Futures thinking and foresight is intensely collaborative. Our projects inevitably involve close contact with our clients; and methodologically, much futures work is participatory and takes place in workshops. Facilitation skills are therefore critical to the success of futures projects – being able to get the best out of participants means getting the best result for the project itself.
Facilitation is a skill. It can be learned, and this blog offers some pointers. When expert facilitation is needed, though, we suggest that you work with expert facilitators. We find that one often gets a better outcome with experienced facilitators who have expertise in futures techniques. SAMI can help here.
This blog is part of our continuing series on the Futures Toolkit, refreshed by SAMI Consulting in conjunction with the Government Office for Science, bringing extra depth to the Toolkit itself.
Facilitation is usually defined as the act of helping other people to deal with a process or reach an agreement or solution without getting directly involved in the process, or discussion, yourself. It may be better to say: a facilitator will help you go through the futures tools to achieve your goal without getting directly involved in the process or discussion. They enable you to reach the outcomes that you want. Facilitating futures projects can be complex. Here are some thoughts to help you along the way.Always start with a clear idea of what you want the outcome to be. What do you need to achieve with the session? Will you be moving to another tool? Developing a report or recommendations? What do you need to have achieved by the end of the session? The outcome determines which tool you will use - the pathways in the Futures Toolkit will help here. And how much time do you have? Some tools take a few sessions; you can complete some in a couple of hours.
If you are going to run a virtual or hybrid session, use a whiteboard tool or share a PowerPoint slide (not in presenter mode) so you can share your screen and type. Allow time for participants to learn how to use a tool if you plan to use a Whiteboard tool such as Mural that they aren’t familiar with.
Consider your inputs into the session - reports, data, output from another tool, and visuals. What will you use to make the session as interesting and informative as possible?
Planning and Preparation
Preparation is vital. Allow twice the time needed for the workshop to plan it. If you can, rehearse with a colleague. Plan your timings carefully: things take longer virtually than they do in a face-to-face workshop.
Futures thinking requires a shift in mindset, which can be tiring. Remember to include breaks. To better facilitate what you find your clients need on the day, you will need to adjust the agenda. It could be timing, it could be skipping something or adding something in. Be sure not to cast an agenda in stone. When working virtually or hybrid, people will need more breaks - one every 40-60 minutes. The maximum time people can usefully concentrate in virtual meetings is around two hours in total.
You could make use of breaks in the same way you would in an ordinary meeting. Put people working virtually into small informal “coffee break groups” while those "in the room" are taking a break so they can chat if they want to but stress it is OK to have a real break and go and make a drink.
Send an agenda or outline of the session beforehand, so people know what will happen and what to expect. If possible, contact people before the workshop to get to know them - a short phone call to explain the process and ask what they expect.
Working with your group
Ask questions in the session and use the “chat” to capture ideas if there are many people or if you wish to encourage quieter people to contribute. It often helps having a note-taker working alongside you – they can take notes and focus on the data whilst you focus on getting the best out of the participants.
Engage throughout by calling on people to contribute using their names, so that you make sure you have heard from everyone.
Take care when breaking from plenary into groups - try to divide groups equally between function and grade to get the maximum diversity in each group.
Remember, as a facilitator, you are helping the group get a job done and helping them work as a group. You are not there as a participant yourself.
How
Plan for time to explain how to use a tool before using it. If you use a digital whiteboard so everyone can participate, you can provide or develop templates. If the workshop is face-to-face, you will have prepared your whiteboards/flipcharts and other tools beforehand.
If you are using the Futures Toolkit, you will find the facilitation worksheets here. Group sizes will need to be smaller if you are virtual or hybrid, and you may need other facilitators; one per break-out group. Our rule of thumb is that experienced facilitators can handle 20 participants face to face. Virtually we suggest no more than 12 per facilitator at a maximum – though 8 is the ideal number.
Ask to record the session if possible so you do not need to take notes. If you are not recording, having a colleague who takes notes for you can be helpful. Don’t record the breakout sessions – it’s important for people to have a place where they can talk freely.
Do remember to thank everyone at the end of the session. Thanks and appreciation is always welcome, especially when they have done something as unfamiliar as futures thinking.
And what next?
Write up, considering:
· Who is your audience? Do they need a report or a couple of bullet points?
· Are you making recommendations? To whom? How are they best convinced?
· Is this a standalone exercise or one tool in a series? If it’s part of a series, you’ll want to write your conclusions to meet the input needs of the following tool in the sequence.
· Remember to anonymise the outputs. The Chatham House Rule always applies.
Always take some time for reflection: what went well? What would you do differently next time? Facilitation is a learned skill, and the feedback from your participants will help you improve. And as we have said, expert external facilitators may be the best route forward. They will free you from facilitating yourself and allow you to participate fully in the process – whilst ensuring you get the best possible result.
You may find you run into some issues when facilitating. We’ll cover some of the most common ones – and ways to overcome them – in a future blog.
Written by Jonathan Blanchard Smith, SAMI Director and Patricia Lustig, SAMI Principal
The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily of SAMI Consulting.
Achieve more by understanding what the future may bring. We bring skills developed over thirty years of international and national projects to create actionable, transformative strategy. Futures, foresight and scenario planning to make robust decisions in uncertain times. Find out more at www.samiconsulting.co.uk
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