Facilitation Skills Training with Roger Greenaway to help you ...

Make reviews more active and engaging

Would you like active learning to be even more engaging, dynamic and effective? Dull and boring reviews are an expensive waste of time. Be more experimental and more experiential. Introduce more active learning: harnessing everyone's thoughts and energies is time well spent. 

MATCHING REVIEW METHODS AND ACTIVITIES

We will keep a running conversation during the day about which activities and review methods make a good match.

MATCHING REVIEW METHODS AND OUTCOMES

We have already identified which activities are most likely to produce certain outcomes. So let's do the same for reviewing methods. We will try out at least one method related to each outcome.

Communication and team building: Storyline, Empathy Test, Egoing

Problem Solving in Teams: Goal Keepers, Horseshoe, Turntable

Working Collaboratively in teams: Action Replay, Moving Stones, Missing Person

Facing New Challenges: Back to the Future, Working with Pictures

Successful Team Leadership: Active Images, Gifts, Warm Seat, Learning Buddies

New Teams: Sim Survey, Brief Encounters, Spokes, Hokey-Cokey

Innovation & Creativity: Metaphor Map, Success Chart, Appreciative Decision-Making

FACILITATION SKILLS & STRATEGIES

Many of the above techniques can be briefed as independent team tasks, while others require more 'hands on' facilitation.

Working with people older than you. If you can't teach grandmother, try facilitating: how to work with people old enough to 'know better'

Appreciative facilitation: working with success as a platform for the tougher stuff.

Self-Facilitated Learning: or what you can do with a resource bank of great questions.

Sequencing questions (and reviewing techniques) using the Playing Card cycle.

Reviewing with Large Groups

Emergency methods: Learning Buddies, Triads, Talking Knot.

Outcome

Review Method

Why you might use it

Communication and team building

Storyline

(formerly Happy Chart)

• As a novel structure for paired work

• For paying attention to what you and others' experience

• To practise appreciative questioning

Empathy Test

(Best following paired or linear activities where neighbours have noticed each other.)

• Better than a mood check (it does that too).

• Involves guessing how another person feels

• Leaders especially benefit from knowing what it is like in the shoes of others

Egoing

(speaking as if you are another person)

• As a development of Empathy Test

• Needs sensitive facilitation

Problem Solving in Teams

Goal Keepers

(keep their partner's goal in view)

• Instant feedback speeds up the learning process

• For establishing learning buddies

Horseshoe or

Where Do U Stand?

(Needs a long rope or some other way of marking a horseshoe slightly larger than the group circle.)

• Quickly shows shades of opinion on any issue.

• Encourages interest in other points of view

• Kick starts group discussion

• Classic demonstration of '1-2-Many'

Turntable

(Indoors you need a chair for each person. Outdoors you can mark each zone with ropes.)

• Helps people experience and appreciate two or more points of view

• Can loosen up fixed positions

• Provides fresh insights even if not changed views

Working Collaboratively in teams

Action Replay

(All you need is a dummy remote and a dummy mike)

• Quickly highlights key moments or episodes

• Roving Mike brings out new information

• Can be as fun or as serious as you want

Moving Stones

(Natural objects with different shapes, colours, sizes, textures work best.)

• A hands on method for communicating about group dynamics

• Helps leaders and teams reflect on their roles and relationships

• See https://www.youtube.com/user/rogerreview

Missing Person

(Outdoors you need a rope and or natural materials for a sculpture + a camera. Indoors use a flipchart and plenty of thick pens.)

• A creative and intuitive way of capturing a team's aspirations.

• It is itself a challenging group project

• An alternative to listing strengths and weaknesses

Facing New Challenges

Back to the Future

(Best with a rope)

• Focuses attention on things that individuals or teams already have before embarking on a journey towards a goal.

• To practise appreciative questioning

Using Pictures

(Infinite uses)

• For telling a story

• For more focused communication

• For deeper communication

• For fun communication

Future Walking (No equipment needed, unless you want everyone to make a written record of their own force fields.)

• Gives a positive buzz for the person walking through the human force field of helpful and hindering forces on their journey towards a goal.

• Helps everyone anticipate their own force fields and journeys when applying what they have learned.

Successful Team Leadership

Active Images of Teamwork

(No equipment, needs an observant facilitator!)

• An active way of sharing different examples of good teamwork

• People unwittingly reveal their leadership style – maybe.

• See http://reviewing.co.uk/actrev.htm

Gifts

(Needs plenty of natural or art resources)

• A surprisingly powerful and sensitive way of giving feedback

• Brief for the outcome you/they want

Warm Seat

(Needs time: approx 100 minutes for 10 people)

• The receiver of feedback stays in control

• If you want a straight talking kind of feedback rather than the more poetic 'Gifts'

Learning Buddies

(Needs even numbers)

• Time out for paired conversations helps to keep everyone on track

New Teams

Simultaneous Survey

(Everyone needs a card or notebook for recording responses.)

• An efficient, energising and focused way of getting through a long agenda

• Develops a whole range of communication skills

• Involves some note-taking

Brief Encounters

(Ice-breaker. With suitable questions is more versatile.)

• Does what it says

• A quick version of Sim Survey (no recording or reporting back and questions keep changing)

Spokes

(Use any object for the hub. Ropes useful but not essential – for a rim or for spokes.)

• Instant 'public' self-assessment

• Brings out specific positive feedback

• Brings modest people into a friendly spotlight

• To re-balance the focus of attention between 'louds' and 'quiets'

Hokey-Cokey

(Large rope circle useful but not essential)

• To establish what the group has done well

• To establish what individuals have done well

Innovation & Creativity

Metaphor Map

(Needs art materials or ready-made metaphor maps)

• To recreate the world in which people work (and play)

• To use the map for reviewing journeys that groups or individuals have made

• To discuss preferred routes for the future

Success Chart

(Indoor exercise with plenty of paper and thick pens. A few ready-made predictable labels can help to kick start the process.)

• Counters failure focus

• Acknowledges who contributed what

• Highlights positives for copying or developing

Appreciative Decision-Making

• To involve everyone – at least at the early stages of a decision-making process

• To ensure that all ideas are appreciated

• To encourage creative compromises

Tuning in

Observation Walk

(The more stimulating the environment the better)

• For learning people's names

• For involving everyone from the start

• For setting up reviewing: “The more you notice and the more you share what you notice the more we will all learn.”

• Last round can set up what happens next

Setting up

Activity Map

(Need to mark out a cross, ideally with labels)

• Quickly get to know people's likes and dislikes

• Quickly learn about previous experiences related to programme activities or objectives

• Good for setting up a programme

Focusing

Scavenger Hunt

(If you are not in a natural environment with plenty of objects, use a set of pictures.)

• Encourages thinking before speaking.

• Makes communication easier for speakers and listeners.

• Enriches communication, but you determine whether you want brief or full explanations

Sequencing

Sequenced Questions

(Based on the Active Reviewing Cycle. Other sequences work too!)

• Improves chances of quality responses

• All stages of the sequence have value

• Improves skills in each part of the sequence

Delegating

Knot Talking

(Rope circle should be slightly smaller than the group circle to keep it in tension with people naturally leaning forwards.)

• A discussion method that gives frequent opportunities to contribute without the predictability of rounds.

• Feels inclusive whether or not everyone speaks up.

• Good as a second last review method.

Including

1-2-Many

• A sequence for encouraging participation in whole group discussions

Ongoing review and evaluation will help to ensure that pace, style and content are relevant to your work as trainer, facilitator or consultant.