Library of facilitation techniques

Group facilitation with uncooperative people.

• Frame: Famously utilized by AirB&B to get at the heart of some of their culture issues. The idea is that there are three things that move the needle on psychological safety and team effectiveness:

• • Elephants - The "elephants in the room" or things people are avoiding and not talking about. These tend to create a sense of ambiguity and helplessness. Elephants must die.
  • Dead Fish - These are the "old tapes" that people refuse to let go of. They've been around so long that they're beginning to stink up the place. These tend to sour people on each other by undermining trust and creating fictions. Dead Fish must disappear.
  • Vomit - This is our ability to speak freely, directly, and openly with another person without fear of reprisal. If we're not listened to in this way, it can build up over time and bad things can happen. Vomit has to happen.

• Outcomes: Creates more honesty and psychological safety; Surfaces crucial issues on the team
  

• Demo: Leader shares an example of an old tape or story they've been carrying around and are ready to let go of
• Process/Steps:
• Facilitator introduces the framework by drawing three columns on a flipchart (or a flipchart for each)
• Facilitator asks the group for an example of either an Elephant or a Dead Fish
• Team members affirm, clarify, or provide additional context
• Group decides how to appropriately address or let go of the issue (usually by naming some hard, next steps)
• Facilitator captures on flipchart
• Group is invited to add to the flipcharts over the course of the day
• Facilitator reviews additions at the end of the day

🔍 Embracing Self-Discovery: The "Getting to Know Your Role" Icebreaker

This is a uniquely designed icebreaker activity that serves as a powerful catalyst for self-reflection and team communication. This resource, set against the backdrop of the BIG PICTURE Board, is tailored to deepen the understanding of individual roles within an organisation. It's not just about breaking the ice; it’s an exploration into how each team member perceives their contribution and how they interact with the broader business landscape. By engaging in this activity, participants embark on a journey to uncover the value they add and the dynamics of their workplace relationships.

This icebreaker leverages the BIG PICTURE Board to visually map these insights, making abstract concepts tangible. The Board's design, encompassing various aspects of a business, provides a structured yet flexible platform for this exploration. Participants use the board to position themselves within the organisation, leading to revelations about alignment with team goals, potential areas of misalignment, and opportunities for growth. The simplicity of the BIG PICTURE approach amplifies the effectiveness of the "Getting to Know Your Role" activity, making it an essential tool in any facilitator's repertoire.

Dropping 'Getting to Know Your Role' in your workshop planning offers a structured yet flexible approach to session design, enabling facilitators to create more engaging, introspective, and impactful experiences that deepen team understanding and cohesion.

This technique helps to create a historical timeline for your organization with the collective work of your group members.

This activity can be a stand alone workshop or part of a planning workshop.

A subset of people with direct field experience can quickly foster understanding, spark creativity, and facilitate adoption of new practices among members of a larger community. Fishbowl sessions have a small inside circle of people surrounded by a larger outside circle of participants. The inside group is formed with people who made concrete progress on a challenge of interest to those in the outside circle. The fishbowl design makes it easy for people in the inside circle to illuminate what they have done by sharing experiences while in conversation with each other. The informality breaks down the barriers with direct communication between the two groups of people and facilitates questions and answers flowing back and forth. This creates the best conditions for people to learn from each other by discovering answers to their concerns themselves within the context of their working groups. You can stop imposing someone else’s practices!

Organize the day's meeting by co-creating and assigning roles among participants.

A Focused Conversation to begin to process traumatic situations for use with colleagues, friends and family, and how to respond to them productively. Often traumatic events become undiscussable and this enables persons to talk about them

facilitation short cuts
list of ways to instruct how to pair / group up
quickly decide which partner goes first

This is a great facilitation technique to answer open questions of trainees with a "What if" learning style. It prevents the facilitator from answering all questions herself. With this method trainees can: 

• close knowledge gaps
• find solutions for personal problems
• imagine themselves using their new knowledge in future and prepare themselves for obstacles
  

This is a group activity that explores group dynamics, team-building and creative problem solving. It is also a lot of fun. A team of any size has the challenge to prepare a dinner for themselves and their peers, with limited resources and limited time. It works well with new teams as an exercise to help them bond, but it can also be effective for the development of experienced teams.