Yesterday I worked with a group of facilitators. We are working on a project to create a high level accredited pathway in facilitation. The first activity we worked on as a team was to share all the different tools, techniques and models that we each use within our own facilitation practices. The photo below demonstrates the wealth of experience that we shared.

Tools Techniques and Models for Facilitation
What was great about the experience was that we had created an atmosphere of trust between us so that we could ask each other to explain tools which we were not sure of. This is a significant step amongst professional groups; I have often observed a tendency for people to cover up their lack of knowledge because they don’t want to be seen as lacking by their peers. This creation of trust meant that we were willing to explore the ideas put onto the board and to test if they were models, tools or techniques or should we define it as a theoretical underpinning.
The chart that emerged of the theory we were using as facilitators to inform our practice grew as the activity went on. We all shared stories of “bad facilitation” where an individual used a tool without the underpinning knowledge. This often happens when an inexperienced facilitator sees a tool in use or reads about it and quickly jumps to implementation stage without a deeper consideration of whether this is the right tool for the desired outcome and for the group they are working with.
Sometimes it is easy to dismiss facilitation as “messing about with Post It notes” and “having fun with groups” and it is this approach to facilitation which we are setting out to challenge. This means facilitators having a deeper understanding of the different models but also being willing to spend time understanding more complex theoretical underpinnings to our work.
One of the topics we talked about was Appreciative Inquiry. This is another example of a technique which can be used inappropriately and can lead to a frustration when it fails to deliver the promise. I came across a great blog:
What I really liked about this blog is the attention that is given to what happens with all the data collected in the first stages of a facilitated event. This is one of the areas that I want to study as part of my quest for qualification. I can see lots of techniques for generating data and the way we do this is often creative, engaging and inspiring but then I watch people get lost as the data is reduced to something more manageable for an action plan. It is great to see some practical examples of how this stage is tackled for one specific method.
Christine Bell – Bellthompson Ltd