Notes on Facilitation

Many sparkly things have distracted me from the blog lately; Facebook and Twitter are two examples. My work has ramped up, so I've been dedicating notable bandwidth to my professional growth. Below are some personal observations spawned from some recent facilitations:

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4/16/09 – 2 Day General Surgery Clinic Prep facilitated work:

The Ground Rules worked well; it felt good to have them for the stakeholder tie-in, it was nice to refer them to the ‘team’s rules of the room.’

I definitely should have focused more on the data. I needed a different plan: PO didn’t have time to enter what we had until late the night before; I decided to enter it the morning of the event, then print fresh charters. All night long, this bugged me. Especially because I wasn’t sure that she had done it at all. I probably should have called PO at the end of the day at made a better, more timely plan. Then, when I did open the data file, I wasn’t familiar with the format since it had been created by one of my cohorts. It should have been plug and play by that point.

We also didn’t have a good number to compare the target with; the information was available, but we hadn’t worked it out and shown it to our PO and Sponsor. Once we hit the event, it was too late; particularly because there was no data consultant in the room with us.

During the stakeholder tie in, I thought I was clear about the type of input we needed; in spite of this, some members focused on more fundamental issues with the event.

One major learning was to not assume alignment with people not in the room. It turned out that leadership had two different visions for what the event’s focus. This would have come out during an Assessment meeting; since we didn’t have one of those, we wound up hearing about it from team members during the morning of day 2. Not okay.

Levering my sense of humor and spontaneity helped me connect with the team. I genuinely believe that they work better when they like you, and when they’re having fun. Even though we had some unfun times, there was enough positive to keep them productive.

How could it have been more fun? We needed some kind of ice-breaker up front, maybe something quick and fun like the questions M2 often asks (M has done it too).

“Problems and Opportunities” doesn’t really fit with A3 problem solving. A3 is all about focusing deeply on the problems, and then thoughtfully shifting to the repair. My use didn’t work at all. We probably could have done fishbone to identify the burstlike ‘problems’ to dig into with the 5 Whys.

I think if we’d had better wording at the problem identification step, the ‘5 Whys’ would have been smoother and more useful.

Trying to get 7 people with no A3 experience to try and write a problem statement together was a disaster. What if the team were given the problem statement and asked to confirm it based on observations from earlier in the day?

I liked the drawing that they did; on a whole I think the 3 Actuals phase worked really well. Two folks confirmed the steps that we’d identified during a previous session, 2 identified wastes, 3 more drew (one pacer style, the other two just capturing process)

4/20/09 – Facilitation of General Surgery / Transplant patient handoff A3

I didn’t feel particularly good about this facilitation, but I received compliments and positive feedback. I think, maybe I sensed some struggling on behalf of the group that I assumed to be caused by my facilitation. Perhaps they struggled a bit because it was a challenging topic, not because of poor facilitation. I see that the two are different: just because they struggle doesn’t mean it’s because of the facilitation. Now I need to work on identifying one from the other.

I also felt uncomfortable because I wasn’t personally clear on the process. I’ve never witnessed it, and I don’t really know the players directly involved. Since I’m not expected to be a content expert, I think that’s mostly okay; it is more difficult to keep up with the discussion if the content is completely (or even somewhat) new.

I’m also unfamiliar with facilitating a group through A3 completion. With that, I’m generally unclear on how groups and A3’s go together. I’m most comfortable coaching individuals through A3 Problem Solving, and having them go and talk to other interested parties. It makes sense to bring people in and to make it directly collaborative; mostly I’m still getting familiar with the pieces and how they can fit together.

4/23/09

I also need to focus on keeping the energy up when I’m facilitating. With my hubish nature, I often use the group’s energy to get me going; that can’t be counted on, especially when I’m with other mellow or hubish folks.

How can I do that? Experience will help, knowing the content helps, knowing what to do with the content also helps. If I don’t have to use bandwidth to think about that, I’m freer to crank up my volume.