Meeting facilitation helps two or more parties communicate with each other. In many cases, it involves helping group members reach a resolution for such things as strategic planning, product or service development, or financial planning. Listed below are the skills that facilitators acquire from a facilitation training course.
Agenda development
Orderly sessions have a well-planned agenda. Although a facilitator works with the client to develop the agenda, the client is responsible for the agenda's architecture. Most sessions only last a few hours. To make the time worth the client's money, the session must adhere to a well-planned agenda that properly addresses each area of concern.
Time management
As organized as the agenda may be, the meeting participants may not follow it as planned. Instead, they may dwell on some topics longer than others, digress when it comes to certain topics, and tell personal stories about their experience with the issue at hand. The job of the session leader is to ensure that none of these tendencies derail the meeting's time schedule, or make it impossible to cover the agenda in the allotted timeframe.
Remaining impartial
The facilitator remaining impartial is the most important aspect of meeting facilitation, because the goal is to help the client reach its own conclusions. In many cases, a new facilitator must attend a facilitator training course that defines what impartiality is within the context of facilitation. If the person does not remain impartial, a session might literally accomplish nothing.
Dealing with problematic participants
Every group seems to have a fly in the ointment - a person who cannot be placated by anyone or anything. In some cases, such participants are reasoned with, and brought back into the group. However, if they insist on being difficult the session leader may use special measures (e.g. timeouts) to keep the session from deteriorating. Facilitators learn strategies for dealing with difficult personalities as a part of basic facilitation training.
Use of humor
Humor has a place in facilitation sessions, but the session leader must know when and how to use it. If the wrong joke is made, the dynamic between the leader and the group may be shattered. When used correctly, humor can change the momentum of a session by reenergizing it, and preventing it from reaching a lull.
Ability to summarize
Facilitators provide frequent summaries throughout a session to keep the group focused, and remind them that progress has been made. The ability to summarize information concisely is key to keeping the group interested and informed, and helping them achieve the goals of the session.
Conclusion
To successfully lead a meeting, a facilitator must develop an effective agenda, mange the minutes of the session, remain impartial in the discussion, deal with problematic participants in a non-aggressive manner, use humor appropriately, and summarize the points of the session at the correct times. Many people acquire these skills by attending a facilitation training course for meeting facilitation.