facilitation and the power of questions
TRANSCRIPT
Exercise (3 min.)
Tell a partner about a time when your team talked at cross
purposes. What helpful action could you have taken?
Do We Even Know It’s an Animal?
Onspoken assumptions and multiple perspectives mean
conversations must be carefully managed, i.e. facilitated
A Perspective on Facilitation
”If we make
interventions they
have to be
helpful” Edgar Schein
The aim is to help people succesfully coordinate their actions
and change unproductive patterns of communication
In Agile, Everyone’s a Facilitator
Self-organization also means assuming collective responsibility
for the quality of the communication and collaboration
Keep it, and
yourself,
real
Any action
is an
intervention
Accept your
ignorance
Focus on being
helpful to the
whole team
Forgive, and
learn from,
mistakes
Share
ownership
of the
problem
Go with the
flow Goal:
Perpetual
reciprocal
helping
Assessment Opening/
ideation Exploration
Manage the Conversation
”Con-
tract”
Decision/
selection
”Decision free zone”
Plan-
ning
”Timeouts”: Frequent checks that we are aligned and making progress
Conversation about substance
Conversation about conversation
”Criticism free zone”
Mix It Up
(Post-Its Are Not for Everyone!)
Embrace diversity in preferences for the form of the
collaboration, and experiment with what works for your team
Genererende spørgsmål
Ask Helpful Questions
Clarifying (linear) intent
Constructing (circular) intent
Future orientation Past orientation
What is the problem?
What should we do first?
What do other people think about this?
What options can we explore?
Detective Captain
Anthropologist Future
researcher
Exercise (3 min.)
Tell a partner about a (type of) question or activity you think will
be helpful to your team, and that you would like to try out.
References
• Ravn, Ib & Kjær, Anne Lise (2006): “Jeg opdagede, at formen
kan have indflydelse på, om en tværfaglig dialog kan lykkes”.
Kognition & Pædagogik, nr. 59, marts, pp. 46-55.
• Tomm, K. (1988): “Interventive interviewing: Part III. Intending
to ask lineal, circular, reflexive and strategic questions?”
Family Process, 27, 1–15.
• Schein, Edgar (2009): “Helping: How to Offer, Give, and
Receive Help”. Berret-Koehler.
Thanks!
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ulrikgade