Facilitator's responsibility

What does a facilitator do?

Photo by Héctor J. Rivas on Unsplash

Facilitators may wear many hats but mainly their responsibility and work is in the following areas.

BEFORE

• Creating an agenda that will help you reach your end goal without overwhelming the workshop participants.

• Selecting the right tools for the workshop and defining the workshop team set-up.

• Aligning the team’s goals with the right sort of exercises and appropriate workshop processes.

DURING

• Helping the team articulate key ideas by using fitting facilitation techniques and frameworks.

• Resolving possible conflict by mediating different points of view and maintaining objectivity at all times.

• Making collaborative work feel frictionless by avoiding the usual pitfalls of teamwork like team politics and circular discussions, and making sure every person in the room gets heard.

• Enabling teams to do their best work by allowing the team to focus on the challenge at hand instead of worrying about the actual decision-making process.

• Planning, guiding, and managing a workshop to ensure a team solves their challenge.

• Summarise the process and the outcome of the meeting / workshop.

• Get feedback from the participants about the facilitation process and outcome.

AFTER

• Document the process and the outcome, and share it with the participants.