Managing Facilitated Processes

Strachan and Pitters leave no detail unexamined in their book, Managing Facilitated Processes. The practical formats, checklists and examples alone make this book a must-have for anyone planning, organizing or facilitating an event of any kind." Managing Facilitated Processes: A Guide for Consultants, Facilitators, Managers, Educators, Event Planners and teachers / Dorothy Strachan and Marian Pitters.

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Acknowledgments

DOROTHY STRACHAN AND MARIAN PITTER have been designing, enabling and managing a wide range of processes for many years. Managing Facilitated Processes is a companion book to two previous Jossey-Bass business publications: Process Design: Making It Work, Dorothy Strachan and Paul Tomlinson (2008), and Making Questions Work, Dorothy Strachan (2007).

The Authors

The list is long as more and more work of organizations is done in facilitated group sessions, both virtual and face-to-face. One thing we know for sure: participants are more likely to have great experiences in facilitated processes if careful attention is paid to all the details that influence the activities, technology and settings that keep everything running smoothly.

About This Book

If you set up and manage workshops, meetings, and other types of facilitated sessions, this book is for you. This includes making thoughtful decisions about how participants are selected and invited, what space is appropriate (virtual or face-to-face), how presentations are aligned with objectives, how handouts and worksheets are used, what types of reports are written and which questions have been selected for feedback purposes.

Introduction

In this book, we have used a web icon to identify exhibits that are available online. In this book, we focus on guiding people in any organizational role to successfully manage meetings, workshops, and other expedited processes by following these five elements.

A Quick Lookup Resource

For example, decisions about participants and stakeholders described in Chapter Five will influence decisions about location and configuration discussed in Chapter Seven, which in turn will support decisions about speaker requirements discussed in Chapter Six. Investing in due diligence at the end of a process enables the designer, facilitator and manager of the process to understand the people, the situation and its challenges so that a personalized environment supports the achievement of the expected results at the end.

Managing Facilitated

From Contact to Contract

Part One

Initial Contact

1 EXHIBIT 1.1

The Preliminary Screen

Coordinates: Date(s) and Location

Purpose, Objectives, and Deliverables

Process Leadership

Eighteen Types of Processes

Types of Facilitated Processes

The setting and aesthetics of the meeting space reflect the intent of the community participants want to create. Participation is usually by invitation, but may also be open to interested individuals and groups.

Types of Facilitated Processes, Cont’d

Decision Making After the Screen

If you come to your attention through a phone call, it is easy to sell immediately on the occasion -. For example, you may really want to work in Hawaii for a week, but have absolutely no time to do the required preparation.

Communicating a Decision

Or you may be fully committed to tackling another big conference focused on your pet issue, but it may be bigger than you and your colleagues can handle.

When the Client’s Answer Is Yes

When Your Answer Is No

Building Agreements That Work

Developing an agreement is an investment in the success of your project, in achieving the client's goals, in the satisfaction of the participants, and in your continuous improvement. For those who enjoy initial discussions with clients and conceptualizing streamlined processes, this initial phase of the deal can be a nice organizational step.

Types of Agreements

Drafting Agreements

Defines all costs incurred attributable to the contract; usually a predetermined ceiling is set. Can be problematic if disagreements arise and there is no written document to confirm the agreements.

Agreements in Action: Four Maxims

Don’t Start Work Without an Agreement
Bring Fresh Eyes to Your Experience
When in Doubt, Write It Out
Cock-ups Are Collaborative

As they discuss what is going on, it becomes apparent that the client wants the facilitator to prepare a work plan, cost estimate, and memorandum of understanding for the client to review. If you've discussed potential work in an area, one way to seal an agreement is to summarize your understanding of the project in writing and ask the client to respond by confirming or correcting your summary.

Developing Work Plans

Initial discussions with a client and some basic research about the group or organization involved will usually provide most of the information required to complete a work plan. Winning work plans and cost estimates also pay special attention to elements that the client has identified as most important, such as maximizing profit at minimum cost.

Dealing with Pricing Perils

If a company is bidding to host a series of fifty seminars on three topics within 400 days, it may want to be a low-cost leader because of the repetitive nature of the task. The advantages of the direct reimbursement system are that it appears more responsive to the client and there can be some flexibility in the final amount allocated to expenses.

Acting on Values

Also note that larger companies tend to have higher overhead costs and therefore pass on higher administrative costs to customers.

Informal Letter of Agreement

Memo of Understanding

Memo of Understanding, Cont’d

Project Initiation and Liaison—January
Interviews and Surveys
Essential Documents
SPWG Integration and Agenda Building
Pre-Session Package
Retreat
Evaluation and Dissemination

The president of a national professional services association ("the Society") has issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) requesting interested consultants to design, develop, deliver and deliver a strategic planning process over the next six months to report. Note that listings in the "who" column in the following work plan table refer to accountability for a task, not necessarily who will do the work ("Soc." indicates the Society and "C" the consultant).

Approach and Style

Part Two

Approach

Integrated

In each of these examples, mindful management skills are essential to the success of process design and facilitation. Most people are unaware of the strategic impact of these smaller questions, but overlooking them can sabotage the results.

Customized

For example, a room that is too large or too small for the number of participants can undermine the tone of a session and the quality of discussion; speakers who receive insufficient information about how they fit into and can support an agenda are unlikely to equip participants to support expected outcomes. Here are examples of areas where you can bend the management of a session to support its design.

Outcomes

People

Group Development

Ethnocultural Considerations

Literacy

Organizational Culture

Systematic

Each element in the prompter is a separate entity, but all five are interdependent when it comes to making decisions. Investigating the prompter early in the planning process puts these challenges in perspective sooner rather than later.

Process Management Prompter

Process Management Prompter, Cont’d

No matter how systematic you are, managing sessions also requires flexibility as specifications can change mid-stream: for example, you may have been given a quota of thirty participants only to expand it to fifty; a decision to hold a hearing in a downtown metropolis may be passed over in a rural retreat. For example, cost considerations may require a virtual meeting rather than a face-to-face session, and planning committee members may have opinions about which company should be hired to provide technical support.

Completing a Process Management Prompter

Other sections may require discussion with your client or planning committee before you reach agreement on what needs to be done. We then highlight areas that we discuss with the client at the first meeting or highlight during subsequent conversations.

Accountability

Sometimes, fulfilling this drive has revealed to us that more effort will be involved on our part than initially seemed to be the case. You find that the work environment is hectic and extremely competitive, and that account managers are expected to be constantly available to both their managers and their clients.

The Approach in Action: Integrated, Customized, Systematic

One goal is to build trust among the consumer advocates who attend the session. Create a glossary for attendees that lists all the key words and acronyms in the session's topic area.

Style

High-Tech Teddy

How do we know when technology gets in the way of the goals? Under what circumstances - if any - might my process management style lean towards High-Tech Teddy's.

Controlling Caroline

Management style. When it comes to managing a session, Teddy is more comfortable with technology and numerical data than with people and ambiguity. Would a small internal planning committee help create ownership for the outcomes of the planning session and help with the details of management over the two days?

Loosey-Goosey Lucy

What new approaches to managing strategic planning sessions are out there that we can try in future workshops. Under what circumstances – if any – might my process management style lean towards Loosey-Goosey Lucy's.

Overconsulting Oliver

Given the purpose of this session, what is the right type and amount of pre-session information to support exploration of team issues. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this team, and how can the pre-meeting package help team members clarify how these strengths and weaknesses affect the functioning of the team.

Anxious-to-Please Annie

Bureaucratic Bill

Optimizing Management Styles

Under what circumstances—if any—might my process management style lean toward Anxious-to-Please Annie. By consciously following your management style and refining your approach so that it is integrated, personalized and systematic, you can be sure that you are on the right track.

Management × 5

Participants, Speakers, Logistics, Documents,

Part Three

Participants

Regardless of which way participants go, the process begins for them with the first contact they have with whoever is organizing it. In this chapter, we focus on three key management responsibilities that enable participants to approach a process in the right frame of mind to participate and support the achievement of the purpose, goals and outcomes:.

Clarify the Rationale for Participation

Participation: Five Options

Participation: Five Options, Cont’d

If you are unable to attend any part of the workshop due to prior commitments, please contact your immediate supervisor who has been made aware of the importance of your contributions during these discussions. If you are unable to attend any part of the workshop, please contact us so we can arrange for someone else with your background and experience to attend.

Finding Participants for a Restricted Session

Union representatives who have been given time off on stress leave and others who have complained of stress-related illnesses are given top priority in invitations. Decision. While there is considerable pressure to include representatives who have not experienced health problems related to stress management, the Education Coordinator insists on keeping the priority list even when two representatives who are close friends of the union president push to be invited.

Monitor the Mix and Number of Participants

She felt good spending time with other wives whose husbands work in the steel industry and experience the same family pressures as she does. Only certain people who had stress issues were invited so we were all in the same boat.

Consider Participant Types

For example, what about interest groups that refuse to be involved in the implementation if they are not involved in the decision-making process during this session. A common question is whether participants should attend as representatives of their organization or as experts in their own right, or both. The answer to this question lies in the purpose of the process.

Gatekeep Participant Numbers

Once a decision has been made on the number of participants and observers (if any), agree how members of the planning committee will respond to pressure to change that decision, and then stick to that agreement. You and the other committee members thought you had completed the list of retreat participants at a previous meeting; you all agreed on criteria and invited a solid list of forty-five people.

Maintain a Participant Database

Investigating whether the database has value for other interested parties (for example, groups with similar interests in a different geographic location); ask participants for permission to share the database if this is the case. Appendix 5.1 is a checklist you can use to decide what to include in your participant database.

Create the Invitations

Provide planning committee members with your original list of information categories and ask them if they would like to add any categories. Explore whether planning committee members and participants would appreciate receiving information about the participant database from other sessions or groups with similar interests.

Participant Database Checklist

Participant Database Information Form

Engagement is most important when you want to involve participants early in the purpose and content of a session.

Persuade

Catch the respondent's eye in both paper and electronic versions through your letterhead and logo and the meaning of the letter writer. Part of the process management function is to prepare letters on behalf of the planning team and client.

Inform

We must do this together in the best spirit of public service cooperation. Finally, clients and members of the planning team may need to make some decisions about specific participant issues, and it is best to do so before an invitation is issued.

Engage

They may have heard from people who want to come for a few hours to a one-day seminar, organizations who want to send three or four representatives when there is only room for one, or people who want to attend media even though the client thinks it is uncomfortable.

Upstream Prevention

Engagement is about allowing attendees to develop a stake in the success of the event. Space in the church hall is limited to forty-four participants, four per round table.

Determine the Focus

Invitations and Announcements Checklist

Invitations and Announcements Checklist, Cont’d

Each of the fragments in example 5.3 is adapted to the recipients and illustrates a particular focus. A series of full invitations appears at the end of the chapter.).

Writing Invitations for Specific Situations

Writing Invitations for Specific Situations, Cont’d

This event will mark the beginning of a new regulatory framework for licensees and create a need for information related to the nature of these new regulations and their implications for all of us. Many thanks to the following experienced licensees in our region who contributed significant time and effort in the development of these new regulations: [list of names].

Obtain Input and Feedback

Feedback on Draft Invitation

Will recipients respond more to a colorful invitation with lots of graphics, or to a simpler post linked to a website, or would you like both approaches or some variation of these approaches. What tone would potential participants prefer: formal or informal, theoretical or practical, warm or cool, technical or artistic, relaxed and casual or highly focused and urgent, or some combination of these.

Six Invitations

Six Invitations, Cont’d

Day two is a consultation focused on improving global research opportunities and results related to prions and prion diseases. Agenda. This conference will be held in the [room name] at the [hotel name] in London, England, on [date].

Write the Confirmation Letter

Confirmation Letter Checklist

Speakers

Speaker Management

Clarify Requirements

Identify Speaker Functions

Create Invitations

Identify Speaker Functions, Cont’d

If the first contact is by phone, inform them of the date and location first to determine availability. Include information and resources related to the session, such as media clips, articles, website address.

Informal Speaker Invitation

Reimbursement of travel and accommodation expenses (and at what level, such as economy, executive or first class). You may also wish to use Exhibit 6.3, a speaker invitation checklist available only on the companion website.).

Confirm Expectations

Speaker Confirmation Letter Checklist

Speaker Confirmation Letter Checklist, Cont’d

If the speakers use a generic presentation, suggest ways they can adapt it to the needs and interests of the group. When you have more than one speaker for a session (for example, on a panel), share presentation outlines among speakers to ensure they don't duplicate each other and so each can link their presentation to other speakers' presentations.

Speaker Confirmation Letter

In addition to writing the memo or confirmation email, provide an opportunity to discuss or review the key points of each presentation to ensure that they relate directly to the purpose and outcomes of the session. Then a senior volunteer in a sponsoring organization spoke about the importance of the session in providing strategic direction to her organization.

Speaker Confirmation Letter, Cont’d

Presentation Guidelines

Revise completes the opening remarks as necessary and return them to the speaker. This way, the opening speaker can immediately address any inconveniences associated with inclusion.

Outline for Opening Remarks

Speaker Introductions and Acknowledgments

Thank the speaker for the time and effort involved and the care taken to make the presentation useful for the purpose of the session. Build bridges between what the speaker has said and the next part of the agenda.

Presentations by Experts

Participants in this workshop are aware that panel members are contributing their time as expert speakers in exchange for the opportunity to promote their organization's services in the workshop brochure. The second is an excerpt from a call for papers for the International Association of Moderators Annual Conference.

Presentations by Panels

In some processes, the discussion time should be longer than the presentation time; in others, it can be as much as a third of the presentation time. Ask a member of the planning committee to sit in full view of the panel to give timed announcements to panel members as needed.

Closing Remarks

Paying one panelist more than another for the same engagement can raise ethical issues and unnecessary tension. Ask the moderator or chairperson to review the panelists' introductions and adjust them to fit the tone and focus of the proceedings.

Outline for Closing Remarks

Outline for Closing Remarks, Cont’d

Logistics

Select and Set Up the Site

Venue

Depending on the purpose of the session you are planning, think about the message you want your location to send to people. This meeting is a benefit for excellent sales efforts; we will have some short meetings, and the rest of the time will be devoted to recreation.

Layout

Hat tables; The support of the room in a semicircle L, because with only one person on one side and with the speakers I hate table no more than 3 sides; The number of the lighter remains and the chairs do not turn MtoH depending on the number in the circle H. H Lifarm to write; often no MtoH depending on the size of Ltonone Mifroom tables the configuration allows: for example, inside and coffee tables.

Health, Safety, and Security

Technical and Audiovisual Support

When you're finalizing the room setup, sit in chairs on the sides and back of the room to make sure everyone in the room can see the screens and speakers. For example, if a PowerPoint presentation doesn't work or a speaker misplaces a presentation, be prepared to provide paper copies of the presentation.

Logistics Checklist

Logistics Checklist, Cont’d

Tablets (stands and paper)—determine number and locations ____Lighting: when, where, and who will adjust it. Microphones: Specify type (for example, lapel, head, wireless, desktop), number, and locations ____Pens and pencils: types and numbers.

Enable Participant Engagement

Accommodating Differences

For example, if a session includes monolingual Spanish, French, and English participants, a sign stating that one table is "for French-speaking participants only" should be printed in French, Spanish, and English so that all participants can read it. . Focus on addressing the 3 R's – reduce, reuse and recycle – and let attendees know what you're doing and why, and how they can contribute.

Identification

For example, if the session is a round table, where everyone's input is valued equally, make sure name badges and place cards reflect that principle: that is, they will give first and last names and possibly geographic location , without ranks, positions. or degrees. For example, if people in the session know each other, use place cards instead of name badges.

Accessibility

If a goal is networking, enter information on name symbols into a database, generating a useful resource after the event. However, remember that if people are moving from group to group more than once, the name badges will stay with them; cards cannot decide.

Enabling Participant Engagement Checklist

Professional Supplies

Travel Arrangements

Personal Amenities

Mobilizing Yourself” Logistics Checklist

Mobilizing Yourself” Logistics Checklist, Cont’d

Love Those Logistical Letdowns!

When logistics are efficiently monitored during a session, organizers have more confidence that the session will run smoothly, the facilitator can focus on facilitating the process, and everyone with responsibilities in the session is better prepared to launch activities just in time for address failures. However, it is also when two important aspects of logistics require extra vigilance: monitoring and acting on what was.

Documents

Create a glossary for participants that lists key words, phrases, and acronyms in the field of developmental disabilities. As a new consumer representative, I'm not always as well informed as others, so I liked the idea of not having to ask others what a word or an acronym meant - I didn't have to slow down . things off.”.

Match the Documents to the Process

A process can have many or few documents, and they can be produced and distributed in an infinite number of variations. Conversely, in a process to merge two financial institutions, the pre-session package might include some electronic reports on corporate intelligence and industry analytics, and the essentials in the session might be paper worksheets on strategic planning, a video presentation from two current presidents and two customer reviews accessed from a linked URL or from the company's website.

Produce the Documents

Finally, the last two columns (“When to Distribute”) indicate whether participants receive the document before or during a session. If you say "great materials!" after a session, you know that you have properly matched the type and number of documents to the purpose of that process.

Make Documents Easy to Use

Design handouts that are accessible so that participants can easily find information: for example, outline key steps, use charts to summarize background information, leave enough space for recording answers, and put facts in bullet form wherever possible. Ring binder. This option works well for long-term storage, and tabbed inserts keep things organized; however, binders can be very noisy in sessions as people insert and remove pages.

Design Attractive Formats

Electronic folder and file. Electronic storage keeps paper to a minimum and increases the portability and distribution of documents; however, using a laptop that keeps people focused on a screen can inhibit face-to-face discussion and reduce ownership for consensus building.

Customize Documents

Situation. You receive a request to facilitate and manage an accreditation policy brainstorming session for twenty massage therapists from across a region. Decision. You decide to provide these documents in an attractive format that will help participants manage and organize the large amounts of paper: each participant will receive a personalized binder with custom tabs and a brainstorming logo on the cover and also sticky notes in various shapes, sizes and colors; file flags; and highlighter pens.

Feedback

Review Feedback Approach and Tools

Consider when the feedback will happen in relation to the process. Formative feedback contributes to a process as it is taking place. Or participants may receive an electronic request to complete a feedback form at the end of a session (summative).

Feedback Map

Focus on satisfaction with the process or session. These questions invite responses about the value of the activities and outcomes, the extent to which session objectives were achieved, and reasons why. In your opinion, to what extent did we achieve the following objectives of the session.

Finalize and Produce Feedback Tools

Construction

Some clients and process consultants prefer an odd scale so that participants have the option of responding with a score that is exactly in the middle of the scale. Others prefer to encourage a response that does not sit in the middle, thus providing an even scale.

Look, Feel, and Sound

For example, a question asking people to rate items on a list produces a response that is consistent with the list. Scales can be constructed with an odd (for example, 1 to 5) or even (for example, 1 to 6) range of points.

Sample Feedback Tools

Interim Participant Feedback Form: Version 1

Interim Participant Feedback Form: Version 2

Summative Participant Feedback Form: Version 1

Workshop Manager Feedback Form

Workshop Management Log

Client or Stakeholder Feedback Form

Endings and Beginnings

Provide any support necessary to communicate the results of the process up and down the sponsoring organization or to support knowledge transfer to other stakeholders. Then do a final site check to secure any participant items left behind, such as glasses or bags.