Facilitation as a required skill of a PM: rules

In the previous article, we looked at such an important PM tool as facilitation. We briefly described what it is and went through the main skills that a PM must have to fulfill the role of a facilitator.

However, practice shows that having skills alone is not enough to correctly use any tool. In addition, it is necessary to know and follow the rules that make the tool work.?

Let's talk about this.

A facilitation set of rules is a kind of guideline that participants agree to follow to make the conversation productive, safe, and enjoyable. It helps to establish and share the right expectations for the participants and ensure that everyone is on the same page.

Las Vegas

The rule can help you make the group feel comfortable and protected. It means that everything that has been said in the meeting stays in the meeting. Or might be carried outside, but at least without attributing it to a specific speaker and without using against any participant of the meeting.

Attack a problem, not a person

The rule, on the one hand, may prevent the discussion from becoming toxic and growing into conflict. On the other hand, it can help team members to stay focused on the main topic of the meeting.?

And probably there are simply no better rules to guarantee a safe space for the meeting participants.

Parking lot

It is another rule that helps us concentrate on the meeting agenda — a facilitator explains that each off-topic discussion will be immediately stopped and moved to the "parking lot" — a specific space on a white-board (or any virtual board used in a meeting) for a separate discussion whenever in the future. Naturally, I mean the ideas that are worth discussing later in terms of usefulness.

As you can remember from the previous article, one of the facilitators' responsibilities is to ensure everyone participates in and contributes to the discussion. And here we also have a couple of rules to follow.

Be present or be elsewhere (or Vote with your feet)

The rule means each person must mentally participate in the meeting and should not be distracted by extraneous things (mobile phones, emails, etc.). If someone admits that a particular meeting is not relevant for him, it's better to leave it.

Be the crew, not the passenger

And the next rule – that enforces the previous one – means active listening and questioning, sharing ideas, and taking responsibility for decisions. If someone is unfamiliar with a topic or issue being discussed, he or she should remember that there is a safe environment, and everyone is ready to help! Never be afraid to ask questions – even stupid ones – because we have the rule "The stupidest question is the one not asked"! ??

Agree to disagree

To speed up the discussion and not waste time, it may be useful to set this rule which highlights the fact that sometimes it is best to allow people to stick to their opinions for now and to come to an agreement later than to spend time at the moment.

Think blue sky

It is one of my favorite rules. Sometimes we have brainstorming sessions where it's extremely important to collect as many ideas as possible – in such cases, we usually say, "Quantity matters". This rule can free minds from limits and encourage people to come up with big and even strange ideas as if there were no constraints at all.

Now that we've looked at a few rules, let's talk a little about how to set and introduce them to the group – you might be surprised but here we also have a couple of rules – ha-ha!

1. First of all, from my point of view, it may sense to set rules when you are going to collaborate and communicate with the same team for a quite long time – otherwise establishing rules for one separate meeting could be time-consuming and absolutely useless.
2. Discussion and agreement on the rules should not take longer than the meeting for which they are established.
3. Ensure that the rules are understood, agreed upon and accepted by all team members – this is vital to ensure that they are subsequently honored.
4. Don't hesitate to invite meeting participants to propose their own rules or modify those proposed by the facilitator. But always remember the previous rule! ??
5. And the last one: at the end of the meeting, check whether the established rules were followed by your team, and decide how to modify and/or improve them for the future.

So, that's all for today, and all that's left is to invite you to share your ideas in the comments!