DEVELOPING AND

SUPPORTING YOUR

DGROUPDCommunities webinar series

ECDPM and

22 April 2015

Meet the facilitation team

Lucie LamoureuxKM4D Associates

Pier Andrea PiraniEuforic Services – Dgroups Coordination Support

Ivan KulisECDPM

Why a DCommunities webinar series?

• Response to Dgroups partners request

• Engaging members requires care, skills and time

• Pilot - 3 free webinars to learn

• Dgroups platform

• Developing and supporting your Dgroup

• Facilitation tips and tricks

Webinar outline – 90 minutes

• Topics:

Community challenges and enablers

Importance of purpose and planning

Strategic drivers for communities

Specific examples of strategic applications

Importance of facilitation

Specific facilitation tasks

Facilitation techniques

Facilitation practice

Planning your interventions

Webinar set-up

• Format:

Three 15-minute blocks of content, each followed

by interaction

• Interaction:

During the pauses, use the “Raise Hand” emoticon

on the top left to ask questions

During the presentation, type your questions in the

Chat box and Ivan will collect them

• Technical problems:

Type in the Chat box and Pier will help you

Community challenges and enablers

Common challenges

• Access and connectivity

• Participation and

motivation

• Trust and cultural factors

Enablers

• Accessible interaction

platform (Dgroups)

• Common purpose or goals

• Relevance: topics

/activities that resonate

• Regular engagement

• Facilitation

Purpose, purpose, purpose!

• Purpose drives the design and

planning of your community

• Your community has to add value

to the work of the members

• Has to be clear and articulated

• To avoid misunderstanding with

members, share your intent!

• Successful communities explicitly

state and reiterate their purpose to

members through various

channels

Purpose checklist: Community Design Aid

• Prepared by FAO for their

knowledge networks

• A 3-page checklist with in-

depth questions

• Useful when starting a

community or as a

planning tool for an

existing one

• May make you reconsider

creating a new community

Source:

http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/knowledge/docs/

FAO-NC-DesignAid.docx

Relevance: topics/activities that

resonate

• What makes your community

special or pertinent?

• The more relevant the topics

and activities are to members’

work, the more likely they will

participate

• Needs assessments, member

surveys, etc. are key to

relevance

• Use member suggestions,

engage them, build buy-in

Pause - Interaction time

So far, do you have any questions?

Questions for you:

• Do you encounter any other challenges in your

community or Dgroup?

• Can you clearly describe the purpose of your

network? Your target audience?

• Can you articulate the benefits of participating in

your Dgroup to members?

Strategic drivers for communities

• Knowledge sharing:

• Share your knowledge or

experience

• Find knowledge from a

network of experts

• Publish explicit knowledge

(papers, articles, etc.)

• Get exposure for you/your

organization's thinking and

work

Strategic applications – Knowledge sharing

Strategic drivers for communities

• Learn:

• Grow beyond your own "knowledge

boundaries"

• Seek answers to your questions

from other practitioners and answer

others' questions

• Learn something specific in order to

improve certain capacities

• Be up-to-date of the latest in your

area of interest and work

Strategic applications – Learn

Strategic drivers for communities

• Connect:

• Connect and build relationships

with fellow practitioners

• Discover and connect with new

partners from similar and

different settings

• Find out who knows what

• Help newcomers to the field

• Establish your reputation and

identity as a practitioner

Strategic applications - Connect

Strategic drivers for communities

• Create:

• Create new knowledge by

cooperating with others

• Build a knowledge base

• Collaborate on projects or

research with others towards

shared goals

• Contribute to policy

development

• Catalyze action

Strategic applications - Create

Strategic applications - Create

Pause - Interaction time

So far, do you have any questions?

Some questions for you:

• What are some of the strategic applications of

your Dgroups?

• What do you want to accomplish with your

online interactions?

Importance of facilitation

• To be effective, communities need

to have a shared sense of purpose

and be relevant to members

• Online spaces do not guarantee

that people will contribute or

collaborate

• Facilitation adds structure and

process to accomplish objectives

and achieve the community’s

purpose

• Facilitation also helps to ensure

good community dynamics

Specific facilitator tasks

• Clarify and reinforce the purpose

• Welcome new members

• Assess member needs

• Provide and manage a “structure” by developing a plan for interactions

• Keep the discussion focused, ask questions, provide resources

• Engage members in back channels

• Manage conflicts and acknowledge differences

• Help to build relationships between members

• Help to ensure understanding and encourage trust

Facilitation techniques

• The principal facilitation techniques are:

1. Listening/reading

• What is said, not said and interpreting silence

2. Composing and editing messages

• Clear, concise, to the point

3. Asking and answering questions

• Open ended or closed, or to clarify

4. Summarizing and synthesizing

• Also paraphrasing, restating

5. Clarifying

• Using some, or a combination of the above, illustrating with examples

Facilitation practice in a nutshell (1)

• Focusing purpose: remind regularly

• Connect: get people to introduce

themselves, find others who share

interests or can help each other on a

particular issue

• Integrate: help newcomers learn about

the community

• Being proactive: ask questions, clarify,

provide relevant links, seek opportunities

for action

Facilitation practice in a nutshell (2)

• Guide the interactions: facilitating

discussions includes mediation in

times of conflict, establish norms and

agreements when needed

• Technology stewardship: helping

people technically with Dgroups and

noticing when technical issues come

up

• Cybrarianship: curating or managing

content

Planning your interventions

• All of this takes time: decide

where to focus and when

• If starting out, put more time in

“Connecting”

• Plan around community-relevant

events, for e.g. a discussion to

feed into a face-to-face meeting

• Look for opportunities, for e.g.

providing input to a policy process

• Map out your action plan for a

year

Pause - Interaction time

Do you have any questions on

facilitation?

Some questions for you:

• What are some of your facilitation

challenges?

• What are you doing to meet/solve them?

Furthermore…

• This webinar was developed using the following resources:• The IMARK module “Knowledge Sharing for

Development”: http://www.imarkgroup.org/#/imark/en/course/K

• The IMARK module “Building Electronic Communities and Networks”: http://www.imarkgroup.org/#/imark/en/course/C

• FAO Design Aid: http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/knowledge/docs/FAO-NC-DesignAid.docx

• Ask us about the practical webinar on facilitation tips and tricks!