Planned spontaneous conversations
Throughout the planning of the conference we looked for ways to facilitate connections between participants. All told about one third of the structured conference time was organized to bring participants together including planned discussion topics and large group dialogue processes. The structure connected people in an intentional way but participants mostly took it from there, engaging with each other easily and with enthusiasm.

High tech introductions & low tech face-cards
The planning team designed an online survey to collect participant contact information, a photo and the end of the sentence “I would like to connect with other people who…” Keynote speakers, session leaders and FRB staff also completed online introductions. This simple tool helped set expectations for a conference full of opportunities to meet with other people with similar interests and concerns.
At the conference our student volunteers turned the high tech introductions into low tech (paper) face-cards that included a photo and contact information. Arranged first by industry sector and later geography, the noticeboard of face-cards proved not so useful for the “birds of a feather” groupings that we had imagined. Instead the “affinity wall” as it was named provided a big picture of the whole group, a source of useful contact information and a place to informally connect and start a conversation.

Supper circles provide food for thought
On the evening between pre-conference workshops and the formal opening event, supper circles were coordinated with invited authors on relevant topics. Attended by about 15% of the conference participants in groups of about a dozen diners these organized supper conversations set the stage for meaningful conversations. The inclusion of well-selected and gently prepped authors provided just enough structure to bring strangers together in an interesting dialogue. The informality of supper at a good local restaurant allowed the conversation to run its own course (pun intended).

Meet me at the intersection of food and information in the Innovation Café
The layout of the hotel provided for a comfortably large area where food and beverages were served throughout the conference. The location was conveniently located at the entrance to the ballroom where plenary events took place so there was lots of foot traffic. We called this the Innovation Café and added computer terminals for email and web access, comfortable sofas and chairs, information walls about winning community development projects and the aforementioned affinity wall. With no vendor exhibit booths this became a central place for participants to meet each other. Staff and students welcomed participants each morning and the space encouraged continuing conversations as people left the more structured plenary activities.

Rule of two feet
A gently structured process of three 30-minute rounds of discussion was used for one of two interactive plenary sessions. A dozen discussion circles of 10-16 people were planned and one emerged spontaneously as a result of a keynote presentation. Once again the facilitation happened ahead of the conference through selection of discussion leaders drawn from concurrent session presenters and other industry experts and coaching of them to prepare some provocative questions to begin a conversation. I took away three key observations about the success of this event:

• While we set up a series of 30 minute discussions we established a rule of two feet – anyone can move between groups at any time, for any reason. Giving people permission to move if the conversation wasn’t working for them also gave each person accountability for the quality of their own experience. This led to increased engagement and, ironically, less movement between groups.
• No tables – the circles of chairs naturally lead to people leaning in and moving closer to hear each other. It is hard to be disengaged with this kind of body language.
• Having prepared for some good discussion, a critical element was to get out of the way and allow it all to happen. As the front-of-room facilitator I needed to do little more than keep time and gently invite the possibility of movement between circles.

The tone from the stage sets the stage for the tone of the dialogue
As with many conferences this conference included several keynote addresses and a panel presentation. It was interesting to see how the styles of the speakers differed and how some tones were more effective than others in supporting collaborative interaction. The conference started with a traditional oration from an important dignitary, formally introduced by a bank official. My reaction was as an interested but not fully-engaged observer. A later keynote speaker gave an almost too casual first impression (being pregnant with twins necessitated yoga pants and flip flops) but spoke from the heart with wisdom, humility and humor. This approach seemed to encourage further conversation and created a buzz in the hallways. Later the panel moderator came prepared with searching questions for high-powered guests who were encouraged to use a conversational, reflective tone which in turn encouraged questions from the audience and got people thinking and engaged.

So what? Priorities for action
The final element of this conference was a plenary session with a focus on priorities for action. We wanted to pull together all the conversations we had been having into a “so what” dialogue about necessary actions for the future of community development finance. Again we structured opportunities for engagement with active listening in triads and consolidation of ideas in small groups. The framework explained and a conference tone well-established, the whole room quickly got down to work with very little front-of-room facilitation. Using the FacilitatePro collaborative technology to capture ideas on a shared electronic flip chart we were able to consolidate action items for three focus areas and present them back to the group for a round of voting and immediate prioritized results. Technology allowed us to maintain momentum and turn small group conversations in to whole room results. At the core of the process, however, was the opportunity for individuals to engage with each other and make discoveries and connections of their own.

Walking the talk
In reflecting on the lessons learned from this conference I would add one more – the quality of collaboration of the planning team. This is one of my favorite conference teams to work with as it blends a welcome mixture of quiet efficiency and warm collaboration. Every team member was thorough in completing their well-defined tasks and there was genuine care and appreciation for the contributions of others. This respectful, collaborative approach reflected the objectives of the conference and naturally translated into planning the elements of the program and the welcome reception greeting the conference participants.

Posted by Julia Young, Facilitate.com

To find out more about Facilitate.com’s conference planning services and collaborative technology contact MoreInfo@Facilitate.com or visit www.Facilitate.com.

In a recent session for NewWow that I led with my colleague Julia Young (Planning and Running Exceptional Virtual Meetings), a  participant posed a provocative question at the very end, which went something like this:  Is a meeting still the “right” construct for conversations?  (Remember that the topic was virtual meetings, so consider the context here.)

I’ve had a few weeks to ruminate his question. My initial reply: Of course! To have a real conversation, people really have to be talking together, at the same time, in pretty much the same way. Otherwise, we’re just pushing out (or pulling in) a bunch of potentially disconnected thoughts that often cross paths somewhere in the clouds. That’s not the stuff authentic conversations are made of, IMHO.

According to Merriam-Webster, a conversation is an oral exchange of sentiments, observations, or ideas, or an instance of such an exchange. Reference.com says that conversation is an information interchange of thoughts, information, etc. by spoken words. Says Answers.com: Conversation is the spoken exchange of thoughts, opinions and feelings; talk.
Aha! The key seems to be an oral exchange or interchange of ideas or thoughts. So a volley of emails, regardless of how well-crafted or timely, doesn’t really constitute an oral exchange. What about something more “organic,” like a wiki or a blog, where people are invited to express themselves or build on others’ ideas? Still not oral in that the words are not spoken, but this type of interchange somehow feels closer to a same-time conversation than a string of emails. And what about a Tweet that provokes a flood of simultaneous response – enough to start a revolution?

So, is the meeting still the right construct for conversations, when team members work virtually—perhaps across several time zones?  Yes, in most cases. The more interesting question, for me, becomes: Do we need real-time conversations as much as we think we do? When will another kind of exchange work just as well, especially if it means people can participate when it’s most convenient? What do we gain and what do we lose when we forfeit opportunities to converse in favor of using other communication methods that are more expedient and efficient?

In Sherry Turkle’s new book, Alone Together, she starts out by saying: “Technology proposes itself as the architect of our intimacies. These days, it suggests substitutions that put the real on the run. ..Our networked life allows us to hide from each other, even as we are tethered to each other. We’d rather text than talk.”

In conclusion, I’d say that yes, a same-time meeting (whether virtual or face-to-face) really is the right construct, if what we want is an exchange of thoughts and ideas, complete with the nuance, meaning and context that only spoken language can impart so well. Perhaps we don’t need as many meetings as we think we do, but let’s not abandon real conversations in favor of convenience or expediency just because we can.

posted by Nancy Settle-Murphy

In 7 Steps to Better Brainstorming, the authors propose a modified brainstorming technique they call “brainsteering.”  The key to brainsteering is providing the participants with some context and parameters in order to avoid the “fast, furious and ultimately shallow” ideas generated in traditional brainstorming. For example, they suggest telling participants at the start about the decision-making criteria that will be used to evaluate ideas as well as the context to understand what an acceptable idea is. They warn the reader to “prepare your participants for the likelihood that…. (they) might generate only two or three worthy ideas.”

Steering vs. storming – the happy middle
I agree with some of the comments that expressed discomfort with the steering component of brainsteering because it fundamentally changes the nature of the idea generation from free-form thinking to focused problem solving (both can involve creativity, by the way).

Brainstorming is a form of divergent thinking, meaning that it doesn’t follow a specific path. It occurs in a spontaneous, free-flowing manner, so that the ideas are generated in a rapid, random and unorganized fashion.  A later step is to organize and prioritize them so that the best ideas rise to the top. If you apply constraints to the initial brainstorming, you lose the ability to come at the question from many unique perspectives.

In our practice, we adapt some of the same concepts into what might be called constructive brainstorming. At the heart of constructive brainstorming is a set of good prompts, in the form of questions.  The questions are open-ended invitations to envision possibilities and the scope of the question is what keeps the ideas on topic.  For example “Imagine that our company has just won an award for being “green.” What steps have we taken in order to merit this award” invites open-ended thinking about anything from using re-chargeable batteries to changing suppliers but keeps some focus on the ultimate goal of making a measurable and visible impact.

The second tool we use is electronic brainstorming.  Adding ideas to a common online flipchart allows participants to enter their ideas all at once and anonymously.  It neutralizes the “idea-crushers” (identified in the article as bosses, big-mouths and subject matter experts) and puts everyone a level playing field.  While the article suggests that dividing brainstorming participants into small groups of 5 is an effective approach to resolving negative group dynamics, we find that electronic brainstorming allows us to involve much larger groups of people (30, 40 or 100 is not uncommon), thereby broadening the field of ideas significantly.  The process of entering ideas into a common space, then reading and commenting on everyone else’s ideas sparks a second and arguably more thoughtful round of idea generation.  Finally, the ideas are captured instantly, ready to be organized and prioritized, making the entire process more productive.

Everything comes down to technique and forethought.  As free-form as a brainstorming session is meant to be, its design requires planning, including developing the right set of questions and employing the tools and techniques to engage everyone.

Announcement! Our next “Designing Interactive Webinars” free webinar is scheduled for April 21 at 8:00 AM PDT.  Learn more and register at http://www.facilitate.com/webinars.html.

I USED to be the disengaged participant — one who had good ideas about how to solve a problem or conduct a meeting, but didn’t contribute. I now take a more active role, aiming to make meetings more effective.”

To at least some degree, we own our experience in meetings and we play a role in making them either a waste or a good use of our time.  That leads me to think about four things  that we should take ownership of to improve our own meeting experience.

1. Whether or not to attend the meeting, and how long. In some cases, meeting attendance is mandatory, no questions asked. But in other cases, it is fair to ask why you need to attend this meeting; what are the objectives and how you are expected to contribute to them.  Is it just to keep you “in the loop”? If so, you can listen to a recording at your convenience, read the meeting notes or schedule a 10 minute debrief with a colleague. Are you expected to “provide input”, but not evaluate options or make a decision? There is meeting technology ranging from web meeting software like ours to wikis and online team rooms where you can provide that input ahead of time. People often look at meeting attendance in black and white terms – either I go or I don’t go.  How about attending only that portion of the meeting during which you add value? For example, participate in a brainstorm activity to provide your feedback on a recent announcement, then take your leave if you are not directly involved in the next steps.
2. Whether or not to be prepared for the meeting. A best practice for well-designed meetings is to make sure participants know why they have been invited, what is going to be discussed (and in what format) and what the desired outcomes are. When this doesn’t happen, in the spirit of training your meeting leader to be better, contact him/her and ask “Could we see the agenda a few days before the meeting, so we can start thinking about the topics under discussion? Is there anything we can read and reflect on ahead of time? Is there some data you’d like us to provide beforehand?”
3. Whether to multi-task or be engaged. This can be tricky – especially if the meeting is virtual (so tempting to catch up on email) or designed in a sequential way (eg: presentation followed by comments or going round the table). Start by taking responsibility for your own participation. For example, contribute to creating a more interactive meeting by noting who is asking interesting questions and responding directly to them rather than to the front of the room. 
4. Whether to provide feedback. Communicate high expectations. Do a mental evaluation at the end of the meeting. Send off a quick email to the facilitator – thank him/her for what worked well; make constructive requests for future events as needed.

Practice being a great meeting participant! Join our next free webinar in our Designing Interactive Webinar series – How to Keep Participants Engaged. This webinar is truly an interactive learning experience during which we explore as a group how to design webinars and virtual meetings that keep participants on the edge of their seats. The next webinar is March 3, 8 am PST. Click here for the details and to register.

posted by Danuta McCall

And yet—I see more and more employees and managers recognizing the need to act as facilitators themselves, especially among geographically dispersed groups. Why? First of all, more people are asked to lead teams (whether project teams or “permanent” teams), without the requisite authority to make people participate, i.e., they have to learn how to persuasively influence others to cooperate, collaborate, communicate, etc. with no way to sanction them if they don’t. Second, competitive pressures dictate that teams need to crank out the results more quickly, with fewer costly missteps. A competent guide to help navigate through crucial conversations helps keeps teams on track, avoiding expensive derailments. Perhaps most important—especially for virtual teams—someone needs to spearhead efforts to help people cultivate the kind of trusting relationships that foster great collaboration. (We know that even when the stars are in perfect alignment, deep relationships don’t magically evolve out of nowhere!)

This team-leader-as-facilitator role requires special skills, competencies and tools that many leaders of traditional teams haven’t formally learned. (And many not even realize these skills are particularly important – unconscious incompetence at work!) For leaders who have grown used to seeing their wishes as other people’s commands, acting as team facilitator is a real stretch. The good news is that many of these skills can be learned and practiced by anyone who appreciates the need for facilitative leadership skills. (For those who still believe that a command-and-control mindset will motivate a group of people to put everything else aside and stand at attention, well that’s another matter.)

What are some of these facilitation skills that virtual team leaders need to practice to energize, motivate and inspire a group of geographically- dispersed people to think, act and work together as a team? Here are just a few:

• Articulating and asking insightful questions that demonstrate understanding and empathy (e.g., “Sarah, I have noticed that you have not been participating much on our team calls, and I am concerned that the team is not reaping the benefit of your experience. I am wondering what might be getting in the way of your participation.”)
• Actively listening to the responses, both what is said and what is not being said. It takes a special kind of antennae to decipher words and tones (as well as pauses and silence!) in the absence of any visual confirmation. This includes the ability to ask probing questions to get a deeper sense of meaning. (e.g., “Sounds like you’re totally overwhelmed with all of your priorities right now. What are your thoughts about how best to allocate your time?”)
• Paraphrasing and validating shared meaning, especially where a common understanding of an important issue is vital.  (E.g., “Joe, I want to make sure we understand the reasons you feel we need to change our deadline. May I summarize what I think you said? Great. Sounds like if we can’t complete our beta testing by the end of this week, then we risk launching an application that has a high risk of user error. Those errors can be measured in millions of dollars’ worth of business interruptions across the company. Is that right?”
• Understanding how cultural differences (national, functional, organizational, etc.) can act as a barrier to collaboration and planning meetings (and other team communications) accordingly. E.g., knowing how and when to use different collaboration tools to accommodate styles, preference and comfort levels of different cultures.
• Assessing when people have become disengaged, and knowing how to bring them back into the fold. E.g. understanding how to interpret lack of participation and making positive interventions that encourage and support participation, either 1:1 or as a whole team.

Whatever our official role, as our world grows ever smaller, more of us need to act as facilitators to guide important conversations across boundaries of all kinds – countries, time zones, organizations, functions, business entities, etc. There are many means by which leaders can acquire these skills: through books, articles, classes, shadowing others, buddying up with an experienced facilitator, or –if you’re brave—through trial and error. In any event, facilitating meaningful virtual conversations is a crucial skill any successful manager must have to succeed in today’s world.

posted by Nancy Settle-Murphy

This free webinar takes a slightly different twist in the ongoing exploration of how to design highly interactive webinars and virtual meetings that keep people engaged. One of the biggest challenges facilitators and trainers face is the effect of participants multi-tasking on the productivity and creativity of the group.  The first reaction is to think about how to STOP participants from multi-tasking so that they will focus on OUR agenda.  But in this age of 24/7 information access and communication, wouldn’t it make more sense to design in productive multi-tasking, for example contributing ideas or responding to questions at the same time as we listen to a presentation?  We call this Multi-tasking On Task. Register now for Friday December 17, our last webinar of the year.

Thank you, dear readers, for your comments and suggestions throughout the year. We look forward to posting more commentary and advice gleaned from our ever-challenging and fulfilling forays into the field of facilitating collaborative group process (isn’t alliteration fun?)  We hope your holidays are warm (a tall order in Detroit, for one), joyous and relaxing and that you approach the new year with great hope and optimism.  We need more of that these days.

On the one hand… Multi-tasking helps me respond to lots of little tasks and requests that arrive throughout the day while focusing on one main activity at a time. A quick response to an email or text message may be all that is needed to answer a client question or help a colleague. I might be at a natural pausing place when the message arrives or hardly notice the distraction because my action takes little thinking time. Since some of my work is being “on-call” when others need help or advice, it is natural for me to be working on another project, rather than sitting waiting for the phone to ring or an email to arrive.

On the other hand… There are often times when to be productive I need to work on a project without distraction, cut off from email, instant messaging and my phone(s). For me this is perhaps 45-60 minutes of focused effort to get ideas down, make a good start on a project or tackle a problem. Then I  find that getting up and out of my seat, reading something else, taking a quick diversion helps clear my mind, unstick my thinking and get me ready for another focused period of work.

In our discussions about virtual meetings and webinars the issue of multi-tasking participants is a common topic of concern. Mostly we are thinking about how to STOP participants multi-tasking, turning off potential distractions and focusing on OUR agendas. We also design in ways to USE multi-tasking as means to keep participants engaged – for example, adding comments, thinking about key questions or responding to quick survey questions at the same time as listening to a presentation. And ultimately, we never quite know when we have participants’ full attention and when we do not – we have to let go control at some point and allow participants to get as much out of the session as they choose to.

So the question I am left wondering is…

What is your real world experience of being plugged-in 24/7, with multiple ways of communicating and being reached by others? How do you see this impacting the projects that you work on and the people that you rely on? Is your business connected for productivity or wired for distraction?

We will use this topic as a kick-off to a conversation in the next event in our interactive webinar series. Please join me on December 17 - click for details.

Posted by Julia Young, Facilitate.com

In our workshops and webinars about leading virtual teams and getting great results from virtual meetings, we use the following schematic to discuss how to select virtual meeting technology to match the type of interaction we need.

Let’s apply this model to a virtual team scenario and see how it directs our technology choices. Rather than look for a single piece of technology that drives every part of our interaction we will select different tools that best support different outcomes or learning objectives.

Scenario: A half day team meeting is canceled due to slashed travel budgets. The distributed team of eight now needs to meet virtually to develop a value proposition for their department.

Meeting objective: To engage team members in deliberation about their group’s value to the organization in a way that will build team commitment and produce a value proposition to guide the team’s internal branding and strategic planning.

Process: Share the results of client interviews, summarize what we have heard and discuss the differences between how we see ourselves and how our clients see us. Explore the concept a value proposition and what it means to us. Brainstorm ideas for our value proposition; discuss and debate; come to consensus on a final value proposition statement (with voting if needed).

Format: Three short virtual meetings (< 1 hour) with time before and between to share information, think about what we have discussed and prepare some ideas to share with the team.

Technology choices matched to the types of interaction at each step of the process:

This examples illustrates how breaking up a virtual meeting into several segments, both real time and asynchronous, gets us thinking about using a variety of virtual meeting technologies to support a highly interactive process. In reality we would now want to look at the range of technology options and pick the best tools for supporting the types of interaction we need. The bottom line: if we start with our objectives, our technology choices support rather than drive the way we keep participants engaged.

Posted by Julia Young, Facilitate.com

Designing a focused meeting, whether in-house or virtual, and then keeping your participants fully engaged in productive conversation is always a challenge.  It becomes more challenging with a very large group.  Our solution is to combine appropriate technology and group process in a way that enables interaction. Working with Leap Solutions, we tested both our design principles and the iPad as a collaboration vehicle in a recent engagement with Johns Hopkins University. JHU brought together some 400 stakeholders (trustees, board members and active alumni) together in a “Volunteer Summit” to help envision the university’s role as a community member, global citizen, leader in the area of personalized medicine and institution of learning in the digital age.

Each of four concurrent discussion sessions focused on a single topic that would help define the Johns Hopkins of the future. The challenge was to find a way to engage close to one hundred people in intimate conversation with each other, generate and capture all the creative ideas and synthesize the major themes into a 5 minute presentation to the final assembly.   Here’s how we did it:

• The large group was divided into small tables of 8, each with a table facilitator and a recorder 
• An hour before the session, the recorders checked out an iPad and got a 10 minute orientation.  The iPad connected via the internet to an online agenda with a series of questions (the software used was FacilitatePro). The questions were designed to draw the group through a thinking process, starting with brainstorming and converging on key ideas.
• Each recorder captured the ideas of his/her group on an electronic flipchart via the iPad. They used color to identify ideas that evoked particular energy and enthusiasm.
• While the table groups were discussing, the 3 Deans assigned to each topic area were circulating the room with iPad in hand, reviewing all the ideas as they were posted.  This allowed them to start to recognize key themes, stop by a particular table to pose a clarifying question and reflect on what they were hearing. 
• At the end of the sessions, the Deans had all the information at hand to prepare a synopsis of the discussion, using specific ideas as illustrations of important themes.  These were captured on slides and presented after lunch in the closing assembly.

While a lot could have been accomplished simply by setting up small group discussions and scribing the old fashioned way, having the portability and connectivity of the iPads – and the  collaborative software to collect and then merge ideas – made the experience far richer. Participants left feeling their time was well spent and their voices heard.  The Deans were particularly enthused about the iPad allowing them to be active observers. Many commented that this was unlike any conference they had attended.

The iPad is a welcome addition to our portfolio of collaborative technology. How has it been used in your organization?

posted by Danuta McCall

I and my colleagues at Facilitate.com have been in the business of helping people run excellent meetings (initially face-to-face, and lately both virtual and asynchronous) for almost 20 years.  We have designed techniques, developed conceptual frameworks,  built models, written guidebooks.     But it was only recently, during the development of our latest training program Leading Collaborative Virtual Meetings and Teams that we really nailed down the “mission statement” of the virtual meeting facilitator.

As leaders or facilitators of virtual meetings, our goal is always to:

• Facilitate an engaging conversation around
• …a focused agenda
• …with only the necessary people
• …who are prepared to accomplish
• … a clear set of outcomes

Everything that we do and train others to do as meeting consultants cascades from this statement.  We emphasize the importance of engaging participants with interactive activities, creating opportunities for them to multi-task on task.   We talk about the importance of gathering data ahead of time, perhaps by interviewing key stakeholders or by putting out a survey to identify issues, to allow us to create a focused agenda.  We ask that meeting leaders think hard about who needs to take part in the meeting, and whether they need to participate for the entire time. We preach the value of pre-work as a way to prepare participants to be engaged and productive, to surface issues and to establish trust.  And before doing any of this, we insist that the meeting sponsor articulate clearly the objectives and outcomes of the meeting.

It took a lot of field work to gain the perspective to express this simple mission statement  – I hope you will find it easy to remember and, hopefully, inspiring as well.

posted by Danuta McCall