How do you track the success of your facilitation session?

1 Define your objectives

Before you start your facilitation session, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and how you will measure it. Your objectives should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. For example, if you are facilitating a brainstorming session, your objective might be to generate at least 20 new ideas for a product launch in one hour. Having SMART objectives will help you plan your session, communicate your expectations, and assess your results.

2 Choose your methods

Depending on your objectives, you can choose different methods to track the success of your facilitation session. Surveys are a great way to collect quantitative and qualitative data from participants, such as satisfaction, engagement, learning, and feedback. You can also use observation to monitor the dynamics and interactions of your group. Reflection is another useful tool that encourages participants to share their thoughts and feelings about the session. Additionally, it can be used to evaluate your own facilitation skills and identify your strengths and areas for improvement. To facilitate reflection, you can use methods like debriefing, journaling, or storytelling. For surveys and observation, you can use online tools like Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, or Typeform to create and distribute surveys or checklists, rubrics, or notes to record observations. You may even ask a co-facilitator or an observer to help with these tasks.

3 Analyze your data

Once you have collected your data, it's necessary to analyze it in order to draw conclusions and recommendations. Descriptive statistics can be used to summarize and present quantitative data, such as the mean, median, mode, frequency, and percentage. Tools like Excel, Google Sheets, or SPSS can help with this. Thematic analysis can identify and organize the main themes and patterns in qualitative data like opinions, experiences, and stories of participants. NVivo, Atlas.ti, or Dedoose are useful tools for this. Lastly, SWOT analysis evaluates the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a facilitation session. MindMeister, Canva, or Lucidchart are helpful for creating SWOT diagrams.

4 Communicate your results

Communicating your facilitation results to stakeholders, such as participants, clients, managers, or colleagues, can be done through various formats and channels. Reports are a great way to document and share findings and recommendations in a formal and detailed way - tools like Word, Google Docs, or Pages can help create and format them. Presentations are an effective way to showcase and explain your results in a visual and engaging way - PowerPoint, Google Slides, or Keynote can help create and deliver them. Infographics are also useful for illustrating and highlighting your results in a concise and attractive way - Piktochart, Canva, or Venngage can help create and share them. Tracking the success of your facilitation session is essential to measure outcomes and learn from your experience to improve your skills. By following these steps, you can design an effective evaluation strategy for your facilitation session that will demonstrate your value and impact as a facilitator.

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?