Facilitation

How To Lead with Virtual Team Facilitation

During a recent two-day Virtual Team Facilitation workshop, one of our attendees Lisa created several visuals that demonstrate the activities we present during this 2-day workshop.

Find out what TeamCatapult shared in this Virtual Team Facilitation workshop on Day 1 of this Virtual Facilitation Workshop, here.

The Use of Slack Channels During Virtual Team Facilitation!

Slack is a useful tool for all remote teams. As a facilitator of virtual meetings, Slack can be your go-to tool to get conversations going and to keep them going.

Use a Slack channel for checking in
Lean in to listen
Hear every voice
Check in after breaks

The Mental Model and Decision Funnel!

When asking questions during a remote meeting, here are some things to keep in mind.

Know in advance what type of decision the team is aiming for:

Consensus?
Majority?
Other?

Once a decision is made, it can be tempting to revisit it. You might need to remind the team of how and why they reached a decision. This is a good time to consider that the decision-making process needs to be reviewed and revised as well.

Evaluation vs Decision Making in Virtual Team Facilitation

Distinguish between evaluation and decision making.

Tools to Evaluate

Dot voting
Announce evaluation
Use affinity mapping before dot voting

Do not rush through evaluation and remember that silence does not mean agreement! As the facilitator, you are there for support and to help the team reach agreement, ask questions like:

Would anyone like to push back on…?
What would you advocate for?
Who would follow?
Is there another move you’d like to make?

Decide

In Mural, evaluate by color coding sticky notes against the criteria of the topic’s issues
Consider using a grid sorting template
Use gradients of agreement

These tools can help uncover what is holding people back and if necessary, generate a revised proposal that addresses concerns.

Virtual Team Facilitation Tips for Leaders

Here are three additional practical tips for leaders new to virtual team facilitation.

1 Transparency

Be transparent when something isn’t working as it should. Calmly accept and adapt and tell the attendees what is going on.

2 Ask WHO

Do not ask ‘Does anyone’ but instead ask

WHO… needs more time?
WHO… can push back?

3 Facilitator Assistant

Have one facilitator watching for participants who might get disconnected. Offer help in Slack or via email, text or whatever alternative means you’ve chosen to communicate.

More Virtual Team Facilitation Help is Available!

We are grateful for Lisa’s willingness to share these visuals with you, our audience, to provide you with a glimpse into the world of Virtual Team Facilitation

Whether it is you, your leadership team, or your company that needs help with Virtual Team Facilitation, TeamCatapult is able to lend a hand.

Please contact us today for more information for both private and public Virtual Facilitation Masterclass workshops.

Five Guiding Principles of an Agile Team Facilitation Stance

Collaboration Is a Core Value In Agile

Regardless of the agile framework(s) you use, agile practices require some level of collaboration within teams or between teams, customers and stakeholders.

Collaboration is two or more people coming together to co-create something. When collaboration is effective it can have a euphoric feeling of accomplishment, success, trust, and teamwork. When collaboration is ineffective it can drain a team – that feeling that you get of ‘here we go again…same discussion, same outcome, just a different day’. Effective or ineffective, collaboration is messy – you can’t predict how it will go, things don’t always unfold the way you might think they will, and it’s always emergent.

Facilitation is a core competency for Agile Coaches – teams need facilitators who can foster effective collaboration, support meaningful dialogues and enable team decision-making.

In this introduction to developing guiding principles, we’ll identify and offer guidance regarding four of the most common traits that can subtly surface and begin to erode a team’s efficacy. Implementing core values needs to involve team members and the organization’s values alike.

First, here are some common challenges that can get in the way of effective collaboration in agile teams.

Asking for input when you’ve already made up your mind about what the decision or outcome will be
Using your positional authority of leading a meeting to drive your own agenda and influence a particular outcome
An unclear purpose and/or desired outcome for the collaboration
The team is unclear about how the final decision will be made (i.e. Is the group making a recommendation or a final decision? Will majority rule or will we strive for consensus?)

How We Think Is How We Lead

Learning facilitation tools and techniques are really useful but if what you believe is different from what you’re doing, well, the tools won’t really matter. Collaboration will be frustrating and less impactful than you might desire. In essence, we are searching for the values of a good facilitator.

It Begins With You

Facilitation is like a complex dance of polarities. When teams come together to collaborate, rarely are topics or decisions black and white with a clear ‘right’ answer. At any given time when you are leading a group from a facilitative stance, you’re interweaving different ideas and perspectives together, creating a rich and textured network of ideas that serve to deepen understanding and seek diversity. You’re helping the group define the shades of gray so that they can make more informed decisions.

You Are Managing Yourself

It takes a high degree of self-awareness, self-management and group awareness to navigate the dance. People are putting their trust in you to lead them through a complex process; to be heard, to be respected, to be valued and to contribute to something greater than what they could accomplish on their own.

Facilitators, you’ll prepare for this kind of work by starting with what you believe. In other words, create guiding principles for leading community members and teams.

How We Think Informs How We Act

The Five Guiding Principles

The five guiding principles of The Agile Team Facilitation Stance form the foundation upon what we believe about groups and teams and how those beliefs might show up in the room. Creating guiding principles for your team facilitation work will prepare you as you facilitate!

1) Maintain Neutrality

At the highest level, this principle is about you owning the process, and the team owning the content.
In practice, this looks like bridging competing ideas, sharing what you see in the process with facts, and without judgment.

Review the following tables for each guiding principle and see what each one can look like in action

Internal Assumptions and Beliefs

I am active and engaged (not passive)
I own the process, they own the content
I add value by reflecting back to the group what’s actually happening
I am open minded and see value in all voices
Polarities in opinions offer opportunities to find common ground
I am vested in helping the group achieve their desired outcomes
Critique about the group process is not a critique about who I am

Practices

Say what you see, in a factual, non-judgmental way
Let go of judging right vs wrong
Take a systems perspective
Bridge competing ideas
Listen for the 2% common ground
Offer ideas with no attachment to the outcome
Inquire by asking powerful questions
Seek to understand and deepen the group’s understanding

2) Stand in the Storm

The term “storm” can look, feel and behave differently in each team. This is about seeking out and really listening to differing stances, perspectives, options, solutions, and paths. Without taking sides, a facilitator holds the space for all to speak and be heard during a meeting.

Internal Assumptions and Beliefs

Storms create deeper understanding and context for what’s being discussed
I don’t need to take sides; I need to be able to help the group hear all perspectives
Opposition offers correction
The purpose of conflict is to be helpful to a process
Dysfunctional behavior is a sign of displeasure with something that is happening or something that is wanting to happen, more often than it is about what it looks like in the moment (i.e., interpersonal conflict)
I don’t need to have the answers; I need to help the group find the solution

Practices

Create the container that allows for storms
Sense when there is dissonance – either overt or covert
Have empathy with each member of the group
Inquire about opposition
Be fully present
Be self-aware of your own personal bias
Adjust the process if the conflict calls for it
Activate bystanders – voice what you are seeing or hearing
Turn it back to the group to decide

3) Hold the Group’s Agenda

By continually asking, “How can I best serve this group?” or “What does this group really need right now?” you’ll be operating within this principle. At times, a feeling of resistance, or an instinct to shut down may arise. Perhaps you receive feedback about the process and you feel the beginnings of defensive feelings. The best tool to meet that feeling with is curiosity and a focus on holding the group’s agenda.

Internal Assumptions and Beliefs

This is their Agenda (Big ‘A’ agenda – the underlying need; not little ‘a’ agenda of a meeting)
Resistance is not dysfunctional; it’s trying to be helpful
Inability to converge or decide may mean there is something that needs to be discussed that has not been discussed

Practices

Always be asking ‘How can I best serve this group?’
Treating all actions by the group as data about what they really need
Meeting resistance with curiosity
Aware of the difference between the facilitators desire and what the group needs
Creating a space that allows for opposition to both process and content
Owning the process and being open to feedback about the process

4) Honor the Wisdom of the Group

Related to Stand in the Storm, mentioned earlier, this principle, at its core is about trust. Trusting that the group has it’s own wisdom and developing an environment where each member of the team can grow, stretch and achieve as a respected and valued collaborator. Everyone on the team has both wisdom to learn and wisdom to share.

Internal Assumptions and Beliefs

Trust in the collective intelligence, capacity, and experience of the group
People are more committed to what they have helped to create
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
Diversity and difference enhance the outcome
Inclusiveness and engagement of all is needed
An environment of trust will lead to participation by all
The group already has all it needs, my job is to help them access that knowledge

Practices

Create a container that fosters trust, connection, and inclusiveness
Design group processes that engage the whole group
Make it safe for all voices
Ask for the opposing voice
Find the thread that leads to consensus, and help the group pull it through

5) Uphold the Agile Mindset

In practice, this principle can be agility itself: mindset, methods, and actions. There’s a foundational belief that a facilitator can help the team adapt the agile practices in the moment while still upholding the agile values and principles. Best accomplished by modeling agile values and maintaining a servant leadership stance.

Internal Assumptions and Beliefs

I honor the values and principles of the agile mindset, and use it to inform group processes, both planned and in the moment
I hold the agile mindset, lightly, so that the way the group holds the mindset can be prominent
I understand the agile practices well enough to support the team
I can adapt the agile practices in the moment while still upholding the agile values

Practices

Model agile practices
Adapt the practices based on the performance, maturity, and needs of the team
Embrace a lean/agile mindset
Lead with servant leadership

Five Guiding Principles In Action

These are, on the surface, simple principles. You’ve likely noticed in the sections of internal assumptions and practices that it can get complex quickly. Each guiding principle offers its own complex, rich lessons and dynamics. In future posts, we’ll take deeper dives into these complexities with specific examples of each principle in action. We’ll show what they are in action…and what they aren’t too.

For now, which of these principles feels like a mindset that you already hold – it comes naturally for you?

Which principle feels more like a stretch?

What’s one belief you might “try on” in an upcoming meeting?

What actions would you take that might be different from what you have done in the past?

Do you want to learn how to facilitate guiding principles?

A Crash Course in Translating Your Process to a Virtual Setting

Your meeting room is all prepared. Your templates, markers, and sticky notes are at hand. But you and your client are both (very properly) practicing social distancing. So you have a face-to-face process for [strategy, visioning, brainstorming, decision-making, you name it], and you suddenly need to deliver this session remotely. You don’t even know where to start. Great! Let’s do this.

This is a bare-bones crash course in how to translate your face-to-face offering to a virtual one. We’ll cover:

Your mindset
Your mental model
Converting your existing agenda
Getting help
Matching processes with tools
Common problems you may encounter

It can be a lot more complex than this, but this is a good starting point if you’ve never done it before. Throughout, I’ve named tools that I personally prefer, but you can choose others that do the same thing. Let’s go.

Your Mindset

First, stop panicking. This is do-able, and you can do it. Also, your participants really need you to hold the container for them while they work, and you can’t do that effectively while you are panicking. So leave the panic at the door.

Second, accept that something will go wrong, and when it does, embrace it. I’ve done remote sessions for years and I still open each one with the thought, “Hmm, I wonder what will go wrong today?” I phrase it a little differently, though. I think to myself, “Hmm, I wonder what I will learn today?” Everything that goes wrong is a gift, because it teaches you something you didn’t know. It’s okay. Remain calm, explain what’s happening, and work the problem. It’ll be fine.

Third, let go of the fear that your virtual session will by definition be worse than your face-to-face one would have been. That isn’t necessarily true, especially for some kinds of work which are actually easier to do online. Accept that it will be a different experience, not necessarily a worse one, and aim to provide the best experience that you can.

Your Mental Model

This part is for those who have almost no experience in virtual settings, so you can wrap your mind around how it’s set up. Skip this section if you’ve participated in a bunch of remote sessions before. Otherwise, read on.

You’ll have a meeting room, just like you do any other time. People will connect to the meeting room and remain in it for the duration of the session. The tool I use to create the meeting room is Zoom. Everyone connects to the same Zoom link and can use a phone or their computer to hear what’s going on. They can see each other (if they’re using video cameras) and anything that I’m sharing on my screen too. Only the host (me, or you in your case) needs a Zoom account.

You’ll have supporting tools, like you do in any other session. Instead of sticky notes, paper charts, and paper templates, you’ll use digital tools so your participants can engage in the hands-on activities you want them to do. They will connect to these tools using a web browser, while they are still connected to the meeting in Zoom. You give the link to the supporting tool or tools (go easy — multiple tools get confusing really fast), and everyone connects to it. I use tools like MURAL for sticky notes and visual templates, Trello for kanban boards, and Google Docs for shared editing.

Pro Tip: Usually, people are either looking at Zoom or they are looking at the shared tool, so if you are going to be working in a shared tool for a while, have people turn off their video camera in Zoom. Even when they are in Zoom breakout groups while using a shared tool, their focus will be on the tool, not on Zoom. Turning off the video camera can make the audio clearer and the tools load faster for people with limited bandwidth.

If you do graphic capture, you’ll also have a tablet (iPad or similar) that you can write on. You’ll share this screen in the Zoom session while you’re capturing. I use Concepts as my drawing app, but I recommend others for first-timers.

Converting Your Existing Agenda

The basic crash-course process for this consists of five steps:

Take out 25% of your activities (or make your session 50% longer). You can’t get as much done in the same amount of time, especially when you’re new at this. Transitions will eat up a lot more time than you expect. See this post for more details, including when to add breaks.
Identify the process you are using at each stage in your agenda, then select a tool that matches it and supports its desired outcome(s). Use as few tools as possible, even if it means using the same tool for two or more different activities. See the table below.
Create any templates or other materials you need so that they are ready in the selected tools. Include instructions right in the tool whenever possible, so that they can refer back to them if they get confused.
Visualize the transitions you will be asking participants to make between tools. How will you help them make the switch and get oriented? How will you teach them the basics of the tool so they are able to do what you ask them to do? How will you support them when they get stuck? Answer these questions for yourself, and you will be better able to support them through the session. Draw a diagram of the transitions between tools for your own reference. Make notes on your copy of the agenda to remind you what to say and when to say it.
Practice with each tool beforehand. Make mistakes, so that when participants make the same mistake, you can help them out. Do everything you are asking them to do. Find out where you need to give extra instructions to prevent mishaps.

Getting Help

Everyone is trying to learn this very fast right now. Several of the tools I use either have fantastic online tutorials (I’m looking at you, Zoom) or have staff who can help guide you through the basics, or both. Sign up for a demo webinar (thank you, MURAL) if they are on offer. Google the name of your tool plus “tutorial” or “demo” to find what’s available.

Matching Processes with Tools

Here is a list of common processes that you might need to use, and tools that support them. It’s obviously not an exhaustive list, but these are some of the most common things I do in virtual sessions. Again, I’ve listed my favorite tools; there are many others available.

Process You Want to Do (links in this column go to how-to articles)	Tools That Support It (links in this column go to the tool’s website)
Breakout groups	Zoom
Breakout groups with templates and sticky notes	Zoom, along with: MURAL, pre-loaded with your template
Check in circle	Zoom, sharing an image of the participants in a circle
Creating or editing a shared piece of writing	Google Docs or Office 365
Creating or editing a shared presentation	Google Docs or Office 365
Discussion circle	Zoom, using video if you can
Dot voting	MURAL
Fishbowl	Zoom
Flow charts, roadmaps, quad grids, other visual tools	MURAL or Google Slides or Office 365
Graphic recording	Zoom, along with: iPad or tablet and drawing program of choice
Kanban boards	Trello or MURAL
Looking at a shared resource	Zoom, using screen sharing
Polling	Zoom
Sticky notes	MURAL
Threaded conversations, text chat, sidebar conversations	Slack

Common Problems You May Encounter

Problem: People behind firewalls can’t access certain tools.

Solution: Have them do a pre-meeting tech check. Some tools have a test link (for instance, Zoom’s is here). For others, like MURAL or Google Docs, set up an open-access test document and send the link to your participants ahead of time.

Problem: People get lost switching between tools.

Solution: Visualize how this will work before you start. Give clear, explicit instructions, both verbally and written down in the tool they will use. Spend an extra minute making sure everyone is with you before you start. Have a colleague or volunteer present who can help stragglers figure out how to get where you are.

Problem: Not everyone has a video camera.

Solution: Ask the group what they prefer to do in this case: turn off all cameras, or have people use them if they are available. Keep in mind that the people who show up on video will have more perceived power and will have a different experience than those who don’t. Personally, I tend to be an all-or-nothing facilitator when it comes to video, but it’s up to you and your group.

Problem: Someone can’t connect to one of the tools.

Solution: If you have a tech helper, ask them to work with the person. If it just can’t be resolved, pair that person up with a buddy who is responsible for making sure that person’s ideas and input get added to the shared document. Share your screen through Zoom so they can watch what’s happening in the tool, even if they can’t get there themselves.

Caution: This is the only time you should screen share a tool that people are actively using. Otherwise, some folks will get lost between the real tool and your screen share, and they are likely to get confused at some point.

Problem: Someone’s audio or video suddenly stops working when it had been working before.

Solution: Ask them to leave the meeting and re-join. If that doesn’t work, ask them to leave the meeting, reboot their computer, and then re-join. Usually that fixes it.

Problem: There’s a ton of background noise from someone’s microphone that’s making it hard for others to hear.

Solution: In working sessions, I prefer to have everyone stay off mute; the conversation flows more naturally that way. However, sometimes there is a lot of noise in one location. Look on the participant list in Zoom to see whose microphone icon is filling up with green, and politely ask that person to mute themselves unless they need to say something until the noise has stopped.

Caution: It’s difficult to switch back to Zoom to mute and unmute while working in one of the web-based tools if you’re not used to it. Give people extra time to do this. They can return to Zoom by selecting its icon (blue with a white video symbol) from their task tray (PC) or dock (Mac).

I hope this crash course helps you find a starting point. As you do this more, you’ll get more comfortable with it. Remember that people are generally supportive when you invite them along on a learning journey like this. And good luck!

This article originally appeared on Rachel S. Smith’s blog, Digital Visual Facilitation, under “A Crash Course in Translating Your Process to a Virtual Setting“ on March 15, 2020.

How To Gain Agility by Giving Up Control

Giving Up Control to Gain Agility

This past year, I was asked to be a guest on the Women in Agile Podcast titled ‘Giving Up Control to Gain Agility’.

Podcast host Leslie Morse and I met at the Agile 2019conference in August, where we discussed my upcoming book ‘The Art & Science of Facilitation – How To Lead Effective Collaboration with Agile Teams’

What is the ‘Women if Agile’ Podcast?

The ‘Women if Agile’ Podcast series exists to amplify the voices of outstanding women in the Agile community by telling our stories, being thought leaders and having open conversations with our allies.

I encourage you to not only listen to my interview but to learn more about Women in Agile, subscribe and download the many wonderful conversations that have gone before me and continue to be told.

Facilitation Conversation and Then Some!

I was introduced on the Podcast with this intro:

“She shares stories of working in a huge corporation and a tiny startup and the learnings she’s had – including how to give up some control to let agility emerge naturally. Her passion for facilitation was her entry point into Agile, and the need for it is as strong as ever:

“To truly facilitate requires this unbiased, neutral perspective where you’re not taking sides… When the group gets stuck, you’re helping them get unstuck; you’re not solving something for them.”

The quote the Podcast host Leslie Morse used to describe the conversation is this:

Find your own voice. “It’s not that I didn’t have it, it’s that I would have these moments of insights or thoughts, and I didn’t always share it.”

My Personal Agile Origin Story

One of the many things I loved about doing this interview was the first question asked of me.

“What is your Agile origin story?”

It’s a story we all have but isn’t often told. Everyone who works in the Agile community has this defining moment as to when Agile entered their life and career. Most of us can also pinpoint a specific meeting, conference, book or Agile moment we knew where were hooked.

Can I just say it took me a whole year to wrap my head around Agile?

Have I sparked your curiosity?

Listen to my Agile origin story first, and then learn more about why giving up control is needed to gain agility!

Enjoy!

Designing Your Meetings With Purpose

Responsibilities of a Facilitator

Your role as facilitator no longer depends on your opinion or even on your expertise about the content.

A facilitator has the responsibility to assess the situation, the people and plan productive meetings, all while remaining neutral and staying out of the content.

Your role as facilitator no longer depends on your opinion or even on your expertise about the content.

Realizing that content is no longer the facilitator responsibility but perhaps more of an outcome, an effective facilitator will focus on planning each meeting to assist in improved team efficiency and productivity.

The Facilitator and The Meeting

Some think that the facilitator is the “person in charge.” Rather than “charging your way” through a process, a meeting, or a team, there are three things that will help you bring focus to this role:

What: Only focus on those topics that are important and useful to all or most of the people in the meeting
Who: Only invite those people who need to understand, buy into, or act on the topics being discussed
Why: Give people the information they need in order to understand why they’re at the meeting.

The Result: Good Collaboration

Good collaboration doesn’t just happen. It takes forethought, intention and a keen sense of human nature. Human nature? Yep! Understanding how people get triggered and how people feel respected is part of the role as facilitator. Plan a process for a group of people that minimizes conflict and maximizes productivity. That takes skill, logic, intuition and a lot of practice.

If, for example, you need the group to arrive at decisions, then you’ll need to structure the process to get them there. Chances are good they cannot go straight to a decision and instead, will need to explore possibilities, then evaluate the alternatives, then make decisions.

These essential three steps are frequently rushed, so practice allowing the time to nurture what the process needs. To facilitate a group through large decisions it is likely you won’t have time (or the necessary requirements) within a single meeting. Consider three separate meetings, one for each purpose and design your meetings to encourage that outcome:

In the first meeting, meant to explore possibilities, imagination, innovation and creativity are welcome.
In the second meeting, meant to evaluate the alternatives, critical thinking, analysis and budget knowledge are welcome.
In the third meeting, meant to make decisions, negotiation and compromise are welcome.

Take Time To Design Your Meetings!

As you can see, how you design your meeting sets the stage for how it will go. When you design your meeting with clear purpose and intention, it’s likely to evoke less conflict and promote more efficiency and productivity during the meeting and for the team.