Facilitating a group increases the effectiveness of people to align in a collaborative way, interpret their context, and mutually identify the most valuable outcomes desired. A facilitator has the skills to create a neutral environment of openness, safety, and innovation in a group setting.
“Facilitation is the practical neutral craft (an informed blend of techniques and insights) of creating environments of openness, safety and innovation” (Turner, 2012).
“A facilitator is an individual who uses self-awareness, self-management, group awareness, and group process to enable teams to access their collective intelligence in order to achieve their desired outcomes” (Acker, 2020). In other words, self-mastery is as important, if not more so, than the tools and techniques.
Someone using Agile Coaching practices needs a strong foundation in Facilitation as the client often needs someone to create a constructive space in which they can broaden and deepen their thinking to where they need to go.
Facilitation Mindset
Being a Facilitator you maintain neutrality of the content being discussed, create a collaborative space, and encourage full participation of all members of the group.
- Internal Focus – Develop and maintain an open, reflective, positive and flexible mindset, allowing you to honour the group while remaining true to who you are.
- Integrity – You behave in an ethical way that is in congruence with your personality, values, and spirit.
- Learning – You recognise that learning is important to becoming a better facilitator for the clients you serve.
- Positivity – Your positivity and resourcefulness, even in adversity, help a group find the motivation to move forward.
- Belief in the group – The group is creative, resourceful and whole and, with the right focus, has the answers to meet the outcome for themselves without external support.
- Neutrality – You respect the perspective of each person in the group and their needs without judgement.
- Curiosity – You are curious about the group’s needs and adapt accordingly. By maintaining an open and flexible mind, you can maximise group learning.
- Honour the wisdom of the group – The group is naturally resourceful and whole with unlimited potential. The group learns from its mistakes and becomes stronger. Demonstrate a belief in the group and its possibilities.
Competency Level Definitions:
1 Beginner
Internal Focus
- List your values and their potential impact on work with clients.
- Recognise situations when a facilitation stance is appropriate.
- Describe how a positive attitude benefits the group.
Belief in the Group
- Explain why remaining neutral is important.
- Describe the importance of maintaining respect for people’s opinions.
- Describe the importance of being open to the group’s needs.
- Recognise and welcome diverse opinions.
2 Advanced Beginner
2 Advanced Beginner
Internal Focus
- Describe how you remain ethical when facilitating.
- Reflect as a facilitator and describe your impact on the group.
- Express your strengths and how they will allow you to be resourceful and positive.
Belief in the Group
- Demonstrate the ability to hold the group’s agenda while minimizing your influence on group outcomes and the content of the discussions.
- Recognise the evolving needs of the group.
- Describe why we don’t set the outcome of a session we are facilitating.
- Explain the importance of the statement, “The group is naturally creative, resourceful, and whole, and therefore, they have the means to solve their own challenges and do not need to be fixed in any way.”
3 Practitioner
Internal Focus
- Maintain congruence between actions and personal and professional values.
- Demonstrate your plan to improve your facilitation skills over the near future.
- Analyze a session you facilitated and reflect on what went well and what would have worked better.
- Demonstrate the ability to be positive and resourceful in stressful situations.
Belief in the Group
- Practice unconditional positive regard and always assume positive intent.
- Demonstrate the ability to adapt based on the group’s needs.
- Demonstrate the ability to help groups believe in their potential and ability to change.
4 Guide
4 Guide
Internal Focus
- Guide others in growing their internal focus through facilitation boundaries and ethics.
- Develop your mental model for facilitation.
- Develop multiple strategies for dealing with stress to bring your whole self to any moment.
Belief in the Group
- Maintain an objective, non-defensive, non-judgmental stance.
- Modify personal behavior and style to reflect the group’s needs.
- Evaluate situations from a systems perspective.
5 Catalyst
5 Catalyst
Internal Focus
- Challenge ethical and professional boundaries based on a deep understanding of yourself and your practice.
- Evolve beyond your models, live facilitation in the moment, and adapt continuously.
- Reflect positive energy through your facilitation that gives motivation to others.
Belief in the Group
- Model a behavior of neutrality which feels natural.
- Hold a commitment to curiosity over being right.
- Model the group’s beliefs by being a mirror back to the system.
1 Beginner
2 Advanced Beginner
3 Practitioner
4 Guide
5 Catalyst
Group Focus
- Discuss how a Facilitator maintains psychological safety, trust, transparency, and clarity throughout the engagement with the group.
- Identify when a Facilitation stance is appropriate.
Believe in the Group
- Describe the importance of maintaining respect for people’s opinions.
- Welcome diverse opinions.
- Explain why Facilitation is for the benefit of the group.
Group Focus
- Describe your Facilitation stance and how it impacted the group.
- Reflect as a facilitator and describe your impact on the group.
- Describe how you remain ethical when facilitating.
Believe in the Group
- Describe why we don’t set the outcome of a session we are facilitating.
- Explain why remaining neutral is important.
- Articulate the importance of the statement “The group is naturally creative, resourceful, and whole, and therefore, they have the means to solve their own challenges and do not need to be fixed in any way.”
Group Focus
- Analyze how you plan to improve your facilitation skills over the near future.
- Analyze a session you facilitated and reflect on what went well and what would have worked better.
- Guide the process for the group without leading their path and solutions.
Believe in the Group
- Model unconditional positive regard and always assume positive intent.
- Demonstrate the ability to help groups believe in their potential and ability to change.
- Demonstrate how you helped the group learn for themselves.
Guide level guidance will be provided in a future update.
Catalyst level guidance will be provided in a future update.
Facilitation Skills
Being a Facilitator, design and deliver sessions that focus on what is essential for the group. You help the group be accountable for what they say they will do and their plan, and leave responsibility with them for action. You will be skilled in working through several different group situations.
- Planning and Design
- Develop Working Partnerships – You partner with the client to agree on mutual commitment and develop an approach to meet the client’s needs.
- Design Sessions – You co-create with the client to discover needs, establish roles, and create designs to achieve intended outcomes over one or multiple sessions.
- Guiding the Process
- Support Process – You create an appropriate environment, atmosphere and logistics to support the purpose of the session(s).
- Deepen Awareness – You set the stage to achieve outcomes. You evoke insights from the group, explore underlying issues and assist in reflection. You navigate conflict by explaining its value, bringing awareness and exploring assumptions.
- Focus on Outcomes – You achieve group consensus with the ability to adapt according to the group’s needs to meet the agreed outcome.
- Participatory Environment
- Inclusive Approach – You use various techniques that foster open participation considering client culture, diversity and participants who have different approaches to learning and ways of processing information.
- Inspire Group Creativity – You draw out participants with various approaches to learning and ways of processing information. Encourage creative thinking and stimulate group energy.
- Participatory Communication – You use skills such as building rapport, listening, reflecting, questioning, observing and giving feedback.
Competency Level Definitions:
1 Beginner
Planning and Design
- Identify that managing multi-stakeholders relationships are more complicated than one-to-one interactions.
- Understand the need to design and customize the facilitation sessions for each group.
Guiding the Process
- List attributes of a group environment that will enable active participation.
- Describe a basic facilitation arc.
- Explain the need to achieve group consensus and adapt to the group’s needs.
- Identify the outcome of a session.
Participatory Environment
- List a variety of tools and techniques that foster open participation.
- Describe how a Facilitator maintains psychological safety, trust, transparency, and clarity throughout the engagement with the group.
- List various tools and techniques that encourage creative thinking and stimulate group energy.
- Explain the importance of active listening in group facilitation.
2 Advanced Beginner
2 Advanced Beginner
Planning and Design
- Apply a facilitation agreement with a stakeholder.
- Design a basic facilitation plan that ensures engagement for all participants.
Guiding the Process
- Demonstrate the ability to facilitate a session with active yet balanced participation for all group members.
- Demonstrate the ability to follow a basic facilitation arc.
- Demonstrate facilitating a group to consensus.
- Facilitate a group to an agreed outcome.
Participatory Environment
- Demonstrate the use of various tools and techniques that foster open participation.
- Demonstrate various tools and techniques that encourage creative thinking and stimulate group energy.
- Demonstrate skills such as building rapport, listening, reflecting, questioning, observing and giving feedback.
3 Practitioner
Planning and Design
- Develop consensus with stakeholders on tasks, deliverables, roles & responsibilities.
- Diagnose the client’s needs.
- Design sessions that consider group energy, participation and the agreed outcome.
Guiding the Process
- Demonstrate competency in adapting in the moment to challenges and opportunities that arise.
- Demonstrate the ability to facilitate conflict.
- Construct multiple linked sessions to meet an outcome.
- Bring clarity to a group’s agenda and outcome and ensure everyone understands the resulting outcome and responsibilities.
Participatory Environment
- Demonstrate the ability to use multiple facilitation frameworks depending on the context of the session.
- Integrate multiple tools and techniques that encourage creative thinking and stimulate group energy.
- Analyse why you used a specific tool in any session and its impact on the group.
4 Guide
4 Guide
Planning and Design
- Evaluate your client and stakeholder relationships and adapt as needed.
- Build rapport with your stakeholders naturally.
- Assess a facilitation plan and its likelihood of engaging participants in pursuing their outcome.
- Analyze organizational and systemic constraints that might impact facilitated sessions.
Guiding the Process
- Recognize tangents and redirect to the task.
- Demonstrate the ability to separate yourself from the process.
- Develop a group understanding of the value of different perspectives.
Participatory Environment
- Create containers that foster trust, connection and inclusiveness.
- Design group processes that engage the whole group.
- Listen for the 2% common ground to help build a shared understanding.
5 Catalyst
5 Catalyst
Planning and Design
- Evolve the design of the session in the moment based on feedback.
Guiding the Process
- Create new ways to guide the process and share them with the community.
Participatory Environment
- Appraise a situation in the moment for signs of psychological safety.
- Create and teach new facilitation skills and techniques.