Facilitating workshops requires mastering several activities:
- Convening
Getting the right people - Content
Understanding the questions that need to be asked and the inputs needed to help answer them - Design
Building an effective workshop agenda - Ecosystem Management
Keeping all the workshop elements moving seamlessly - Facilitation
Working from the front of the room to lead group work and get the best out of participants
This book is about this last element: Front-of-room facilitation.
But this isn’t a book for beginners. This book is intended for experienced facilitators – those who know how to design an outstanding workshop and know how, alone or as part of a team, to deliver one. In a sense, this book will only be of value to you if, deep down, you already know everything that is written here.
I’ve been facilitating large workshops for nearly thirty years, initially as a management consultant pushed into facilitating small workshops and, for the past 17 years, as a full-time facilitator, helping large heterogeneous groups build solutions and map a way forward.
My practice is based about one-third in Italy and the rest spread around Europe and the world. Nearly half of my work is with non-profits, NGOs and the UN. A bit more than half is with largish companies and government departments.