CPS has delivered Flawless
Facilitation relating to…
Healthcare
Automotive
Manufacturing
Finance
Sales
Engineering
Production Control
Payroll
Procurement
Marketing
Leasing
Bill of Material
Stamping plants
Logistics
Facilitation Facts:
"Groups become great only when everyone in them, leaders and members alike, is free to do his or her absolute best." (Warren Bennis)
"Joining together to get work done requires trust and relationships, as well as process and information". (Suzanne Morse)
What is Facilitation and Why Should You Care?
Facilitation is defined as “the act of assisting or making easier the progress or improvement of something.” A facilitator is one who assists in making progress easier. Facilitators are critical to the success of process improvement and other teams. They can assist the team in developing their mission, vision and objectives and also in developing an effective strategy for meeting these objectives. Facilitators also help the team deal with conflict, reach consensus and get the through the “Forming”, “Storming”, “Norming” and “Performing” phases of team development.
How Facilitation Helps…
According to Facilitation at a Glance by Ingrid Bens, M. ED, here are some of the key ways a facilitator can provide assistance:
Helping the group define its overall goal, as well as its specific objectives
Helping members assess their needs and create plans to meet them
Providing processes that help members use their time efficiently to make high-quality decisions
Guiding group discussion to keep it on track
Making accurate notes that reflect the ideas of members
Helping the group understand its own processes in order to work more effectively
Making sure that assumptions are surfaced and tested
Supporting members in assessing their current skills, as well as building new skills
Using consensus to help a group make decisions that take all members’ opinions into account
Supporting members in managing their own interpersonal dynamics
Practical Real-world Use of Facilitators:
To assist with developing a vision, mission and scope of your process or business
To assist in developing the business plans, goals, objectives and strategies
To assist in leading a Strategic Plan or a Strategic Enterprise Analysis (SEA)
To lead the design of a new process or system (i.e. Joint Application Development (JAD))
To lead a company’s town hall, team building, convention or other types of group sessions (i.e. focus groups, Agile, Scrum)
To assist with executive & management training or meetings
To train your staff in the art of facilitation (knowledge transfer)
A very popular use of a facilitator is in leading a business process redesign:
review the current process
identify the key problems
prioritize the issues
analyze the current process
determine the root causes
brainstorm solutions
map the future process
develop an action plan
implement the solutions
In our classes and workshops, we introduce you to many fun, yet useful facilitative techniques such as:
1. Brainstorming
2. Brain-writing
3. Focus Group
4. Joint Application Development (JAD)
5. Gap Analysis
6. Root-Cause Analysis
7. Force Field Analysis
8. Multi-voting
9. Criteria-Based Grid
10. Impact / Effort Grid
We help you sharpen and significantly improve your application of needed facilitative practices such as:
Facilitative Consulting
Our professional, certified and qualified consultants can provide expert facilitation of any of the types of sessions mentioned above.
Facilitation Boot-camp / Certification
We design fun, but very comprehensive workshops to teach you everything you need to not only be successful, but to master the art of facilitation. We focus on all the practices and techniques mentioned above, as well as:
Pre-session planning
Pre-session preparation
Conducting a sponsor’s meeting
Creating the facilitator’s scenarios
Problem solving and any other tools
Developing a “Plan A, B, and C”!
Our Top 25 Tips for Guaranteed Facilitative Success!
Facilitation Classes – Our facilitation classes vary from 2 days, introducing the fundamentals of facilitation (Facilitation Techniques for Requirements Development) to 4 days, combining requirements elicitation and process / workflow modeling with facilitation.
Organizational Customization
We can develop and customize client-specific facilitative sessions based on any of the scenarios mentioned above or per your request.
Please contact us at (248) 352-9917 to learn more about our popular facilitation services and classes.
