Towards a common denominator: Facilitate understanding and shared decisions in teams

[Carding Forum]

About what facilitation is, what problems it solves, when it is worth it and not worth it.

Albert Einstein advised to simplify everything to the limit. Unfortunately, when we get involved in communication or general decision-making, we often forget this truth. The meetings drag on and do not reach the goal. You plan to spend one hour in these meetings and discuss one topic. But catch yourself when the timing is already approaching three o'clock, and questions are multiplying like rabbits. What quality solutions are there?

It is hard to believe that a modern company at the current pace of life can afford the luxury of such an unproductive waste of time. This is where the facilitation method comes to the rescue. The literal translation of this word from English is help, simplification, assistance. All this is done by a facilitator - a person who, among other things, monitors the success in achieving the team's goals in general meetings. And I'll put it this way: simplifying is not easy. Let's figure out how to solve this problem.

WHAT PROBLEMS DOES FASILITATION SOLVE ...​

Once a marketer, 2 brand managers, 3 designers and 4 developers met to discuss the launch of a new project. Three people actively discussed the topic of the meeting, two threw out new questions that were not particularly related to the meeting, two more tried to follow what was happening, two did not even try, and the latter did not even understand why they were meeting. As a result, the boss came and said exactly how things would be done, five agreed with this, four did not agree, but resigned themselves, and one generally decided to quietly sabotage the decision.

This is a plus or minus typical depiction of how meetings might go. What we see:

1. The objectives of the meeting are not clear to everyone and are not communicated to every participant.
2. There is no fixed list of questions with timing for each of them. Or there is no person who would monitor compliance with this list.
3. Not all are included.
4. The dominant role of the leader wins, while some of the opinions are ignored.

These are the problems that facilitation is designed to solve. What exactly can be worked out in such sessions:

1. Search for alternative solutions used in the company. As the saying goes, the biggest nonsense is to do the same and hope for a different result.
2. Finding the best solution. For example, the team has previously worked out several options that suit everyone, but what exactly to implement in the first place is not clear.
3. Strategic plan with expected result and responsibility for each of the subtasks.
4. New knowledge. But not just their transfer, but the creation of conditions for their formation and acquisition of skills. That enhances the involvement in the learning process and the depth of development. We often practice this approach in the courses of the internal Academy of Business Education Education Lab.
5. Workflows - in order to change something in them (that is, to conduct a retrospective). We will talk about this in more detail a little later.
6. Values that will become the foundation of corporate culture. If you do not involve the team in the process of their formation, it is possible that the values will be just beautiful formal phrases.
7. Creative solutions. Simply put, facilitation is a way of dreaming with consequences)

... AND WHEN YOU SHOULD NOT RUN TO IT​

Alas, facilitation is not a magic pill for all the bad and for all the good. In some cases, it is downright contraindicated.

1. When a directive management style is implemented in the company. The essence of facilitation is not only and not so much to develop a joint plan, but to execute it. To do this, the team must have a high degree of democracy. What happens when we are dealing with a leader who alone makes decisions or reverses them? The team comes up with something there, it's something the bosses veto or strongly modify, and the team ... feels cheated.
2. Decision known in advance. The same story as with directive management. This is the case when a team participates in a facilitation session for the sake of participation, but not for the sake of a solution.
3. High level of micromanagement. The team received an assignment and worked out a solution at a facilitation session. But managers, instead of waiting for the result, begin to interfere with the implementation process. Sometimes to interfere so strongly that there will be no trace of the original decision.
4. Participants' lack of interest in a common solution. There cannot be random people on facilitation who simply passed by or were “driven” without fail. Yes, the facilitator WILL ACCEPT the team towards the best solution, but the participants must WANT to walk the path to it.
5. Participants' lack of knowledge and skills on the issue under discussion. Of course, such teams can generate very creative solutions. Creative and have nothing to do with reality.

WHO IS STANDING FOR ALL THIS?​

If all of the above is not for you, then simplifying and facilitating can be an excellent choice. But how do you conduct those facilitation sessions? Is one desire and a few articles with a selection of techniques enough?

Unfortunately no. An important feature of the facilitator is that he does not need to have expertise in the issues that the team is discussing and interest in a certain solution to them. That is, this person retains the maximum impartiality. He accompanies, but does not teach, advise and does not add his own personal. Therefore, combining the roles of team leader, session participant, and facilitator seems unlikely.

At the same time, preparation for a meeting on the part of the presenter can take almost more time than the session itself:

• canceling the request from the session customer. This includes working out the questions: why such a meeting is needed, why exactly now, who will be in the team, what artifacts and implementation plan after, what issues should not be touched upon, are there any hidden conflicts and what will happen if this meeting is not held;
• session design: its schedule, issues to be considered, stages. By the way, the design of the facilitation meetings is very flexible. And it can change even in the process.

ABOUT RETROSPECTIVE​

We've said that one of the challenges that facilitation can do is improve workflows.

In principle, retrospectives are quite popular in themselves, especially in IT companies. But the problem is that it often comes down to routine and formal answers in the spirit of “let's do the good, but don't do the bad”.

Not the best solution and come to the team with a ready-made recipe for improvements. Even if he is good and solves the team's problems, there will be a sense of compulsion. This means that such a recipe is much less likely to be implemented.

A facilitation-style retrospective solves both problems. How do I conduct a session like this:

1. It is worth starting with fact and description of how each participant sees and feels himself in the team. Here metaphorical cards can help - a set of various pictures or photographs, which helps a person to associate, in this case, with himself. In the process, it may turn out that, even if our processes are quite successful, we see and feel them and our role in very different ways, we have different triggers for switching on, we experience our emotions in different ways.
2. In the main part, we need to work out the answers to the questions: what to start doing, what to stop and what to continue. We record the answers on the facilitation board, making them visible to everyone.
3. Last but not least. It is the responsibility of the client of the retrospective to give life to the results of the session. In my experience, there have been teams that independently monitored and implemented the results of the session - and this is a special pleasure, I tell you.

Of course, this session format is good to do on an ongoing basis. After all, as they say, there is no limit to perfection.