The EDR program team has been getting a lot of questions about facilitation. In this blog, which is the first in a series on facilitation, we explain what facilitation is, why it matters, the differences between small-f and Big-F facilitation, and what small-f and Big-F facilitators do. In future blogs, we’ll provide insight into how to become a facilitator, how to find a facilitator, and other common questions we get.
What is facilitation?
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines facilitate as “to make (something) easier;” “to help bring (something) about;” and/or “to help (something, such as a discussion) run more smoothly and effectively.”
In line with this, we think of the goal of facilitation, and thus the role of the facilitator, as making it easier for groups to do their work—and making their work together more effective.
Why does facilitation matter?
Have you ever been in a meeting or part of a group process, such as a strategic planning effort or a team project, that wasn’t very efficient or effective? Perhaps there were louder voices that dominated the conversation or power dynamics that prevented individuals from feeling like they could truly express themselves. Or perhaps people talked in circles or the process felt unfair and one-sided. Or maybe the group was never really clear about what its goals were in the first place, nothing got done, and/or the process melted down because people didn’t see eye to eye.
This is where facilitation comes in: The role of a facilitator is to design and guide a process—whether a one-off meeting or a multi-year collaborative effort—to help groups effectively and efficiently work together to achieve their purpose and goals. Importantly, often the first step is to help groups get more clear about what their purpose and goals are!
What does a facilitator do?
To answer the question of what a facilitator does, it is important to understand that there is a spectrum of facilitation, ranging from what we call “small-f facilitation” to what we refer to as “Big F facilitation”—and everything in between. All types of facilitation are important, but they are different, and it is important to bring in the right kind of facilitator for the job. Below we describe what you can expect from a small-f facilitator and a Big-F facilitator.
What does a small-f facilitator do?
A small-f facilitator is an individual who is responsible for helping meetings and group work be more efficient and effective; this is the kind of facilitation you will learn about in most facilitation courses. Someone in the role of a small-f facilitator might be a party involved in the situation (e.g., the chair of a group or a staff member of an organization), or they might be a third party brought in to help the group do its work.
The work of a small-f facilitator includes setting the group and meetings up for success by:
- Making sure there is a clear purpose and goals for the group’s overall work together and for each meeting;
- Designing an overall work plan to help the group achieve its purpose and goals, and creating agendas for each meeting;
- Deciding who should participate in the effort and each meeting, and how they need to be engaged;
- Making sure there is a clear code of conduct and expectations for the overall process and for each meeting;
- Delineating roles and responsibilities for the overall process and for each meeting;
- Thinking about where meetings should be held (including whether it should be in person or virtual), and how the room should be set up for meetings to encourage effective engagement; and
- Sending out relevant information in advance of meetings.
During meetings, they:
- Implement ground rules and codes of conduct;
- Structure the conversation to encourage everyone to meaningfully participate;
- Facilitate clear communication;
- Intervene when the group’s effectiveness is at risk, such as if someone is monopolizing the conversation, the group is getting off track, or the group needs a break;
- Help the group move through impasses;
- Bring issues to some closure;
- Clarify areas of agreement and disagreement;
- Identify future actions and assign responsibility;
- Serve as the group memory, such as by ensuring meeting notes are taken and reminding the group of prior conversations and decisions; and
- Help the group stick to or change the agenda and workplan, as needed, to help the group achieve its purpose and goals.
After meetings, they:
- Prepare and send out action items from the meeting that make clear who is responsible for what and by when, as well as any other notes or meeting summary that will help the group keep making progress;
- Follow up to make sure action items get done;
- Prepare an agenda for the next meeting, if relevant;
- Conduct side conversations, as needed, to move things forward; and
- Remind the group, as needed, to get things done.
Small-f facilitation is an enormously important role, and doing it well requires significant skill, time, and attention. Unfortunately, there is a tendency to assume that anyone can run effective meetings and that groups can run themselves. This isn’t true, and this is why we end up with many ineffective meetings and group efforts that languish, frustrate people, and ultimately feel like a waste of time.
This is why we encourage groups and teams to find someone with small-f facilitation skills to help with their meetings and group work—and why we recommend most professionals take some basic facilitation training so they can help the groups and teams they are part of work effectively and efficiently.
For some small-f facilitation resources, check out the EDR program’s facilitating effective meetings cheat sheet and PACER worksheet. We also regularly use and recommend the free online Liberating Structures toolkit.
What does a Big-F Facilitator do?
We use the term “Big-F Facilitator” to refer to a professional third-party collaborative process designer and guide. This is the kind of facilitation work that the EDR program does.
The job of a Big-F facilitator is to design and facilitate a process that helps involved parties productively work through their differences to create mutual gains outcomes. This means that, in addition to being responsible for the same tasks as a small-f facilitator, they conduct a situation assessment prior to convening involved parties to understand sources of conflict, areas of potential mutual gains, who is affected by and needs to be involved in problem solving, and whether the situation is ready for a collaborative process. They then use what they learn from the assessment to design and orchestrate a collaborative process to help involved parties work through conflict and co-create mutual gains solutions—or to encourage involved parties to pursue a different route, if the situation isn’t ready for collaboration.
To effectively do this work, Big-F facilitators need expertise in the following areas in addition to the skills of small-f facilitation:
- How to conduct and make sense of a situation assessment;
- Conflict resolution;
- Interest-based negotiation;
- Collaborative process design;
- Consensus building; and
- Mediation.
In understanding what a Big-F facilitator does, it is also helpful to understand what they do not do. Unlike a small-f facilitator, who may be an “interested party,” a Big-F facilitator is always an outside third party. In line with this, they do not make or directly contribute to decisions for the group; instead, their job is to “hand the work back to the group” to help them make effective decisions. While they structure the conversation to help the group do its work, they do not control the substance of the conversation.
In line with this, a Big-F facilitator needs to understand the subject matter well enough to guide conversations, but they do not need to be—and should not play the role of—content expert. Additionally, they do not advocate for any particular party, perspective, or interests; instead, they advocate for a “good process” that empowers all interested parties to be heard, considered, and involved in co-creating what consensus-building expert Larry Susskind calls “fair, efficient, stable, and wise outcomes.”
Big-F facilitation is an advanced skill set, and getting into this kind of work requires significant training, practice, and mentorship. It also requires a willingness and ability to sit with and support groups through conflict, to be as impartial to the outcome as an individual realistically can be, and to stay well-regulated while doing so. All to say: Not everyone is well-suited to be a Big-F facilitator, and not all facilitators are Big-F facilitators.
If you want to convene a collaborative process, we encourage you to not just hire any facilitator, but to hire a skilled professional collaborative process designer—i.e., a Big-F facilitator. We also encourage you to empower them to do their job well. This includes hiring them and funding them to do a situation assessment before convening the effort and letting the results of the situation assessment inform everything from whether the situation is ripe for a collaborative process to who needs to be involved and how (if the situation is ready for a collaborative process). Finally, we encourage you to trust their judgement on process design decisions throughout the effort.
Want to know more about facilitation?
In future blogs, we’ll address additional aspects of facilitation, including how to become a facilitator and how to find a Big-F facilitator. We’ll also share some of the EDR program team’s lessons learned related to facilitation.
If you have questions about facilitation you would like us to address in future blogs, or are interested in facilitation training for yourself or your organization, contact us.
Danya Rumore, Ph.D., is the director of the Environmental Dispute Resolution program in the Wallace Stegner Center at the University of Utah. She is a research professor in the S.J. Quinney College of Law and a clinical associate professor in the city and metropolitan planning department at the University of Utah. She teaches about, practices, and conducts research on conflict, negotiation, dispute resolution, leadership, and collaborative problem solving. She is also the founder and a co-director of the Gateway and Natural Amenity Region (GNAR) Initiative.
Jordan Katcher, M.S., is the initiatives facilitator for the Environmental Dispute Resolution (EDR) program in the Wallace Stegner Center at the University of Utah. She supports various EDR [rogram activities and projects and leads many of the EDR program’s situation assessments. Jordan is also an adjunct instructor in the University of Utah’s city and metropolitan planning department.
About the EDR blog: Hosted by the Wallace Stegner Center’s Environmental Dispute Resolution (EDR) program, the EDR blog shares ideas, tools, and resources to cultivate a culture of collaboration and help readers be more skillful in working through conflict. Read additional blog posts at edrblog.org.