Capacity, Experience and Success; Design; Other Elements

[Lisa Heft (Host / Chief Event Facilitation Coordinator)]

Hello to all of you wonderful colleagues.
A warm welcome to Allison, Amy, Diane, Juan Luis, Pat, Rod and
Rosalind!

I look forward to providing resource and support for you and your team
members in all the things that relate to, affect, challenge and
support successful face-to-face facilitation and dialogue at your May
events.

Because you and future readers of these messages are all at different
levels and have different individual needs - I will give you a lot of
ideas in this first email and will continue to do so with whatever
needs or questions you may raise. Feel free to ask questions or share
ideas on this Google Group for Facilitators so we can share our
knowledge and puzzles together if you like.

Capacity, Experience and Success:
Remember that action planning, next steps or decision-making does
*not* need to be part of these May events. It is all about dialogue
and about weaving individuals from governmental agencies and community
together - building relationships and helping people work and think
together.

Remember to design an event that best fits your / your team's own
level of experience and knowledge in face-to-face dialogue work. You
do not have to have a many-people, high-profile, the-whole-world-is-
watching event. You can do that if that is your experience - and if
doing that fits your capacity, objectives, and so on. But you can also
work with some existing people within an agency one of you is friendly
with - and help them in their work by bringing some community members
and some dialogue design to their work - to help them in their
success. In some states, governmental agencies have their own
facilitators. You could even have an event with community facilitators
and agency facilitators sharing learning together. This achieves the
objectives of strengthening the capacity and collaboration of
government and community - and it strengthens the community of people
who bring people together in dialogue. So: think within your networks,
your skills, your experience and your capacity and you will find some
lovely ideas.

If you are still unsure which government agency to work with, do
contact me directly at lisaheft [at] openingspace.net and I can send
you a generic list of all the possible local and state agencies in one
U.S. State - as an example and idea-generation tool for your team. For
any of you outside the U.S. this will give you a general idea that you
can apply to your own country's structure of agencies.

Design
My strongest recommendation is to *not* think first of the tool
(process, method) and then try to fit an event to that. Instead, go
back to the basics of facilitation: Analyze and discuss first. Think
of a doable, realistic, achievable event.

- what are the overarching objectives (reason for bringing people
together for this meeting)
- desired outcomes (remember the outcomes for the Summit include
relationship building, networking, collaboration)
- time available
- space / site available
- participants (who, how many, what is their culture)
- context (what else on this issue or project has already happened,
what are underlying issues, what else?)
- what other business has to occur at this particular event (that
takes time and affects dynamics as well)
- how might participants documenting their dialogue help the success
of their work together? what design for documentation is best?
- what happens in this community, organization or work group before
and after this particular face-to-face dialogue event?
- how might they need to use the documentation or other items that are
generated during the event?
- are people really available to continue work together after the
event, or not?
... and many other questions.

As you answer these questions - the answers will provide information
that will tell you what method / tool / process / design to use.

For example - many of us use Open Space - but if it is a 1- to 3-hour
event, there is not time for full-form Open Space. If the objectives
and deliverables do not fit Open Space, another method may be best. If
you cannot do real true full-form Open Space (Opening Circle, agenda
co-creation without eliminating topics or facilitator helping;
principles and law, multiple discussion areas and multiple discussion
times, Closing Circle comments and reflections), I recommend you drop
the idea of Open Space and use another approach that better delivers
within your time, space, experiences constraints. World Cafe
(depending on your objectives and deliverables) may be the better way
to go. And if you have not yet learned these methods - I can explain -
or- you may feel this May event is not the time to do your first work
in these methods.

Even if you love the tool, that does not mean it is right for every
job. Best to match process to each situation.

And: time: remember that dialogue and diversity are best when humans
are given the time to think, to talk, to reflect. So if you do your
own sort of design - putting many activities in a short time or giving
time for only the fastest thinkers / quickest responders to think is
not including everyone in your room - it is only favoring certain
voices. My recommendation is not to shrink or rush elements but to do
less elements and give groups more time.

If you have never facilitated before we can share tips and ideas with
you.

Other Elements
There is so much to what is called 'Pre-Work' for face-to-face
facilitation.

Invitation: The way you design your invitation process and strategy
can support or lessen the success of a face-to-face dialogue event.
(individual direct emails? phone calls? relationship-building? -
versus- setting up an online site for folks comfortable with on-line
environment to sign themselves up?). And who should come, how are
they able to, what can you do to make that possible, who else of a
different culture or area of experience should you reach out to for
this particular event? All of this connects to / is designed in
relationship to the other elements and to what is best for the
dialogue. To have a great dialogue event, none of the following
elements are independent or isolated from the other - they are all
interrelated.

Registration: Simply have people fill something out and that is it?
Or: can registration be a way you communicate with your participants
to receive information, ask about dietary and mobility needs, ask for
resources such as laptops or paper donations, and so on? All of this
connects to / is designed in relationship to the other elements and to
what is best for the dialogue.

Sponsorship: For most face-to-face dialogue work, speeches are not a
good idea. Bodies go to rest as participants listen. So often -
sponsors are invited to include a paragraph in the documentation for
all to see, have a sponsor table, bring signs of their logos to put
over the food tables and so on - and to participate as individuals in
the rich dialogue. All of this connects to / is designed in
relationship to the other elements and to what is best for the
dialogue.

Food and Beverage: In my workshops I see a trend of 10-20% of
participants requesting special foods or identifying food allergies.
What helps people feel welcome and do their best work? Can you gather
this information in registration? What about type of food - can you
have a box lunch so people can continue in their discussions as they
eat? Do you want to design a community pot-luck and add some extra
food from your budget to fill it out? Stopping and eating sometimes
shifts thinking - so think about whether the meal or snacks should
feature as a separate activity or part of the talk and snacking.
Hydration is important too - if your design is for high activity -
everyone discussing all day, participants may need twice the amount of
water as for a usual traditional meeting. All of this connects to / is
designed in relationship to the other elements and to what is best for
the dialogue.

Site selection: Your analysis of who / for whom / to what end / how
much time and so on informs your choice of method (process, tool).
Your process, number of participants and more may inform your
selection of site. For high-activity high-interaction approaches you
will need a site that is at least double the capacity of your number
of participants. You may need to use the walls (for posting paper and
ideas). You may need to use the room in the round. You may have the
type of design where zero tables are best. Or where smaller cafe-style
tables are best. And what about access for people of different
abilities or ability to reach the site via low-cost transport? Think
about all this if you can before selecting site. All of this connects
to / is designed in relationship to the other elements and to what is
best for the dialogue.

Logistics: Logistics include all of the above -plus- useful clear
signage, arrangement of how and when food and beverage are delivered
or set up, documentation design needs (participants share laptops?
posting flip-chart paper all around the walls? materials for graphic
recording?, how people get there easily, interaction with the site
staff, pre-event room set-up, issues of sound (microphone needed?) and
more. Yes - you know what I am going to say: All of this connects to /
is designed in relationship to the other elements and to what is best
for the dialogue.

So: let your team know that everything works together and as a
facilitator - it may be a good idea to ask to be informed of the other
elements as they are developing so you can add your recommendations or
ask your questions as it may directly impact or support they way you
will be designing and facilitating your face-to-face event. And if
you are a team of one - do what you feel is within your capacity -
link with people already doing wonderful things within some city or
regional governmental organization you already have interest in, share
the idea of doing something together in May, and suddenly you have a
team of two and a lovely partnership for some useful project or
conversation in May.

I look forward to hearing your ideas, questions and stories,

Lisa