The Professional Facilitator

Making meetings productive

TMI’s Professional Facilitator training course is a practical ‘how-to’ training course, that introduces tools and techniques to enhance your facilitation skills. It will give you practical experience of facilitating effectively in a safe environment.

High spots

What participants will walk away with

As a result of this program you will be able to:
  • understand what facilitation is
  • know what a good facilitator does – the key skills and competencies involved
  • know and be able to use a range of tools and techniques to manage groups effectively
  • demonstrate the skills and competencies of effective facilitation in action

Course content

Facilitation is all about making things easy. But facilitating a challenging meeting successfully can be far from it. If you have ever been tasked with leading problem solving workshop, chairing a discussion, or facilitating a meeting, you will know all too well, that trying to manage an agenda, as well as participants can be a challenge.

This two-day program takes an in-depth look at the techniques of effective facilitation – what’s happening, when, and how you handle it. From fielding difficult questions that can leave you exposed, to handling very different people who might appear to want to ruin your day, the Professional Facilitator gives you the skills and confidence to tackle just about anything.
 
The course is based on the concept of the Facilitation Cycle, breaking each stage of the cycle down into detail. This course aims to improve the skills and confidence of those who facilitate group workshops or meetings as part of their personal and professional lives. Specifically the course is designed to provide three things:
  • An awareness and understanding of the key skills involved in facilitation
  • An introduction to tools and techniques that can dramatically improve your facilitation practice
  • Practical experience of facilitating in a safe environment, receiving constructive personal feedback

Program overview

  • What is facilitation: the facilitation process and the role of the facilitator
  • The Facilitation Cycle
  • Getting clear on context, goals and objectives
  • Establishing ground rules, roles and managing the process
  • Effective communication in the group
  • Capturing, structuring, and feeding back information
  • Clarification and feedback
  • Techniques to generate and share ideas
  • Helping groups make good decisions
  • Drawing to a close
  • When the process gets stalled or side-tracked
  • Managing conflict within the group
  • Dealing with different personalities
  • Following up
  • Facilitation in action

Course form

  • 2-day open or in-company training workshop
  • Group size up to 12

 

Audience

Managers and business professionals who want to improve their skills in managing different types of meetings and workshops productively.