Page 26 - The ART of Facilitation

Creative Approaches
As a Facilitator, you move energy that is stuck and hold the space in a room for communication to occur. It is helpful to change it up, intersperse a variety of interactive techniques to get at the discussion from a new angle and toward the group’s goal. There are a number of ways that facilitators can work with groups to generate and process ideas and decisions in alignment with their purpose, vision, and values. Here are some tried and true techniques with current spins on what seems to be working well.
Brainstorms/Structured Ideation
Most of the distinction is semantics. Brainstorming in its pure sense can be an element of structured ideation (SI). Many facilitators still call what they are doing “brainstorming” but it has evolved to become multifaceted and is much closer to what is often defined as SI. For our purposes we will use them together as a larger collection of effective techniques to generate new ideas, or a variety of options and alternatives.
Clarify the question or topic to be brainstormed. Set a time limit. Review the rules, and possibly post them.
Responses can be generated individually (possibly on post-its) and collected, or brainstorm responses in small groups and share out. Use a scribe to gather responses.
Quantity, not quality, is the goal.
Defer all judgment until the process is over.
Participants are encouraged to further other people's ideas. All ideas are recorded.
Add competition: Incentive of “winning” heightens commitment to ideas that set themselves apart from the others.
Who can generate the most/best ideas within a specific time frame
Allocate a number of votes to each participant to determine which items are most valued by the group.
Add friction: Counter the different ideas to hone and clarify the suggestions
Pitch your ideas to the group as to why they are the most important. Allow the group to challenge and “poke holes.”.
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