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Increasing Value From Your Meetings 4/4
Facilitating the meeting
Want to share feedback about the podcast? It would be much appreciated. 3 min survey here:
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/N72QP67
Well-prepared meetings can still fail when they don’t have a facilitator.
There is a difference between leading a topic of discussion and facilitating the meeting as a whole.
- A topic leader will be driving the content discussion on that topic; whereas
- A facilitator will focus on the overall process and meeting progress.
A meeting facilitator will ensure that:
- Everyone’s objectives and roles are clear;
- Attendees are bought into and adhere to the meeting rules;
- Time is effectively managed throughout;
- The agenda is adhered to; and
- Meeting objectives are met.
Effective facilitators add value to the meeting by first aligning on a process with the attendees and then ensuring that process is adhered to. They’re prescriptive on process, not content.
Examples of how facilitators intervene during a meeting include:
- If an agenda point is over-running they’ll halt the discussion temporarily and explicitly call out a choice for the attendees on whether to continue the discussion and sacrifice the time from another agenda point or move on now.
- If things need to be parked, they’ll be the ones to capture them for follow up.
- If someone is breaching the ground rules, they’ll question this.
- Implementing breaks and keeping to time overall, ensuring sufficient pace to avoid boredom.
- Encouraging attendees to engage when required.
- Capturing next steps and aligning on these in a wrap-up, agreeing: what the actions are; who has responsibility for them; and how and when they’ll be followed up.
Your task for today is to spend 5 minutes identifying who should and will fulfil the facilitator role in your meeting. If it’s you, prepare for it. Consider how you’ll do it successfully and if it’s not you, spend some time coaching who it will be.
View all episodes
By Benjamin FordFacilitating the meeting
Want to share feedback about the podcast? It would be much appreciated. 3 min survey here:
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/N72QP67
Well-prepared meetings can still fail when they don’t have a facilitator.
There is a difference between leading a topic of discussion and facilitating the meeting as a whole.
- A topic leader will be driving the content discussion on that topic; whereas
- A facilitator will focus on the overall process and meeting progress.
A meeting facilitator will ensure that:
- Everyone’s objectives and roles are clear;
- Attendees are bought into and adhere to the meeting rules;
- Time is effectively managed throughout;
- The agenda is adhered to; and
- Meeting objectives are met.
Effective facilitators add value to the meeting by first aligning on a process with the attendees and then ensuring that process is adhered to. They’re prescriptive on process, not content.
Examples of how facilitators intervene during a meeting include:
- If an agenda point is over-running they’ll halt the discussion temporarily and explicitly call out a choice for the attendees on whether to continue the discussion and sacrifice the time from another agenda point or move on now.
- If things need to be parked, they’ll be the ones to capture them for follow up.
- If someone is breaching the ground rules, they’ll question this.
- Implementing breaks and keeping to time overall, ensuring sufficient pace to avoid boredom.
- Encouraging attendees to engage when required.
- Capturing next steps and aligning on these in a wrap-up, agreeing: what the actions are; who has responsibility for them; and how and when they’ll be followed up.
Your task for today is to spend 5 minutes identifying who should and will fulfil the facilitator role in your meeting. If it’s you, prepare for it. Consider how you’ll do it successfully and if it’s not you, spend some time coaching who it will be.