One activity in workshops that takes significant facilitation skills are discussions. I have found that discussions are a great way to get the workshop participants to apply their past experiences, work through case studies and solve problems; not to mention build their skills in working in a team environment. However, unless well facilitated, discussions will not have much value.
Take these best practice steps to ensure that the discussions you hold during your workshops are valuable to the participants:
Set ground rules for discussions: Be sure that you set ground rules before the discussion begins. This may include:
- Do not interrupt others as they are speaking
- Be respective of others’ opinions and ideas
- Build on what others are saying to more fully develop an idea
- Work to understand others’ point of view by asking questions to clarify
- Pay attention during the discussion
- Contribute to the discussion
Tie the discussion to a learning objective: Any discussions facilitated in the classroom must be tied to a learning objective so they add value to the participants. For example, if a learning objective is to be able to respond to a customer complaint face-to-face (such as in a retail store), your discussion may be: How do we handle retail customer complaints when there are other customers in the store? Or, What is the best way to calm down an angry customer in a retail environment?
Set up the discussion with trigger questions, case studies, or video or audio clips: Use a variety of ways to set up the discussion and stimulate the participants with ideas so they can more effectively contribute to the discussion. For example, ask them what might happen if we don’t respond effectively to a customer complaint, or have them read case studies of what happens when customers’ complaints are not addressed, or show a video of a customer who is unhappy and the retailer is not addressing the complaint effectively.
Facilitate to keep the conversation going: Ask the participants to provide their reactions to the question, video, case study, etc. How would they do it better? Could the situation have been handled differently? What do they find most challenging about addressing angry customers. A variety of questions “ready to go” helps you to keep the discussion moving along. Additionally, listen carefully to participants’ thoughts and ideas in the classroom and follow up with additional probing questions to get more details. Keep participants on track with the discussion. If it goes off track, write down the idea for discussion later and pull them back to the current discussion. For those who are very talkative, ask them to hold on ideas so that you can have others’ ideas on the table for discussion. Encourage the quieter folks by asking them questions directly.
Summarize the discussion: When there are no further ideas and thoughts and the room begins to quiet down, summarize the discussion with some key points and debrief on the discussion. Review the ideas you heard on how to handle angry customers and ask them how they can apply those ideas back on the job.
Facilitating discussions is not easy and takes quite a bit of practice. However, discussions are a great way to open up new ideas to solving a problem. When participants in a classroom can contribute to how to do something better, they are more apt to use what they learn back on the job.
Your thoughts? What are your challenges in facilitating discussions? How do you effectively use discussions in the classroom? Please share with others in the Comments field below. Thanks!
