Better – Faster – and Sometimes Cheaper
Cheaper depending on where the Team members are and the travel & living costs to bring them together for a F2F Meeting.
Yes – you can bring them together Virtually – but you will not be able to better control their focus during your efforts – affecting the better of your outputs. Resulting, most likely – in ReWork downstream. In my experience.
The Communications Traffic Cop
If the Process is defined and you know what you need from each FGP – Facilitated Group Process – Meeting – and everyone accepts that the Facilitator owns the process and what the group will focus on now and next, and that the group owns the Content produced – it’s easier. Not easy. Just easier.
Not everyone likes to speak up. Some need to be brought in. Some need only slight encouragement. Others need to be told it is their turn to comment, add or summarize – and have everyone else told to be quiet.
Beware of the Abilene Paradox
In the Abilene Paradox, a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of many or all of the individuals in the group.
It happens.
Great Facilitators Avoid Group Think and The Abilene Paradox
And get the data – in a lean manner – needed by the downstream steps of the process. The next steps – or steps further downstream. By Design.
Ownership of the Process Differs From Ownership of the Content
And one of the things a great facilitator does is find some way, quickly, to demonstrate that the Group/Team owns the Content.
I do that by declaring something – sometimes wrong – so that the group will correct me. And then I write that down in front of everyone – and then ask for concurrence. And make changes based on what members of the group puts forth – as agreed to by the group.
It’s a consensus we’re after. And if there isn’t one – we note that and move on.
For my 12 Rules/Guidelines for Facilitators in my PACT and EPPI Processes:
L&D: My Facilitation Guidelines From the 1990s Revisited
I’ve been using these 12 since the early 1990s.
And for other posts of mine on this – please go – here.
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