Books on facilitating meetings

Introduction to planning and facilitating effective meetings about this publication introduction to planning and facilitating effective meetings is the sixth in a series of guides developed to bring information to coastal managers about the use of social science tools in their field of work. Here are a few ideas to make your meetings exciting, educational, and effective. Daniel hunter drawing from resources by jeanne rewa and berit lakey from training for change and kate ogden from greenpeace topics. As a leader, you must model the same types of behaviors when facilitating meetings that you. This book describes dozens of activities that help take a groups thinking and make it visual. Your facilitating meetings trainer will be assigned to you following the results of your diagnostic consultancy and according to your objectives and areas of focus. Whether you are the board chair worrying about maintaining focus and facilitating engagement or the board liaison preoccupied with the difficulties of planning the meeting and creating board books, board meetings involve many. The skills for facilitating online meetings are unique but not rocket science.

This third edition also includes a new chapter on facilitating virtual meetings, explaining the mechanics of virtual teams, the pros and cons of virtual meetings, use of technology and tips on setting up, facilitating and participating in virtual meetings. A strategy consultants guide by bill birnbaum available from rakuten kobo. Tools for community planning group members hiv prevention community planning academy for educational development center for communitybased health strategies funding provided by the centers for disease control and prevention july 2001 facilitating meetings. Facilitating meetings free download as powerpoint presentation. By definition, facilitating means, to make easier or less. Reaching consensus takes more time, but will usually gain stronger buyin from the group at large. Many of us educators are social creatures by nature, so when we are given time with colleagues, we embrace it as a time to socialize. To effectively implement a project, project managers must conduct focused, productive, and actionoriented project meetings. Identify the benefits for a meeting leader in facilitating a discussion on creating norms. A facilitation technique from the collective action toolkit by frog design essential meeting facilitation toolkit. This book offered many practical techniques to facilitating a group. Books like gamestorming, visual meetings, back of the napkin, and business model generation provide prebuilt, engaging collaborative activities for design and beyond, built upon ideas found in game theory and sketch facilitation. Ingrid bens is the wellknown author of multiple bestselling books on the topic of facilitation, most notably facilitating with ease.

Proper meeting facilitation will guide the group from idea sharing to the development of an effective decision. Facilitating meetings course facilitating meetings. Unfortunately, managers are often the major contributors to meeting process dysfunction. Visual facilitation books visual meetings the grove. This paper examines four practical techniques that can help project managers efficiently plan and effectively conduct their project meetings. Over the years i have taken many workshops and trainings, received helpful feedback, and read many insightful books all to help me hone my facilitation skills. Working with conflict, fisher et al, zed books, 2000.

A short guide to facilitating meetings seeds for change. This richly illustrated resource introduces meeting leaders, presenters, and consultants to a bounty of visual communication methods. Groups and meetings problem solving in teams and groups. Designing and facilitating team meetings and offsites. The middle third of the process is to run the meetings efficiently.

If there is a need, refresh peoples memories on your groups ground rules not all of them, just any where there have been issues. If there is any business to discuss, such as picking books for future meetings, you may want to cover these points before the discussion starts in case people need to leave quickly at the end. Many grassroots groups use consensus decision making rather than voting in their meetings. Here are my top 11 recommendations on books related to facilitation. To facilitate a meeting, start by nailing down details like the purpose, major discussion topics, start and end times, location, and how the attendees should prepare for the meeting. The essentials for leading great meetings and creating group synergy. This is a major skill gap when you consider just how much time expert consultants spend in client meetings. When youre done, compare your answers with the authors suggested responses in the appendix. The facilitator guides a discussion of the topics laid out in the meeting agenda, with the purpose of moving the team towards a common goal. These resources will help you align activities to the specific parts of your web design process, whether you are at. In visual meetings, grove founder and president david sibbet, a world leader in the area of graphic facilitation and visual thinking, unveils the alchemy of designing and conducting memorable meetings that get results. When teachers share information with each other and work together in the best interest of their students, good things happen. Estimates of the number of meetings that take place every day in our country range from 11 million to more than 30 million 1. To have successful and highimpact meetings number of techniques.

Clear linking of each activity to specific meeting stages our own essential meeting facilitation toolkit by sessionlab consists of 12 group facilitation techniques and tools specifically. Our training packagetrainers guide to bring great meetings training in house i have had the good fortune to work with dee kelsey and pam plumb, both individually and together, over a number of years and greatly appreciate their ability to successfully plan and facilitate group work. Facilitation books and resources facilitation tutor. Like the wise jedi master in star wars, the yoda keeps team members in line. What a great resource for people who are getting into facilitation. In doing so, it discusses the project managers role in facilitating project meetings, noting the purpose of meeting facilitation. The authors explain a brilliant sequence of five questions that can be used in many facilitation contexts. Workplace flexibility creates a need for better skills in facilitating virtual meetings and hybrid meetings where some participants are in the room, and others participate are using audioonly or video conferencing platforms. Effective facilitation of a discussion involves the recognition and employment of different perspectives and different skills to create an inclusive environment. This book was required for a class i took and we did have to lead the class is a discussion using. Packed with information, effective practices, and invaluable advice, this book is the comprehensive handbook for anyone who believes meetings. Facilitating online meetings with remote staff with more and more staff working remotely, more and more meetings are now being conducted online. Ask a reference librarian for help at a local library. When working to reach consensus we bring together different ideas and try to find a proposal that is agreeable to everyone.

In addition, this book provides information for a wide range of meetings, including and especially runofthemill meetings, whereas other books have focused more on facilitating workshops where innovation is needed. Preparing for group meetings well takes you a third of the way toward ensuring their productivity, and followup takes care of another third. The essentials for leading great meetings and creating group synergy hunter, dale on. The bookshelves in the lucid meetings main office are jampacked with business books, technical references, esther gokhales fabulous 8 steps to a painfree back posture, people. Meetings can either be opportunities to share ideas, discuss challenges and define action plans, or they can end up as unproductive time wasters. You can use the following resources to find materials. A picture of some of our meeting books on the conference table. Facilitating iep meetings by ingrid bens, paperback. Control agendas and help to focus the outcome of meetings deal with difficulties.

It makes meetings more productive, more interesting. The titles below are my go to books for understanding the breadth. In education, business, and the military meetings dominate the way many groups operate in american society. Facilitating meetings and chairing discussions by julia.

Tips and advice on facilitating meetings and making them worthwhile, including facilitation roles, preparing a meeting, active listening, problems in meetings and large groups. The facilitator impacts and guides the process but does not give input on the content of a meeting that comes from the participants. The book is well organized, and breaks down the art and science if facilitation in group dynamics. Facilitator s guide to participatory decisionmaking by sam kaner, the skilled facilitator. In order to do so, it is important to consider the features of effective discussions, and conditions that promote small group.

All the resources you need to run effective board meetings running a board meeting can be a complicated affair. The more i work with facilitation techniques and practices, the more i think of them as a management style for collaborative organizations. It requires care, vigilance, flexibility, resilience, humility, and humor. This book has given me tips and checklists to up my game but would probably be basic enough for the novice as well. Facilitating effective meetings ucsf school of medicine. Introduction to planning and facilitating effective meetings. Be ready to ask for feedback about different peoples experience.

We partner with meeting leadersorganizers to develop key objectives for the meeting, build a strong yet flexible timebased agenda, design the activities and discussion methodologies to best support your desired outcomes, and determine the leaders role in the meeting. Written by jennifer hofmann, a synchronous training leader, it is the first and only book focusing solely on this emerging training method. The book also examines the most common challenges that facilitators face, as well as the ethical issues that pertain to the facilitation process. The books below have been instrumental in shaping my perspective, and have been invaluable when facilitating conversations beyond the. Start by facilitating smaller meetings with less challenging topics. Just because staff members have the time to meet doesnt mean that the time they spend together will be productivea simultaneously disheartening and frightening thought. Detailed below is a sample profile of a member of our personal skills team. Learn essential skills from certified, expert trainers who have taught meeting facilitation skills for years and experience a dynamic and totally interactive learning environment. One authority claims that the average chief executive officer spends 17 hours per week in meetings, whereas the average senior executive spends 23 hours per week 2. As the facilitator, it is your job to recognize tangents and bring the discussion back to the book. The synchronous trainers survival guide is a handson resource for enhancing your realtime elearning sessions. A little off topic conversation is fine, but you also want to respect the fact that people have read the book and expect to talk about it.

Next, plan the attendee list and send out email invitations that include all of the necessary information. A skilled facilitator fosters collaboration and teamwork and manages conflict among team members. Facilitation is both an art and a science and a skill that can be developed through practice and reflection. Facilitation first core facilitation skills training. Book clubs are popular not only because people like to read, but also because they are great social outlets. To keep people engaged during virtual meetings, appoint a yoda. The person responsible for facilitating a strategic planning meeting faces a multidimensional challenge. Our facilitating with ease workshop has been honed by ingrid bens, author of the national bestselling books facilitating with ease and facilitation at a glance. Facilitators guide to participatory decisionmaking. Consensus is about participation and equalising power. Top facilitation booksresources great facilitated meetings blog.