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General Facilitation Instructions

The tools in the ITAVIP Toolkit are designed to be done by your program without help from an outside consultant. For many of the activities, it is beneficial to have someone serve as facilitator. Below are some general facilitation guidelines helpful across the tools and activities.  In the instructions for some activities, there are additional specific facilitation notes.

Facilitation can be defined as “guiding the process of discussion amongst a group (more than 2 people) towards a certain outcome”. https://medium.com/@saahilsood/what-are-the-4-key-traits-of-an-excellent-facilitator-2909661f8ad2 

Facilitation Guidelines   

Facilitator Qualities: Good qualities for a potential facilitator include:

• Effective communication skills - probing, listening, etc.
• Open to change
• Ability to synthesize 
• Keen observation skills
• Maintains constant neutrality
• Promotes constructive feedback
• Asks versus tells
• Managing energy and time
• Patience

Facilitation: Ideally, the session should be facilitated by someone from outside the current governance model.

Format: Sessions can be conducted online or in person. In person sessions  require a deeper commitment to the process and often engender more trust and fuller discussion, but in person meetings are not always feasible.

Note Taking: For in person meetings, a specific note-taker (separate from the facilitator) should be assigned and should document responses on whiteboards or large pads. This helps underscore the discussion and enables participants to see if something was misunderstood. For online meetings, the note-taker should take notes via a shared doc so all have access to the notes during the session. Notes should be distributed afterwards for review and approval.

Participation: Make sure to encourage broad suggestions from the entire group. Some participants will be more comfortable if they are given preparatory materials.  Some are best “on the fly”. There is also a mix of comfort level in group discussions. Consider how to best encourage everyone’s participation. 

Define Rules of Engagement: Confirm expectations around behavior during activities, such as: checking ego and titles at the door, no interruptions when someone is talking, sticking to schedule (if it's a long one), using a "parking lot" for topics that are either irrelevant for the meeting or too big to discuss right now.

Re-framing: Before diving in to find solutions, it may be helpful for the facilitator or the team to re-frame their "problems" into actionable questions. This may also broaden the range of solutions. For example, if the problem were "the developers are scaring the non-developers away." It can be rephrased to "How might we enable the non-developers to contribute meaningfully?"

Decisions and Gaining Consensus: For each session, clarify - are you looking for a decision in the session or consensus. If a decision, identify a decider (who or what can be a tiebreaker)?  If consensus, suggestions are often made in the activity, or you can consider additional options.

Materials/Supplies:  if in person, group activities would require a room, whiteboards or large pads, sticky notes, dot stickers, and markers. If online, make sure to send materials in advance. Download our planning worksheet here.