubs. They give people the opportunity to stand up and deliver a 1-2 minute speech, completely impromptu, about some topic that they are given on the spot. These are in contrast to the prepared speeches at each Toastmaster meeting (which are longer, prepared in advance of the meeting and practiced, practiced, practiced.)

I wanted my Table Topics to give people the opportunity to tell a good story, and when I looked around, in early June, I noticed a lot of body art being displayed with the nice weather. So I decided to call my Table Topics:

WHY DID YOU GET THAT TATTOO?

When you see a really unusual tattoo, you know there must be a good story behind it. So I took 8 slips of paper and on each one of them I drew a tattoo (in some cases I made it on PowerPoint, or I typed it out if it was words/numbers, or I found a similar image on the internet).  Then I wrote on what part of the body the tattoo was positioned. I folded up the slips of paper and put them in an envelope. On the night I asked the volunteers to select a piece of paper and hand it to me, so I could describe the tattoo, where it was placed and ask them in a rather loud and demanding way, "Why Did You Get That Tattoo?" (of course you can vary the tone of your voice depending on the tattoo - you can sound like your mother or an envious friend.)

Here are the "tattoos" that I used (not all of them were selected - we had time for the first four):

1. 55⁰01'N 82⁰56'E - The map coordinates of Novosibirsk are tattooed on your left foot - Why did you get that tattoo??
2. A small Chinese character that looks nice but translates into "Noodles" on the nape of your neck
3. "Jane Forever" tattooed across your back
4. An outline of the State of Texas on your calf  (pick any state/country)
5. "Only Judy Knows" tattooed on your right bicep 
6. Lampyridae (the scientific name of a firefly) on your ankle
7. A bar code on your lower back 
8. Half a Tweety Bird on your thigh - Why did you get that tattoo??

You can really use your imagination on this as the Table Topics Master, and obviously it demands the same on the part of the speech makers!

We had some wonderful stories about a well-lubricated project site visit in wintery Siberia, indelible life-changing field work with Jane Goodall, some translation difficulties in a tattoo parlour in Shanghai, and a Dallas University Professor who really made a lasting impression on his student.  The Table Topic speakers were so creative and rather courageous I would say - congratulations to the four Toastmasters women who jumped at this opportunity before we ran out of time.

Delivering good Table Topics is also one of my personal learning edges. I feel comfortable (appropriately nervous of course) preparing and giving a 5-6 minute prepared Toastmasters speech. But the idea of having to talk off the cuff, sensibly, about a topic I am given 2 seconds before is still something that makes my brain race, legs shake and voice quiver. And although I thought about it in advance, I am still not sure how I would justify that half a Tweety Bird tattooed on my thigh.

I’m Working! Mobile Working Can Be Highly Effective, From Anywhere…

Believe it or not, one of my most productive work days this week was here.

At the risk of no one taking me seriously again, I wanted to write briefly about mobile working… from a water park.

Sometimes your kids have a day off, beg you to take them to Aqua Park because it is practically empty (they have a teacher's in-service day and other schools/classes do not), but your husband is travelling and you still have work obligations.

Does this, or something like this, ever happen to you?

Well, I have actually (after an obligatory 1 hour of water slides to begin with) done several very productive hours of work. How? I carried my mobile office with me, including the following:



1) One Smart phone with internet;

2) One set of headphones with microphone for making discreet calls (I'm sure the lady sunbathing next to me never even noticed);

3) A Bluetooth keyboard that folds up into a small square. (This is amazing technology and allows for long, serious emails to be written on your phone instead of a computer or iPad - I wrote this entire blog post comfortably on my phone using this nearly fully-size keyboard.)

4) My GTD A4 mesh pouch, filled with Action and Project files, highlighter, pen, post-its etc.

5) The GTD files themselves - these are labeled folders with: In, Read/Review, Action Support, Waiting For, Filing, Expenses, and Trash (and a couple of blank ones). I needed this as I hurriedly emptied my in-box into another GTD A4 mesh pouch to organize on site;

6) My paper calendar (because I build in redundancy with both a paper and e-calendar, or just call me old fashioned);

7) My own GTD folder (below) with my lists (Next Action, Waiting For, Projects, Agendas, Someday/Maybe) to help me optimize my time - no wasting time trying to figure out what to do next;



This all packs into a small tote bag, that I then should have put into a plastic bag (being a water park and all) but so far so good.

It's good to have this mobile system thought through and ready to go, especially when plans change and you find yourself working away from your office in some unusual place (e.g. café waiting for judo lesson to finish, car park at rainy football game, restaurant because hammering in house, airplane…I could go on).

I guess this means I can really work anywhere, anytime (Health Warning: Not that working everywhere, all the time is good! I promised and will enjoy going back to the water slides and wave pool again before we go, with a much freer and clearer conscience!)

Workshops in Geneva? Here’s My List of Workshop/Conference Venues

Having worked for the last 20 years in and around the Geneva area in the training and facilitation field, after a while you get to know the good places to hold workshops and meetings.

I wanted to put these all in one place for easy use for myself, and for others, as I get asked frequently for recommendations for good venues in the area. This list includes Geneva, as well as the La Cote area – the lovely band of French-speaking Switzerland between Geneva and Lausanne, along the lake.

I focused below on the rooms, food, accommodation availability and access.

If you know of any others, please let me know, I am always delighted to find a new place that is conducive to groups working together in workshop formats!

• Chateau de Penthes  - This workshop space is near the United Nations in Geneva, but just outside of town in a quiet environment. I have used several times the refurbished attic space (called the “Grenier” on the website for groups up to 50 or so around round tables. They have a nice kitchen that can serve lunch on the spot downstairs or across the park. There is a convenient bus stop and parking. The website appears to only be in French, but I would be surprised if the management did not speak English – try the info practique (practical information)
• CICG (Centre International de Conferences Genève)– This is a large scale conference venue just in the middle of the United Nations complex. I have held mostly larger events here (100 – 175) in both rooms with fixed seats, and also a nice open space where you can put 18 round tables or more. They are fully set up for simultaneous translation and are also accessible by bus or parking.
• Le Cenacle – This venue I only discovered in the last couple of years as it is across the lake from me and well hidden away from the busy city of Geneva in a quiet park in the  Malagnou area of town. I have used it for smaller groups – 10 – 30. An additional benefit is the accommodation space, where people can stay. I have used the downstairs “basement” rooms which are very serviceable, if a little dark on winter days – both have natural light and exits to outdoors for group work outside in the park. Good parking and bus access.
• John Knox Centre – I haven’t been here for a few years, but for a period was frequently using this Centre, located within walking distance from the UN. Like Le Cenacle, it has accommodation, meeting space and a simple cafeteria. It often houses students, so has a very informal feel to it.  I have always used the Meeting Room Flory, an interesting circular room, for my groups which tend to be around 30 – 35 people.
• International Environment House – There are rooms available in the International Environment House, which is in the Chatelaine area of Geneva near the airport. There are a number of resident organizations here (from UNEP and UNITAR, to the Ecological Footprint Network, etc.) who have access and I have worked here through these partners, but there also seems to be possible access to external users, through GEN – the Geneva Environment Network.

As you start to leave Geneva you have:

• Ecogia (Versoix)  - I wrote a whole blog post about this wonderful, purpose-built training and workshop facility located about 15 minutes outside of Geneva – If Trainers Designed Training Centres. Of note, is that it is the training centre for the International Committee of the Red Cross and they get calendar preference.
• Chateau de Bossey (Celigny) -  Still a little further from Geneva (about 20 minutes out by car) is this gem of a chateau which has a wide range of workshop and meeting rooms in the old building (chateau) as well as a newly developed building that holds much larger groups. I have used this venue for small meetings from 10 people, up to groups of 75 in the new building. It has ample accommodation space as well, which is good as it is located in a more rural and quiet setting. It has a wonderful terrace with a view of the lake and mountains, and a very nice cafeteria that can easily serve large numbers (there are often multiple groups there).
• Best Western Hotel in Chavannes-de Bogis - This hotel is 15-20 minutes outside Geneva on the main motorway to Lausanne (they have an airport and train shuttle to connect people coming from Geneva). The conference facilities are varied, with a big room (we recently have 70+ people around round tables comfortably) and other rooms that can be combined or used as smaller spaces. The hotel staff is very helpful and flexible, and can change room set ups during the day as needed (for our workshop we had drumming in orchestra format in the morning then the round tables and they did this quickly at coffee break). The staff is bilingual and happy to meet and work with organizers and are happy for groups to use the whole hotel - from the rooms, coffee break area (all day coffee break), outside spaces and restaurant for activities. They do nice receptions outside in good weather, with a beautiful view on lake  Geneva from their terrace. 

And further out you have

• IUCN (Gland)  - In the small town of Gland, about 30 minutes outside of Geneva, sits IUCN’s Conservation Centre, the headquarters of this international conservation community. The Centre also has meeting facilities which I have used extensively throughout the years (as I used to be the Head of Learning there). From small groups to up to 200, in the main conference room, IUCN has nicely appointed rooms of all sizes.  I often use the Holcom Think Tank, which has a beautiful view of the mountains. The photos of the rooms all have rather formal set ups, I mostly use small rectangular tables with 8 people around them (the equivalent to round tables). Access is by road or the Gland train station (just a short 8 minute walk away) and there is an excellent cafeteria which can serve and cater in other parts of the building as needed.
• Le Courtil (Rolle) – Right on Lake Geneva, Le Courtil is a conference centre with both meeting rooms (many with a remarkable view) and accommodation. Rolle is about 40 minutes outside Geneva and Le Courtil has parking and can be reached by train with a little walk. I have not used the train for access but I know many people do. Others hire small buses from the local taxi companies for access. The restaurant here is very well regarded with family-style buffets with many interesting choices (let’s face it, nice meals at workshops are important!) The rooms are in the chateau or annex and are mostly for smaller groups up to 30 - 40 or so I would say. The website seems to only be in French, but I know that the management are fully bilingual, so write or call their contact number for more information.

Well, that’s my list of Geneva-area workshop and meeting venues - if you have anything to add, let me know!

Constructing Multi-stakeholder Processes: Paying Attention in the Blueprint Stage

Most multi-stakeholder processes convene a diversity of opinion around complex issues. They do so with the express mandate of surfacing these different perspectives and working with them - maybe even transforming them - to become the building blocks with which to construct an agreed and robust solution for an important challenge that the parties care about and would like to see change. Big!

In addition, often the goal is to build something together that not one of the organizations could build successfully alone. Sometimes they need help. A neutral facilitator in the role of Chief Process Designer can work with the parties to help lay the foundation for a long lasting, stable outcome. This construction process takes authentic consultation and building a way forward together as the only real solution. And the intention to construct this solution together needs to be held strongly by all sides.

However the gulf in the landscape between the organizations involved in a multi-stakeholder dialogue can be wide and strewn with obstacles that need to be cleared away before a new shared “structure” (project, programme, idea) can be created.

This clearing and the co-creation process that follows doesn’t just start in the workshop room of the multi-stakeholder dialogue event. It starts from the first conversation that breaks ground for this new thing you are building together  - in the preparatory meetings, the calls, and the emails, that are the design discussions for the overall process.

These initial design discussions offer a wonderful opportunity to build trust, to try to understand these different perspectives and to work together to create an agenda or a concept note – effectively the “blue prints” for the process -  that all parties can be happy with. If you are not watching closely however, this preparatory stage can also become an environment which may model what you don’t want to happen in the workshop room of your consultation process.

How can you see the preparation stage as a virtual “hard hat zone”, where everyone needs to be careful and notice potential pitfalls and other possible obstacles that might make your work together less smooth or according to plan? You need to make sure that the pattern and tone of the preparatory dialogue and exchange is what you seek overall in your process. Everyone needs to watch that the attitudes and opinions (even at this initial stage of concept notes, budgets and agendas) are being expressed, shared and received in a way that assures creativity and co-creation instead of precipitating reactions that are more positional (because it is easy to take a position in an environment of so much difference.)

One important thing to look out for is your own stance as a facilitator. Even the facilitator can become a party to this. For example, the facilitator might be tempted to flash their “Chief Process Engineer” badge, and dig in their heels on the process design when suggestions for changes coming in don’t seem to work from their own expert frame. If they don’t notice their own positional stance, this can further exacerbate a fragile situation, or if they can be aware enough to notice it, name it and change it, it can be enormously helpful to group learning in the process.

We want people in the end of our design process to be happy with the blueprints we’re drafting together, whatever they end up being. Just the same as at the end of our consultation process we want people to be happy with their collaborative work and proud of the beautiful new thing that they built together.

Architects of Air: 5 Tips for Adding Structure to Workshops

If you think about it, the kind of workshops we go to, and run as facilitators and learning practitioners - our strategic planning meetings, our team development sessions, and brainstorming events - are not traditional workshops. The walls are not lined with physical tools, and in the room there are no hydraulic lifts and pneumatic drills, engines and massive circuit boards in sight. (I am working today with a group that is learning about how to do public private partnerships between vocational schools and companies in the heavy duty construction vehicles industry in post-conflict countries - all aimed at decreasing youth unemployment. The event has sparked my thinking...).

When we are doing this work, we walk into empty rooms. There might be chairs and tables, but the tools we use are for the most part invisible. We are lucky when something has been written down on paper, but this is not always the case.

These more ephemeral workshops can involve long hours of people talking. They can go here and there and all over the place (not our workshops of course, but those other workshops). And it is up to us, the hosts or the facilitators, to create a structure that helps us to use our invisible tools to create things, fix things or get some very specific things done.

The more "in the clouds" the discussion has the potential to be (whether a very broad or theoretical question, a visioning exercise, and even learning something specific from masses of experiences), the more creating a clear structure will help keep people on track and focused on the goals and products desired. And the more they will trust a process and goal that might seem daunting or slightly incomprehensible at first.

What are some of the ways a facilitator can help create structure, or make it make it much more visible, from a wide open space of 8 hours and an empty 10 m x 8 m room?  Here are 5 things I did during this workshop:

1.Created a physical schedule - I did this to help me structure my introduction to the agenda, I left this in the room and referred to where we were in the schedule after every break, and it helped people to see the flow and trust the process, that we would get where we needed to go in the end. Everyone had an e-copy of this in advance, but my experience is that people use it (the electronic version) before the event to see if they really want to attend, but during the event, people stop looking at their agenda's (unless they want to know when the break is!)

2. We are here: This might seem silly to you, but this little marker, that I move every time we go from one session to another, helps mark our progress and march through the agenda.

3. Structure the time with sound: I always carry a bell, or use my iPhone if I have a microphone, to help signal when things are changing, when activities are done, when groups need to change or when the break is over. This just helps to signal boundaries on activities that help people hear and trust that timing is being measured.

4. Number things: In these kinds of workshops I tend to number everything. I number the questions that the speakers will answer, number the tables for group work, number the sessions on the agenda. It helps as shorthand which can give time savings, it helps see the length and scope of things, and it helps give structure to the space or discussion.

5. Make Templates: Help structure the capturing of data, by making flipchart templates, A3 templates, A4 templates, listening cards, etc. - you can even border the paper, to create containers for the many ideas that come from the groups' work that will help shape the products you want to generate. It gives the feeling of structure (and also gives structure, keeps people on track and makes sure you are all answering the same question, and not some memory of a question you read orally 10 minutes ago).

In our workshops, we structure the wide open spaces of our minds and imaginations, our words and ideas, to help us get clearer about, and achieve, our goals.

In the end, we facilitators are architects of air. I love that idea!

Managing Exceptions: The Resilient Facilitator

This is an occupational reality that I need to remind myself about from time to time related to the work facilitators do. The resulting advice that I give myself may also be pertinent for trainers, event planners and staff members with bosses using "just-in-time" management or a firefighter approach to work.

You are invited to join processes when they are very important.

Leaders, teams and organizations invest in external support and help when the outcomes matter greatly - they need to gather information for the next submission of a critical funding proposal, they are bringing all their dues-paying members together for an annual inspirational meeting, once in every five years the Board meets to do strategic planning, they are trying to develop a historic industry standard through a multi-stakeholder process. These events can be milestones in the sustainability of an organization.

What if you, as a facilitator, have all of these things happening in the same month?

Let's hope that doesn't happen all the time, but it can certainly be the case that you have two or three big projects winding up very close to one another on your own calendar. Each one heating up in the weeks just before - potentially all at the same time.

It is important, as the Facilitator, to put yourself in the host organization's shoes and not be surprised when calls run over (maybe by as much as 1.5 hours), when they really want to see you and not just have a conference call, when they are eager to talk through an idea with you  even at 11pm at night or on Sunday morning when they are having their last preparatory team meeting. The event you are helping them with might be THE event of the year for them and they will be putting every ounce of effort into it. And they will make many exceptions to make sure it is absolutely perfect, which is great, and will invite you to make them too.

What can facilitators do to manage these exceptions? 3 things immediately come to mind:

1. Build in Resilience: This particularly in the form of time. Don't schedule 15-minute interviews 15 minutes apart, don't take meetings in 2 cities with only as much time as it takes to get between them in between, etc. Things will go over, they will be delayed because of last minute things on the host organization's side, they will be postponed because the programme is not quite developed yet, etc. Building in resilience to take these changes (which may be last-minute-before-the-event for them, but be all the time for you, the facilitator) means keeping space in your schedule and in your head to work with these exceptions. 
2. Husband your Resources: Try to maintain your routine even amidst these exceptions. Eat properly, exercise and above all SLEEP! Don't wind up going to these very important events with a sleep deficit. This is another way to build in resilience so that too many late nights in a row don't render you less than your usual creative and calm self. I wrote a whole blog post about this: Facilitators: To Your Health! 
3. Planning, Planning Planning: And of course, this is perhaps the obvious one, but easy to short cut when you might be contacted late in a process, or when organizations are eager to save funds (understandably in the current global financial climate many sustainability organizations are particularly sensitive to this). This might sound counter intuitive, but more time budgeted for planning and preparing your event can easily mean less time needed for last minute fix-its for mission critical meetings. And again, good planning and preparation will build resilience into your system, because with all the known things planned and organized you can be more open to fielding the unexpected whether before or during the event. And unexpected things will happen - expect them! (These can be rather extreme -  I was holding an international learning event with 250 people in Moscow when 9/11 happened, we stopped everything and devoted a full day to dialogue to try to understand what was going on in the world from many international perspectives - from this, to a handful of people losing their luggage thus taking out one of your support staff members for a while to deal with that.)

All of these things take some effort in the short term, but have long term benefits. For facilitators, like the ecosystems or humanitarian aid or precious metals our host organizations are managing, building in resilience makes our work more sustainable. 

Do You Really Want Results?

As facilitators (and human beings) we make all kinds of assumptions about what people want out of the workshops and processes we help them run. Some of these assumptions might be around getting results, or at least the sheer volume of results we can help a group of people generate over a day or two.

It is typical at the end of our workshops that the walls are covered
with flipcharts, completed templates, prioritised ideas, timelines, and next action sheets. We regularly put groups to work on key questions and then
after reporting seek from the group their observations about the
results  - what patterns do they see? What additional meaning can they
derive when you put all this work together? We ask for reflections and take away messages. We might capture these nuggets of insight on cards or paper,  and quickly we have mountains of data that we facilitators
assume are equally and fantastically valuable to the hosts of the event.

While these ideas and summaries look like gold to us, we might instead
encounter a programme manager who looks at the wealth of raw data and
asks at the end of the workshop, "What am I supposed to do with all this?"

Well, unless the process needs to be minuted for transparency or
accountability reasons (and sometimes this might actually be the case), I see no reason why every single post-it note or flipchart needs to be typed
up and put into a long, dry verbatim report, that potentially no one will use. Sometimes a simple photo report (like the ones I make in Penultimate – see blog post Fast and Easy Workshop Reports with Penultimate) will do as the archive of raw outputs. This can then be crystalized into a more useful and meaningful short report, with decisions and next actions concisely summarised.

We all need to remember that workshop activities can serve different purposes. Some might produce concrete written results, but some might be designed to produce softer, more intangible results, such as team development, warming up for a creative brainstorming, or helping to shift mindsets or attitudes. These latter activities might come and go with no written trace, with results only to be experienced in a more harmonious working atmosphere or a particularly innovative outcome later on.

Some discussions might be most useful for peer learning, so people might take their own notes of what is most useful to them. If the group has a central repository for group learning, this could be still be archived for on-demand learning in the future. In which case perhaps only highlights, contact /persons and places to go for more information need be captured in a searchable format (sent by email and/or uploaded on an online platform).

Sometimes the results produced are for the participants and sometimes they are just for you. For the latter, it might be most useful to let “results” pass in an ephemeral way, or with some discreet note taking on a notepad by the facilitator or project manager. Such as the answers to the following questions: How easy was it for you to contribute to this exercise? What did you enjoy about the day, what would you like to be different tomorrow? No need to capture these things on a flipchart. Unless of course you want to refer back to it again at the end of the next day to see how you did, but that seems heavy handed unless the process of the day was a train wreck (and hopefully that would NEVER be the case).

So as facilitators we might sometimes get a little carried away with
writing things down and capturing everything.

And our host organisations might get carried away too. It might be the case some times that our counterparts  think they want to know something but really they don't have the latitude to make the changes that might arise from a highly generative exercise. Or they might be working with a different timeframe (short term vs. long term) or they might have other parameters, such as budget or human resources, that pose boundaries that need to be carefully explained to a group before it starts its work. As without careful consideration of these, the results are rendered almost useless.

So the discussion of results forms an important part of the
consultation stage of a facilitation design process. It needs to happen at the overall workshop level, but also for each session and activity. Facilitators much check their assumptions -  this conversation is a time
where the facilitator listens deeply, and asks good questions. For
example, for a session that aims to share “best practice”: Where will the good practice lessons generated go after the session? Is it for individual participants’ learning or should it be captured and archived? If the latter, then where will it be archived and in what format? Who will use this later? How will the results be fed back into the process in the future? And so on.

I think we should always be very clear what results we want from a
workshop discussion, an exercise, from group work, etc. Every session conducted should have a purpose, and the answers/outputs/results are in some way useful for the process.  Without this the whole exercise can become very expensive  busy work. Whether results are captured for long term use, or whether the discussion just helps move the group mentally from A to B, this should be crystal clear to both the facilitator and the workshop host.

Whenever you are convening people you should always want results; whether they are written down or not doesn’t always matter.

Productivity and Walking Desks: Combining Work With Workout

Does this look familiar?

It wouldn't have to me before today.

It's my treadmill screen and my laptop screen (notice Zero Inbox!) because I just made myself a Walking Desk.

Impressed by the recent New Yorker article, "The Walking Alive" by Susan Orlean, gently informing all us knowledge workers that we are shortening our lives when we sit at our desks for so many hours a day, I decided to get out the saw (sic) and convert a treadmill over to a workstation myself. (If you want to know more, there is also a nice NPR Interview with her -Treadmill Desks and the Benefits of Walking Alive.)

I have lamented again recently on my slow down in blogging over the last year. That has been in part due to lots of work (common to us all), but also to the fact that I started to get up from my desk and go out of my office for some kind of exercise every day thanks to last year's sticky New Year's resolution. And as we all know, time is a finite resource. So at least one-hour a day (plus transaction time) almost every day is gone from work hours, and this was definitely part of my blogging time.

But today, I am writing this blog while walking 1.7 km per hour at my treadmill desk. It sounds slow, but I have been on here for 2.5 hours now (probably too long, first time over ambition) and covered some fair ground.

I didn't buy a treadmill desk, although there are some snazzy ones available, but converted a regular treadmill by simply putting a board horizontally through hole in the two "arms" of this Kettler Track Experience. The board gives me room for my laptop, phone, agenda, and some files (and probably a cup of coffee if I am careful).

It still took me a while to get it to the right work position. I immediately noticed that my laptop was too low when it was on the board to be comfortable for more than 5 minutes. So I put a stack of printer paper blocks under it to raise it to the right height. Even at this level I can still see my screen (as in the photo) so can motivate myself by time, distance or calories, if my email is less than inspirational.

It is surprisingly easy to work on my feet - I have already made phone calls, scheduled a meeting, zeroed my In-box, created a word document, filled in an online registration form, and read and commented on a paper (and wrote this blog). All at 1.7 km per hour.

All perfect? Not yet. I have to figure out how to keep the treadmill programme on manual, otherwise I will have the situation I had on my first call when the machine sped up at seemingly random times and had me huffing before I could get it back down to my comfortable pace (giving a whole new meaning to "Thinking, Fast and Slow"). I also need to get use to working without a mouse, or make my desk elevation (aka blocks of paper) wider.

I see that I might get addicted to this as it seems to take multi-tasking and productivity at your desk to a new level. And for home office workers to note: It doesn't really work in slippers (although pajamas are probably ok if they're loose enough). Finally, don't plan on walking at your desk right until the minute before you zip out to a meeting, because after a couple of hours on the treadmill, even at that slow pace, you'll be a little dizzy and disoriented when you step down on terra firma again. (So, no power tools either.)

In the time it has taken me to write this blog -exactly 44 minutes, 1.05 kilometers and 108 calories, I have kept moving, and still achieved something work related - my first standing blog post, and I hope the first of many on my feet.

Fast and Easy Workshop Reports with Penultimate

As Facilitators sometimes we get asked to prepare reports from our workshops. Normally we at Bright Green Learning encourage the teams to do this as report preparation is an excellent learning opportunity and helps the team to process the results of the workshop in a more in-depth way. (See our blog posts: Don’t Outsource It: Learning from Reporting and More Learning from Reporting: Using Reporting for Teambuilding)

And it is true that when you use very interactive workshop methodologies, the meeting room after your workshop can look like this:
 
With walls covered with flipcharts, cards and post-its people usually say “what can I do with all this?”

Typing them up is the first thought, and that can take a very long time and often be challenging to organize (this of course is also part of the learning process from the workshop – identifying what is useful input and important for the next steps in the project or process and what is not.) In my experience, you will rarely get a volunteer willing to do this! I also find that typed flipcharts, when they come back to you in Word format, can lose a lot of the context, feeling and creativity that went into the workshop brainstorming and discussions that produced them.

Another option is a Photo Report, and this has been done for a while. I remember when we took photos with our digital cameras, then downloaded them off the data card, pasted them into PPT and then inserted the photo slides into Word documents, fighting formatting and creating mega-heavy documents that in the end we had to distribute by USB stick as they wouldn’t pass as attachments. (I will fully admit that even then this was probably not the most effective way to do this). Things have gotten a easier with smart phone and compressed files etc.

However, EVEN easier now is the winning combination of an iPad, writing stylus and a nifty app called Penultimate.


Penultimate was recently acquired by Evernote, which I also love, although even before this partnership I was a Penultimate fan.

To use Penultimate for a quick and easy Photo report, you just need to start a new Notebook in the app:

Start a new Penultimate Notebook

Once you are in, you can take photos of your flipcharts, your cards work, your exercises using the photo icon on the page of your notebook.

Once you have the photo there on your page, you can resize it, change direction, copy it to multiple pages, and best yet, you can write on or around it (as above!)

I use my notebook to create a living memory of my workshops, from both the content point of view, and the process. For example…

I capture notes and maybe an important slide from a presentation that I want to remember:

I capture a workshop exercise in action with some of the highlights of the discussion (and you can write more neatly than I did here!):

I record the results of a card activity theme by theme:


I can remember how I set the exercise up and how it ran:

And more!

The number of functions is pretty rich for the purpose of creating a Photo Report from a workshop.

As you can see you can select from a range of 10 pen colours (including white and yellow for writing on dark photos as on some of the photos above). There is also a selection of three line thicknesses, so you can make titles stand out or put emphasis on particular words or images. If you make a mistake you can undo it, or change your mind and re-do it. If you like lined paper, plain paper or graph paper, you can change it at any time.

As you can see, I use the photo function most heavily. Once I take the photo I always change the size of the photo, move it around, and sometimes put multiple photos on a page (see an example of this in the photos above). If you really need to read the text however, then 1 per page, expanded will work best.

You don’t even have to worry about taking your photos in order. I walk around and snap images of key flipcharts or processes with my iPad  when I have a free moment during my workshop, and then I reorder them afterwards with the drag and drop feature - which is very much like you would use to change slide order in PowerPoint in the slide sorter view.  If you forget your iPad, you can also use your iPhone for the photos, but then you have to upload them to your iPad photo archive by email afterwards and then insert them one by one into your Penultimate Photo Report. It takes more steps, thus more time, but is relatively straight forward – it also means that other people can send you photos to incorporate.

Once you are happy with your Photo report, you can send it as a pdf by email (if it is not too too big – it can actually quickly get too big for this in my experience), or you can open it in Dropbox and then share the folder, other options include Skitch (also an Evernote product) and Day One (a journaling app). Because I am also an Evernote user, I have it sync to Evernote and then I can just share the URL for that Evernote file by email with my workshop participants. This step will take some fiddling around. I open it in Evernote on my iPad, then open Evernote on my ipad where I then see my Photo Report. Then I sync my computer Evernote until I see it there too. At the end of all this it is easy to use the "Share" button to get a URL that you can paste into an email. It sounds more complicated then it is!

Overall, if you are pretty quick with your photos, and then any notes you want to make on them, you can do it all in about 15 minutes -  an immediate and super quick memory of a workshop. If you want to make it very pretty and take it on like a scrapbooking exercise, then of course it can take longer, but it feels creative and fun! Gone are the hours and hours of typing up flipcharts into massive, boring Word document Workshop Reports - of course, you could still let someone else do that after you send your Penultimate report. They will thank you for making it more manageable than struggling with a huge roll of unruly flipchart sheets and a teetering stack of facilitation cards!

Thumbwrestling Game Rules and Lessons from an Appreciative Inquiry Makeover

A while ago I wrote a blog post about how I reframed the learning from a game called Thumbwrestling using an Appreciative Inquiry approach. The blog post was called "Activity Makeover using Appreciative Inquiry: From STUPID to SMART."

This game gives insights about collaboration versus competition and bases the debriefing on what makes people naturally take a more competitive approach to such a game (and lose). In the meantime I have had numerous people write to me and ask me for the rules of the Thumbwrestling game itself, so I promised to write it up in the way that I play it.

I have been playing this particular game in teambuilding workshops for many years and if you want a very thorough description, you can go to the Systems Thinking Playbook by Linda Booth Sweeney and Dennis Meadows, which features this game. It doesn't have the debriefing that I describe in my blog post, although it has evolved out of the same game mechanic and lessons.  I am sure that the first time I played it was with Dennis.

Here are the basic instructions:

1. Ask everyone to pick a partner with whom they will thumbwrestle (people play in pairs);
2. Tell them to lock hands with their partner by clasping the fingers of their right hands (with thumbs pointing up) - they can do this standing or sitting - standing is more fun! (Note: If you have never Thumbwrestled as a kid, then there are plenty of amusing how-to videos on YouTube! This is the same basic game with some new parameters.)
3. Demonstrate with another person a very physical and aggressive way to play and tell people not to pinch hard and cause any pain or injury;
4. Explain that they get a point by pinching the thumb of their opponent;
5. Tell them they have 1 minute to get as many points as they can; 
6. Shout "go!" 
7. Time them and then shout "Stop!"
8. Ask who got 1 or more point (raise their hand), 2 or more, and go up until you have the winner(s) (most people will only have won 1 or 2 points);
9. At least one or two pairs generally have gotten 30 or 40 points by collaborating rather than taking a competitive approach - have them demonstrate their technique.

Now you go into the blog post to debrief  (Activity Makeover Using Appreciative Inquiry: From STUPID to SMART) and discuss what motivates people to take on a more competitive approach when collaboration clearly gets them many more points. Ask them where they see this in their workplaces and in real life. The activity makeover and the game helps them think about how to notice a system that makes people behave in a STUPID way to thinking about one that is much SMARTer...

Exploring Draft Zero: What I Look for in Your Facilitation Agendas

Sometimes I develop the first draft of a facilitation agenda for a partner's workshop from scratch after a consultation, and sometimes I am sent the first draft to explore and work with further.

When the second scenario is the case, as it has been for the last few workshops I have done this month, I noticed that there are a number of things - details and what might seem like very small things -  that I consistently look for (and often find may benefit from tweaking).

I just looked through the last five Zero Drafts of agendas that have come to me and here are the top 3 areas where I rather consistently noticed things and suggested alternative pathways...

1) Timing: This is one of the first things I check when I receive an agenda and tends to be a place where more questions need to be asked, such as:

• Is the timing realistic? 
• Is there enough time/too much for presentations and discussions and activities?  Are the presentations way too long and discussions way too short? Is there enough time to add up the results of a vote or cluster the cards you collect so people are not just sitting and watching you do something?
• Is there any discussion or reflection time built in at all? 
• Is the incremental timing put in and does it add up? E.g. Within a session block is there detailed timing for the introduction to the session, presentation(s), Q&A/discussion, briefing of an activity, activity and presentation back? Or is it all lumped into "1 hour"? What about the time it takes to load last minute presentations, or for speakers to walk to the front of the room and get settled? Or for people to convene into smaller groups?
• Is the placement of the breaks and lunch appropriate in the agenda? Are the gaps between them too long or short? Are the breaks realistic considering where they are geographically in the venue and how long it takes for people to get to them? Buffet versus sit-d own lunch?

2) Questions and Language: The second thing I look at are the questions that launch activities and discussions and I ask myself: 

• Are they appropriate, understandable and crisp? (We don't want our participants saying "What?" after we read the question to them)
• Do the questions get us the information we need to know for our expected outcomes of each session?
• If they are intended to promote discussion, are they interesting, open questions?
• Does the language used to frame the questions take participants in the right direction? (I am a fan of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and tend to redraft questions into this format - here's an example of where I did an AI "Makeover" on an activity to take it from STUPID to SMART)
• Are the questions answerable? Can I answer them myself? If people want an example, do I have one?
• Is the timing sufficient/too much for answering the question?

3) Variety and Placement of Activities: The next thing I do is zoom back up and look at the overall flow of the workshop and its various activities. I look for the following:

• Is there a logical build of the session - e.g. does it have the Welcome, Introductions, Context Setting, Peer Exchange, Work/Task, Application, Reflection, Closing, in the right order,whatever that might be for his event? 
• Is the flow incremental enough to give everyone the same starting place and bring everyone along?
• Has any one facilitation technique been overused? Are participants spending all of their time with post-it notes, or presentation followed by Q&A?
• Is there variety in media used - PPT, video, storytelling, Pecha Kucha, Ignite, Prezi?
• Does the activity match the output needed? For example, if we need reflections and agreement from the whole group on an idea, does the activity allow everyone to comment and make the idea more robust? (or does the Zero Draft only include a short plenary discussion where the bravest and loudest 10 participants will take the floor and the other 50 will stay silent - at the end of that you can't say that the whole group agrees!) 
• Are there sufficient "capture tools" - that is, are there flipchart templates to support group work, listening cards to capture questions when presentations are numerous or long, individual worksheets to record ideas where plenary time is not sufficient for some reason? 
• Does the activity sequence use the whole room or vary where the participants are positioned if possible? Can there be variety in facing the front, working in small groups in the corners, leaving the room all together for a Pairs Walk?

After these big ones, there are a number of other things I check out when I am working from a partner's Zero Draft for a workshop, especially when I will be doing the delivery myself (and even if not, they should be clarified for any facilitator who will stand up and make the workshop run smoothly):

• Is the language used consistent - when referring to documents or results (Action plans, timelines, etc.)?
• Are there session numbers and are they sequential (I always assign session numbers as it makes signposting for participants easier and the planning discussions with partners more accurate)
• Do I understand all the acronyms? (often not the case, and even google will give you 25 different versions of them)
• Is it clear who is doing what? Are the names of the people responsible for different parts put in - I always add a separate column to my Facilitation Agendas to document who is speaking, or facilitating or chairing at any given moment.
• Do the names of the speakers/contributors have titles and organizations? I will need that to introduce them.

This exploration process can take a couple of hours to really work through an agenda in great detail and ask these questions, and if need be to make some suggestions on what to add or what to change on the Zero Draft. 

Sometimes these kinds of questions can take partners by surprise as it is normally not the level of detail that they are focusing on when they put together their initial agenda. Facilitators, be gentle. For many, groups processes are a jungle and a trip into the unknown. After all, that's why they came to seek advice from a facilitator in the first place!

Learn Something New: Visit a Nuclear Power Station

Today I had a real “You learn something new every day” moment - how often do you get an invitation to visit a nuclear power plant?

This afternoon I joined some Balaton Group friends to take a walk through the Zwentendorf nuclear power plant, located on the shores of the Danube about an hour outside of Vienna.
Our guide, the infinitely knowledgeable Wolfgang Kromp, Professor at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Vienna and member of the Austrian Nuclear Advisory Board (and also a BG member), is an expert in all things nuclear and this historic plant in particular.

We started our visit with a “marketing video” in the main building. This video was made in the 1980s after the results of a referendum of the Austrian people prevented the newly completed plant from going into production. With a vote in November 1978 of 49.53% YES and 50.47% NO (a difference of under 30,000 votes), the plant which had taken 6 years to build with parts from all over Europe and at a cost of over a billion Euros, would split no atoms.

At that time, in 1978, the plant went into “conservation mode” for 8 years; that is, the workers carefully stored and maintained the machinery, and kept all the engineers on site waiting for a change in policy. But by 1985 it was evident that this would not come. At that point, the company started to sell off parts to various other power stations in Europe to recuperate some of the losses. Interestingly they started to buy parts back in 2005 because they repurposed the building into a nuclear security training center and a museum. Some parts came back, but some didn’t because they had suffered too much damage to be safe.


Our visit then took us over to the plant, where we entered the main entrance and saw where workers would come in and change out of their street clothes into bright yellow underclothes and a yellow or blue jumpsuit uniform, before going into the plant.


When they left for the day they would change out of their uniform (these clothes could never leave the building), wash and take a shower.


After that they had to stand on a scale and put their hands in a monitoring machine which would monitor gamma rays. If they were ok, they could leave and if not, they would suffer the “torture” of a hard body scrub, as Wolfgang put it, that would take off what seemed like layers of skin.


Then they would go up in the elevator to their work stations. This was interesting – nuclear power plants don’t have floors, they have elevations, so you go up to the top at 39.4 meters, and then come down to 35.5, 32.0 etc.

We went up to the top of the plant and walked down to see the different parts of the plant.


At 39.4 meters we saw the upper hall (this is the equivalent of what was destroyed at the Fukushima disaster) and here we could look down into the reactor vessel, which would have been the core of this 700+ megawatt plant.

We saw the (empty) fuel rods as well as the pond for spent fuel rods (water would have filled these ponds to contain the radiation). 


In a working plant, the spent fuels rods are moved from the reactor core after four years of use (every year 25% are moved), and taken underwater by crane to the spent fuel pond. Here they would be kept until they could be moved, still underwater, to another pond (this poses a problem as often there is nowhere else to take them).  Most of the radiation in the plants is in these ponds. In the below photo these cement cavities would be filled with water – the far pond, accessible through the narrow vertical door between ponds, is where the spend fuel rods would be stored until moved further away.)


Water is used throughout the plant for cooling, containing, condensing. What I learned as well is that nuclear power plants are very inefficient. They only capture about 30% of the energy produced and the other 70% is released into the atmosphere or in heated water. For example, this 700 megawatt power plant would lose another 1400 megawatts into the environment in the form of heated water into the Danube and heat dissipating into the cooling towers and into the atmosphere. Because nuclear power plants are so far from cities, you cannot really capture the waste heat as it is not all that hot (300C compared to 600C in fossil fuel plants) and also costly to move long distances, among other problems.

Here’s the Danube right outside the plant.

As we went down in elevation we saw the top of the containment vessel.


The turbines…

And into the control rod drive room (this is a translation from German and looked very much like a scene from Alien to me).


We finally ended up in the control room, where three different teams of 3 people would take eight hour shifts to keep an eye on what looked to me like a lot of machines that go “ping”. Right out of the 70s.







Overall, it was a rather sobering experience. Everything demanded such precision, such fine tuning, quick reflexes and the ability to look at hundreds of dials and data sets at any moment. How on earth you could not make simple human mistakes in here I cannot imagine.

Zwentendorf as a nuclear power plant was built but never opened as an active plant. Today it takes visitors and students on Fridays and is booked 18 months in advance. You can even take a virtual tour of the plant on the new owner’s website. Along the way it has been the inspiration for many unusual ideas for its use (such as a museum for “senseless technologies”, a children’s adventure land, a modern cemetery with the buried in glass cubes, and a venue for some Hollywood films). Today it is a renewable energy installation with citizen participation (with its 1300 solar panels sold out within a few days), a security training center, and a museum to remind the Austrian people of this decision so many years ago.

What a fascinating visit - with great thanks to Wolfgang and the team at ENV for hosting us!