3. Objectives
• Understand and explain facilitation
• Practice facilitating a group and giving feedback
on how to improve as a facilitator
4. Facilitation
• Facilitation is an important skill of leadership. It
is a social skill needed most often needed when
a group has to come to a consensus on a given
topic or have some form of two-way
communication.
5. What is a ‘Facilitator?’
• A guide, not a participant
• Uses open-ended questions to:
– Bring out creativity and insight
– Develop agreements
– Get to root of disagreements
• Objectively reveals differences in the group’s
understanding and provides a basis for resolution
6. What is a ‘Facilitator?’
• Assumes that every participant has an important
perspective to contribute
• Encourages naturally quiet people to participate and
naturally dominant people to listen
• Promotes clarity by enabling participants to contribute
their ideas
• Refrains from giving answers
8. Blue Hat
With Blue Hat thinking you:
Think about thinking
“Chair” the discussion/meetings
Direct activity into Green Hat thinking
when running into difficulties because
ideas are running dry
Ask for Black Hat thinking, etc when
contingency plans are needed, they will
Note: Blue Hat thinking stands for process
control
10. 1. Managing the Context:
Communicate clearly why the group is meeting and where
the group is meeting. Establish good expectations for the
meeting.
2. Designing:
Think about and decide what format the meeting will take
and how to make the meeting interesting, e.g. some small
groups, some one-on-one discussion, etc.
Key Facilitation Skills
11. 3. Conducting:
Facilitate the actual meeting with attention to all the
different facilitator skills identified here below.
4. Participating:
Clarify for yourself and others when you are contributing to
the discussion and when you are facilitating.
Key Facilitation Skills
12. 5. Apprehending:
Notice what is going on in the group – non-verbal signals,
who is participating and who is not, what is going on just
beneath the surface that no one is talking about.
6. Diagnosing:
Decide if the meeting is moving in the right direction or
not, whether or not it is accomplishing the stated goals.
Key Facilitation Skills
13. 7. Intervening:
Initiate action to get the group back on the right track;
address individual group members who may be disrupting
progress.
8. Closing:
Bring meetings to an effective conclusion, determine
what the important steps are, and who is responsible to
accomplish key tasks. Next meeting is clearly determined.
Key Facilitation Skills
15. This information is confidential and was prepared by Bain & Company solely for the use of our client; it is not to be relied on by any 3rd party without Bain's prior written consent 15AMS
Facilitation Practice (Write 3-5 Needs Statements)
A need statement describes the user’s need(s) and what the expected
results are. This formula can be used to articulate the need:
Formula: [User] seeks to [describe the need] in order to
[describe the desired result].
Examples:
1. [The crèche owner] seeks to [make the crèche financially sustainable] in order to
[pay the salaries of her staff].
2. [The 12-year old girl] seeks to [lead a healthy life and get an education] in order to
[start a family when she is ready].
3. [Thandi] seeks to [break out of the cycle of poverty] in order to [enable future
generations of her family to lead a decent and prosperous life].
