Facilitation Tools www.rhizome.coop

Rhizome is a co-operative of experienced facilitators, trainers and mediators. We work with co-ops, and campaigning and community groups across the UK, and with those national organisations that support activism and participation in all its forms.

This briefing is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 England and Wales license - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/uk/. Modify it to your needs, but credit www.rhizome.coop in your revised version, and keep it share-alike.

Informal tools include:breathing, eye contact, a smile,tone of voice, body language,asking appropriate questions,actively listening, humour,opening a window, turning theheating up or down, throwingissues back to the group fordecision, taking an unscheduledbreak, refreshments, offering asummary of the discussion..... andso on.

Formal tools include:evaluation form, go-round, groupagreement, icebreaker, ideastorm,minutes of the meeting, pairedlistening, ‘parking’ space, smallgroups, spectrum line... and more

Ensuring facilitationtools work!Here’s a checklist you can useto remind you what to tell thegroup in order to ensure that atool works smoothly. Many ofthese are common to mosttools:

• Task – what are you askingthe group to do?

• Aim – why are you askingthem to do it? what's thepurpose?

• Context - where does thistool fit within the widermeeting process? whathappens after this step?

• Time – how long have theygot to complete the task?

• Roles – should they appointsomeone to take notes, or tofeed back, for example?

• Materials – what materialsdo they need, if any?

• Space – which rooms/tables/spaces are available duringthe activity?

Rhizome guide to

Almost everything that you doas a facilitator to make yourmeetings more effective andparticipatory could be called afacilitation tool. A facilitationtool is simply any technique thatyou use when you're facilitating- everything from making eyecontact and actively listening tothe group, through to moreobvious and formal tools such assmall groups and go-rounds (seeoverleaf for a glossary of all thetools mentioned here).

Informal facilitation toolsOf all the facilitation tools availableyou'll use the informal tools mostoften. And yet they’re commonlyignored or under-rated. For example,creating a good, safe space for yourgroup to work in is one of thebiggest tasks we take on asfacilitators. Much of that space iscreated by our use of our bodies,eyes and voices. If our eye contact isinviting and reassuring, our bodylanguage is comfortable andapproachable and our voices calm yetenergetic we’re a long way to ourgoal. That makes something assimple as breathing a core facilitationtool – taking a few breaths canground us, and thus help to groundthe meeting. So it can be useful tobecome more aware of what informaltools we’re using, how we use them,and how we could do so to greatereffect. It’s also important to thinkabout any informal tools that aremissing from our toolkit, so we canconsciously add them in future.

Formal facilitation toolsThere are of course some formaltools that would also help create thatsame safe space, for example: agroup agreement, introductoryicebreakers and so on. Many formaltools are planned in advance. Othersyou will use responsively to help youdeal with situations that arise duringa meeting. With experience itbecomes easier to predict many ofthe group’s needs and planappropriate tools, reducing the needfor using responsive tools. But youwill never be able to predicteverything.

Photo: (CC) Luca Servo

Facilitation TTools

Facilitator’s Toolkit

Icebreaker – any activity aimed at getting people to knoweach other better so that they can work together more

effectively in the meeting. Itdoesn’t have to be a game, apaired listening activity (seebelow) can work as well.

Go-round – each person has their say in turn. Nointerruptions. It can be round a circle, or a ‘popcorn’ go-round where people speak when ready, regardless ofposition in the circle, but each person only speaks once.Good for equalising participation and checking whereeveryonestands inrelation toan issue orproposal.

Ideastorm – a quickfire creative thinking tool often usedat the start of an agenda

item to gather ideas andencourage creative thinking.

It’s important that peopledon't critique each other's ideas

during the ideastorm. It’suncensored thinking - anything

goes! People can storm ideas ontopost-it notes and then share themor call out ideas in the full group tobe written on flipchart paper.

Group agreement – a list of behaviours agreed by thegroup to help the meeting stay respectful and focused.For example “nointerrupting”, “be conscious oftime”, or “mobilephones off”.

Paired listening – a time-limited sharing of ideas andexperiences in a pair. Sometimes done asa conversation, sometimes with the pairspeaking in turn for an equal time. Oftenfollowed by feedback to the full group.A good tool for ensuring that even thosepeople who don't like to speak in a largegroup can make a contribution.

‘Parking’ space – a large sheet of paper on the wall usedto collect ideas for future discussion asthey emerge in a meeting. It helps themeeting stay focused on one topic.Other topics are listed on the parkingspace as they arise and can be dealtwith later at an appropriate time.

Small groups – splitting a meeting into smaller groupswhich either all do the same work in parallel, or eachtake on a different task. Good for changing the dynamic

of the meeting,involving morepeople in discussion,and getting a lot donein a short time.

Spectrum line – an active discussion tool in which thegroup physically place themselves on an imagined linedepending on their response to questions or scenariosposed by the facilitator. A discussion follows to allowpeople to say why they are standing in the position thatthey've chosen. A nice change to being seated.

Throwing it back to the group – bouncingquestions and decisions back to thegroup rather than answering them ormaking them yourself “that’s a good question... doesanyone want to suggestan answer?”

Evaluation – evaluation is crucial if we’re going toimprove the quality of our meetings.It could be an evaluation form or aquick go-round of “what worked well?”and “what worked less well?”.

Summarising – regularsummaries allow thediscussion to developand to stay focused.They also ensureeveryone shares thesame understanding ofthe situation.

Minutes of the meeting –a written record of themeeting, includingdecisions and agreedaction points. Somegroups like to flesh minutes out with a description ofthe different points and opinions raised. Minutes are avital tool to ensure that ideas are not forgotten, and thatthey are implemented after the meeting.

Facilitator’s TToolkit