Facilitation 101

This page was created to provide tips and suggestions for activists related to facilitating meetings and events. This guide reflects several questions the HUB community has raised on facilitation. 

The information included comes from existing organizer databases and resources and advice from movement thinkers. A special thanks to HUB advisor Amara Possain, who thoughtfully shared their expertise with the HUB team. Their knowledge is shared throughout. We encourage readers to share further ideas on how this page can be expanded upon and improved.

This guide includes... definers of good vs bad facilitation, tools for good facilitation, suggestions for increasing participant engagement and suggestions for managing group dynamics.

What do we mean by facilitation?

The role of a facilitator is to drive meeting or event participants towards clarity. Facilitation move things forward and build momentum. Facilitators also bring participants back to the purpose of the event/meeting. Remembering your purpose is key, so that when someone is taking up too much space, the facilitator can remind that you'd like to bring us back to the purpose and our goals. -Amara Possain, HUB advisor

In other words, the role of a facilitator and the purpose of facilitation is to: Source: adapted from Meeting Facilitation: The No-Magic Method (Berit Lakey) and Seeds for Change.

Take responsibility for helping the group stay on track and move through the agenda within the available time.

Suggest how to move the group forward, rather than making decisions or plans for the group.

Regulate the flow of discussion.

Track decisions and milestones, providing clarity on the group's journey, clarifying and summarizing points.

Prioritize the collective needs and goals of the group over individual within the group.

Note: A person who has strong opinions or significant investment in the decisions being made may find it challenging to facilitate effectively. In some situations, it can be helpful to have an external facilitator.  

What makes for poor facilitation?

The following reflections were raised by CAN-RAC and HUB team members in a joint workshop developed and delivered by Amara Possain:

• No agenda, no steering, lack of organization
• Repetition 
• Lack of momentum 
• Not stepping in to help pull out the positives (groups tend to focus on negatives)
• Not stepping in when some people are taking up too much space
• Not knowing the audience and how to tailor facilitation 
• Not stepping in to get people back on track, when people hijack space
• Low engagement and energy, lack of initiative
• Not being able to move past certain items
• People weaponizing meeting rules and knowledge of process
• Passive aggressiveness
• Unclear roles in non-hierarchical structure
• Interrupting each other
• “Outfacilitating" the facilitator - often around an unbalanced power dynamic 
• Miscommunications / inability to diagnose where we departed in understanding

Key facilitation skills

• Active listening enables us to hear what others are saying;
• Questioning helps clarify what people are saying, or supports people to explore their needs and come up with new possibilities;
• Summarising helps remind us of the key points in the discussion and check we have the same understanding;
• Synthesising is the skill that allows us to draw together different views and ideas to form one proposal that works for everyone.

Good facilitation should result in good meetings with  :

• Clearly defined and mutually understood goals.
• A well-defined process for effectively achieving those goals.
• Recognition that participants bring their personal preoccupations and emotions alongside their interest in the subject matter.
• Fostering a sense of involvement and empowerment, allowing participants to feel ownership over the decisions and able to take necessary actions.

Tools for good facilitation

Stop and POP

Source: adapted by Amara Possain (HUB advisor) from The P-O-P Model (Social Transformation Project, Leslie Sholl Jaffe & Randy Alford)

Purpose	Why? Why are we having this meeting? What is the purpose?
Outcomes	What do we want to accomplish as a result of this meeting?
Process	What steps will we take to achieve these outcomes and fulfill the purpose?

Facilitation techniques 

The following suggestions come from Seeds for Change and the Anarchist Library

For discussion and idea raising

Temperature check	A non-verbal quick way to gauge different levels of enthusiasm for a topic. For example, "How keen are you on this idea? If you think it is fantastic, raise your hands high. If you feel middling about it, hold your hands in the middle. And hands down low means you're not keen at all." This has the benefit of getting quick and basic input from everyone in the room - including people who don't often speak. A temperature check isn't the same thing as a majority vote. For example, even if only one person really needs a break, it could still be a good time to stop!
Go-arounds	Best reserved for smaller meetings. Everyone takes turns speaking without comment from others. This helps to gather opinions and feelings, and ensures everyone has a chance to speak.
Fishbowl	The fishbowl is a special form of small group discussion. Some members representing differing points of view meet in the middle of the room, and create a circle to discuss the issue. Everyone else forms an outer circle and listens. At the end of the discussion, the whole group reconvenes and evaluates the fishbowl discussion.
Paired listening or small groups	Participants can explore and formulate their own thoughts and feelings on an issue without interrup­tion. In pairs, one person is the listener, the other speaks about their thoughts and feelings on the issue. The listener gives full attention to their partner. Listeners offer a summary at the end, to check they've understood. After a set time swap roles within the pairs.

For feedback

Prioritization dots	Helps to whittle down a long list of options into something more manageable. Everyone in the group is allowed the same number of 'dots', e.g. five (this could simply be dots they draw on with their own pens or drag on a screen). They can 'spend' these dots between their five priority options, or choose a different weighting (e.g. three dots on an idea they are very keen on, and then one each on their next two favoured options).
Pros and cons or plus/minus/interesting	Listing the benefits and drawbacks of different ideas can be a good way to explore different viewpoints without people taking it too personally. This can also be a starting point for a deeper exploration of what people really want to achieve and avoid. Some people will find it hard to engage with an abstract question like "What are your core needs?" Listing the reasons why they like or don't like particular ideas may help them notice and explain what they want and don't want.
Parking space	When something comes up that's not relevant to the discussion at hand, 'park' it in the parking space (a large sheet of paper on the wall or in the notes) and deal with it at an appropriate time later. This allows you to stay focused but reassures participants they will be heard.

Suggestions for managing group dynamics

From Amara Possain, HUB advisor and Meeting Facilitation: The No-Magic Method (Berit Lakey)

Setting the tone	Start with confidence and energy  Establish consent to hold people to group agreements (seethis examplefrom Adrienne Marie Brown'sEmergent strategy) Push for specificity and test for alignment. Be suspicious of agreements reached too easily – test to make sure that people really do agree on essential points. Try something like 'there's a lot of great knowledge in the room. Is there anything we're missing, anything we haven't considered?" Assign observer roles (vibes, process). Helpful on zoom and/or when the #'s are large. See [How can we incorporate space watchers and holders into our groups without veering into policing?] for more on space watchers. A process observer looks for things such as...  What was the general atmosphere in which the group worked? relaxed? tense? How were the decisions made? If there was any conflict, how was it handled? Did everybody participate? Were there procedures that encouraged participation? How well did the group members listen to each other? Were there recognized leaders within the group? How did the group interact with this facilitator? "When you as process observer (whether appointed or not) are paying specific attention to patterns of participation, an easy device would be to keep score on papers. In a small group a mark can be made next to a person’s name every time they speak. If you are looking for differences in participation patterns between categories of people, such as around gender, race and ethnicity, new members-old member, etc, keeping track of number of contributions in each category is enough." -Berit Lakey, Training for Change
Specific practices	Journalling before coming into discussion is helpful. Or pairing in small groups for reflection. Look for minor points of agreement and state them. This helps build the group's morale.
Handling specific situations	All depends on the facilitator’s ability to interpret the situation and ability to intervene accordingly, the participant, and the group - but it’s helpful to keep tools in your back pocket and to practice.  You have to assess what's going on. Are they a jerk? Are they feeling unheard?  Shift the format/structure first. Break things up in pairs or try something else. Help get a sense for what's going on. Sometimes need to intervene directly with the person, sometimes need to include the whole group. Jokes and affirmation can help depending on the situation.  Ask for others input if a conversation is being carried out by 2 people only. Some approaches: shift format/structure, energizer, break, 1:1, remove them, make the group a part of it, humour, affirmation, the list goes on.

If you have any suggested revisions or additional resources to share related to the above content, please email them to kenzie@lehub.ca.

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