Workshop facilitation

Although establishing a common context comes first, in fact workshops are the most important sphere of the facilitators' responsibility. It is necessary in any workshop to guide the group from one place to another place in their thinking: from an assortment of divergent individual opinions to a corporate statement. A workshop is not an informal exchange of views, in which views are exchanged, but each maintains his own. Views in a workshop are somehow related together and reorganized so that they become the domain of the whole group. There are many ways of doing this, but the group is helped if they know the approach they are using. Secondly, the initial commitment of an individual to a group is the simple hearing of his or her own voice as part of the group. Workshop questions are designed to ensure that all members can participate. The first few questions, answerable by all, might be asked right around the group. Avoid allowing a whole meeting to go by in which there are participants who say nothing at all, or there dissidents may emerge later on.

Thirdly, use in every workshop a visual means of showing the group where their information is going. Information on cards can be grouped and groups titled. Information on lists can be checked off. Charts showing quantifiable data can be manipulated and tested for different results. Statements written by the group can be immediately copied and distributed to everyone, or even written with markers on wall charts to share first drafts. This visual movement of information allows a workshop to make tangible the decisions which are being made, encouraging participation and clarifying for everyone the direction the group is taking. They also make reports by a subgroup to a larger group immediately simpler to give and to understand. Where there is great linguistic diversity in a group, these visual tools permit a commonizing of images which language cannot perform.

Finally, a facilitator needs to consider workshop composition. Sometimes having people volunteer for workshops is appropriate. At other times, the subject matter is such that expertise determines who works in what group. Whenever possible, it is well to hold the principle that a workshop group is not the same group of people who work together locally, day-to-day. They have already determined a posture out of their own situation, and have little to gain in coming to a conference to meet together again. Wherever diversity can be promoted in the workshop assignments themselves, this aids the capacity of the larger group to make decisions. Wherever expertise can be mixed in a workshop group, this aids the capacity of the larger group to understand the report or recommendation, as the group itself must clarify technical jargon.