Abstract
Are you struggling with online conversations between individuals in your team and the rest of the organization? Would you like to increase your confidence in moving face-to-face conversations online?
Introducing Online Facilitation Praxis Camp by Enrico Teotti, a multi-day facilitated workshop where you’ll actively practice and experience online facilitation techniques, run experiments (in your own context) and bring back observations and learnings.
This Online Facilitation Praxis Camp* is a seed in your online facilitation journey that will foster your learning ecosystem.
The goal of this online workshop? To learn how to be an effective facilitator and stop struggling with online conversations between individuals in your team and the rest of the organization. It will increase your confidence in moving face-to-face conversations online.
We will give ample space to bring questions from your context.
* What is Praxis? A mix of theory with practice. This is not a regular workshop where information (best practices) are dumped on you with the occasional exercises. Theory and practice are mixed and they’re a core part of how the online facilitation praxis camp will be taking place.
Target Audience
Who will benefit from this online workshop?
- A scrum master who understands agile but struggles to see conducive team conversations
- A project manager used to in-room conversations and would like to gain more confidence in the online realm
- A product owner who would like to hold sessions where inclusive solutions are found
- A facilitator who wants to experiment with new facilitation approaches and ask context-specific questions
- A tech lead who would like to hold sessions where inclusive solutions are found and the team shares responsibility for it.
Program
Improving online group communication and decision-making.
Depending on the context open conversations can be adequate or lead nowhere. Sometimes you need to design a session to make the most out of everybody’s time, then you need to be the individual who helps the group fly from A to B–and being aware that something can and will go wrong. This design is not a solution. Facilitation is not problem-solving. When you facilitate you’re dancing with complexity, you need a plan but be ready for it not surviving contact with the enemy.
This Facilitation Camp will allow you to learn and experiment with those concepts online.
Topics
- The role of the facilitator: architect + pilot + guide
- how to architect an online session: and being aware that no plan survives contact with the enemy
- outline purpose/outcome (who/why/what/how)
- diamond of participatory decision-making, divergence -> groan zone -> convergence
- how to be a good pilot: with a good flight plan but ready for turbulence
- how to guide the group during the session by
- encouraging full participation
- promoting mutual understanding
- fostering inclusive solutions
- cultivating shared responsibility.
- how to architect an online session: and being aware that no plan survives contact with the enemy
- Raising awareness of our biases: when you are facilitating and also a full-time scrum master, product owner and team lead. When do you need an external facilitator?
- Activities for a purpose: too often activities are stitched together without much thought. In this, we will x-ray activities to see what are they really about
- Online facilitation: the lay of the land – determining the best tool for your context
- we’ll go on a tour of the main tools out there and reflect on pro/cons.
- we’ll focus on Google Suite, Miro, Zoom but explore other video call tools you might be constrained to.
- How do I do that in my context: assignments to apply the praxis to your context and bring back contextual questions.
- Psychological safety: an overview on how to assess it and foster it in the facilitated session.
- Next steps: sharing resources to make your journey in the facilitation realm even more effective.
1-hour 1:1 coaching session after the class is included in the price.
Agenda
The Camp will be made up of 4-half day modules plus a 1:1 coaching session.
Module 1
- Welcome and let’s get to know each other
- The role of the facilitator online (part I)
- What type of meetings and decision mechanisms does exist?
- What’s the purpose / outcome of our session?
- Let’s explore the Why / Who / What / How
Module 2
- The role of the facilitator online (part II)
- How to guide the group online with facilitative listening techniques like stacking and tracking
- When to switch from open conversation to other facilitation modalities online?
- How to assess Psychological Safety?
Module 3
- Let’s X-Ray Facilitation Activities to get a higher level of understanding and not get lost in the ocean of best activities out there
- Let’s pick activities for your context
- How to help the group make sense of the type of issues they’re facing? We’ll address questions such as: what is clear? What is complicated? What is complex What is chaotic? Are we close or far from reaching an agreement?
Module 4
- A final stroll in the online facilitation land, group sense making on your contexts and setting you up to continue your facilitation journey.
All the sessions will use a diverse set of online tools to familiarize yourself with them:
- Zoom
- Microsoft Teams
- WebEx
- Google Meet
- Google Suite
- Miro
- Mural
… And more!
What are you gonna learn
- Role and responsibilities of a facilitator
- How to design an online session
- How to facilitate online group discussions and improve decision-making
- Confidence assessing and choosing/using online tools (video call software, document sharing tools, digital whiteboards)
- Enable your next steps in your facilitation journey.
Expect to get your hands dirty – How does it work
PRAXIS. Theory enacted, we’ll have a 10/15 minute brief on a topic that describes its theory and then you will experience it with hands-on activity with other Camp participants. You will also have some homework to practice in your context (at your day work) and bring reflections back to the group.
So yeah, hands very dirty.
Some other notes on how to make the most out this camp
The workshop will happen online and in live streaming: the trainer and all other participants will be in a video conference. You’ll be interacting and working together in real-time thanks to a variety of tools you’ll have at your disposal.
This is why we suggest that all participants keep their webcam on for the whole duration of the workshop: this will enhance the quality of the communication and of the workshop as a whole.
You won’t be sitting at your desk watching slides and videos, and you’ll be engaged in real-time activities for the majority of the time.
Why should you buy a ticket?
Learn how to be an effective facilitator and stop struggling with online conversations between individuals in your team and the rest of the organization.
Learn how to increase your confidence in moving face-to-face conversations online.
