FACILITATION OF

BEST PRACTICESEffective, Efficient, and Enjoyable Meetings

Nicole Strong

Forestry and Natural Resources Extension

Oregon State University

nicole.strong@oregonstate.edu

Your Meeting/Team Experiences

• The Good?

• The Bad?

• The Ugly?

Photo: joycarole.com

Role as a Facilitator

• “to make easy”

• It’s all about process

• How are decisions made?

• How will you include everyone?

• How will you intervene when things start to fall apart?

• Make sure everyone is heard and that information is

recorded accurately

• Articulate next steps

• Focus on PROCESS, not CONTENT

What meeting format?

Depends on your goals

Do you need to

brainstorm, vision,

prioritize?

Vote, reach consensus?

Before the meeting - Objectives

• Explain why the meeting is being

held and what will be

accomplished.

“The purpose of this meeting is

to develop collaborative

recommendations based on

desired conditions for issues

related to NEPA planning areas

within the Deschutes

Collaborative Forest Project

(DCFP) landscape.“Photo: delcor.com

Before the meeting - Agenda

• State items in action

terms

• Assign a time limit

• Assign someone to lead

discussion of each item

Before the meeting – Party Planning

• Make room arrangements

• Snacks + drinks?

• Arrange for note taking, co-

facilitators and process for

distributing notes

afterwards

Before the meeting - invite

• Send out in advance:

• Agenda

• Directions

• Parking

• Last meeting minutes

• Supplemental materials

• Make sure your member list

is up to date

You can’t do it all

• Facilitator

• Note taker

• Lets you focus on process

• Time keeper

• Start and end on time

• Breaks

During: Group Agreements

Ground Rules • Guidelines on how your committee will function

• Should improve effectiveness and efficiency

• Should minimize confusion, disruptions, and conflicts that take away from the real work.

• Each committee should discuss and agree to its own ground rules

• Ground rules should be reviewed and updated annually as new members join

Sample ground rules ?• Start and end on time

• Cell phones off

Parking Lot

Photo: blogs.dickinson.edu

• For the non-related topics

• Helps keep focus/flow

• Assign time for parking lots

topics/conversation

Being Inclusive

• Might need to tweak

process

• No critiquing brainstorm

ideas

• Small groups, individual

written submissions

• “Think, pair, share”

• Asking open questions

Active Listening

Facilitator Tool Kit: A Guide for Helping Groups Get Results. University of Wisconsin-Madison

Can you live with this

Consensus

Voting

How will you come to agreement?

Group Brainstorming Techniques

• Structured

brainstorming

• Unstructured

brainstorming

• Affinity process

Potential Influences

• Physical

• Professional

• Group “frame of mind”

– 100 mile rule

• Facilitator “frame of mind”

Wrapping up the meeting

• Summarize decisions at end

• Agree on action: what, who,

when?

• Next meeting date

• Evaluate the meeting

After the Meeting

• Distribute notes

• Make sure participants are

aware of next meeting date

• Communicate as needed to

ensure actions happen as

agreed.

Next up… Trouble shooting