How to Facilitate Agile Meetings That Help Your Team Thrive
➡️ Do your team meetings always go as planned?
➡️ Are you able to achieve the desired outcome?
➡️ Does your team leave meetings with a clear purpose and clarity in what needs to be done next?
If any of the answers are “no,” keep on reading. We have some tips and tools to help you!
In this article we lay the foundation for leading engaging and productive meetings with purpose, clarity and confidence so that you can support agility within your teams.
The Role of a Facilitator
As facilitators we convene and we host.
Our primary focus is to identify the desired outcomes and then create a space that fosters connection, authenticity, trust, in an environment of equal voice.
A unique characteristic of facilitation is that when it’s done well you hardly know it’s happening. Good facilitators make it look easy…like all you need to do is grab a marker and head to a flip chart or open up a Zoom line and people start collaborating.
In reality there is a lot going on for a facilitator. It takes formal training and practice! Just like playing the piano or flying a plane. Facilitation is a professional discipline that is both art and science.
Mistakes To Avoid When Facilitating Agile Meetings
Here are some common misconceptions and mistakes facilitators make when first starting out.
- Believing that you can just do facilitation after having seen others make it look so easy.
- Participating in the meeting rather than facilitating.
- Cutting short the planning and design phase or not doing any planning at all.
- Seeking “agreement” from the group on decision-making.
- Believing that your role in the meeting is helping the group reach a decision that has already been made.
It takes time to learn how to properly facilitate meetings. It’s also important to practice the facilitation role throughout your journey by building competency!
How to Facilitate Agile Meetings Like a Pro!
It wasn’t until many years into my facilitation journey that I learned how to:
- Really connect a group
- Have greater awareness of my own beliefs about the group and understand what a profound impact my beliefs had on my ability to work with a group.
- Let go of control; to turn it over to the group.
- Really listen to what people needed or were trying to say.
These were profound shifts in my mindset that
…allowed me to move from simply instructing people to write on sticky notes that overlooks the real issue.
…to leading meetings that got to the heart of what is blocking the team and support their journey beyond continuing in their same patterns.
How to Facilitate Agile Meetings
Would you like to get started with leading engaging and productive meetings with purpose, clarity and confidence so that you can support agility within your teams? Here are 3 ways to do just that!
- The mindset and practice of Being Neutral
- The key steps of Planning and Designing
- Decide how to decide
If you are ready for the full roadmap to facilitation, I highly recommend you read the book ‘The Art & Science of Facilitation’.
5 Resources to Get You Started as a Facilitator
In a recent article, we laid out five resources to help you get started, or to continue your education as a facilitator.
These resources include a book, toolkit, website, self-assessment and workshops!
No matter where you are on your facilitation journey, there is room to continue your learning journey to competency!
