#3 Five Common Pitfalls of Workshop Facilitation
And how to manage them
In the last issue we discussed five essential elements of successful workshop facilitation and how to start including them in your work. Today we’re coming from the other angle; five things you can watch out for and how to avert them if they happen to you.
Good preparation should help you avoid most of these challenges, but they happen to the best of us. I’ve added some mitigation techniques that you can apply in the moment to each pitfall.
Don’t panic when things deviate from the plan.
As a facilitator, it’s essential to have a plan for your workshop; as is often said: fail to plan, and you plan to fail. However, it’s also important to remember that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Both of these things are true (as well as cheesy).
In every workshop, things will change, and that’s okay! The key is to stay professional, deal with the changes, and manage them effectively. You can deal with some changes, like running over time on a particular exercise, behind the scenes. Other, much bigger things, like identifying you have the wrong people in the room, need the team’s buy-in to change.
How to manage it
The critical thing to remember is that this will happen. When it does, take a breath, and consider your options.
Time is an illusion. I avoid using a collaborator-facing timer when working with a small group (less than twenty people). Instead, I set clear expectations and use regular verbal time-checks to keep the session on track. This approach allows me to adjust the session length as needed: wrapping up a struggling exercise early or extending it to let an interesting conversation play out.
When significant, foundational things change, having a very clearly defined intent (see issue #2) will save you. It’s time to call a coffee break and revisit that intent with your sponsor or key stakeholder. Understand if it is still relevant and achievable, and review your route there. Always address this as soon as possible. The longer you have to create value, the better.
Don’t Let Someone Take Over
You’ve put a lot of effort into planning and facilitating this workshop, so don’t let anyone take the reins away from you at this pivotal moment. As the facilitator, you know the journey you’re taking people on and must maintain that vision.
Usually, people try to take over because they fear not getting the answers they need or want from a session. This can happen at any stage but becomes increasingly likely as you move towards the end of the day, and the collaborator can see their opportunity to speak slipping through their fingers.
How to manage it
Conclude conversations using an “Idea bank”, a sheet of paper on a wall with things that need to be taken forward to other meetings or workshops. Promise you’ll return to them if an appropriate time presents itself (and do if you can!). Ensure the ideas bank is captured in your write-up.
Regularly point people to your workshop intent, and ask if they feel you’re moving towards it through their actions.
Give the collaborator a soapbox for a specific period of time. Consider taking several 3-minute opinions from the room and asking them to go first (but be strict with timing).
Don’t Assume You’ll Remember Everything
Many more conversations will happen during a workshop than you can listen to. It’s crucial to capture everything and write it down. Ensure that every exercise is designed to be captured. I’d always encourage capture rather than recording simply because going back through the audio of a workshop gives me the fear! Encourage everyone to participate in the writing of capture, and make sure the handwriting is discernible. Do a walk-around at the end to ensure you capture all the key insights. Anything that isn’t captured is lost; Don’t let the next big idea drift off into the ether!
How to manage it
If you notice a group isn’t capturing their conversation, you can assign someone there to capture the conversation rather than allowing people to self-nominate. If you’re lucky enough to have a co-facilitator, you can assign them as the note taker for one team, should they refuse to pick up the pen.
I often warn teams that I’ll ask them to take 60 seconds and summarise their conversation to the room after each exercise. Usually, in the interest of time, I’ll only ask 2 or 3 randomly chosen groups to do this each time. Still, it creates an immediate impetus (and also a peer pressure one) to capture and report their conversations. I’ll record videos of these reporting sessions on my phone.
Ensure you have a debrief with co-facilitators or project sponsors as soon after the session as possible. Usually, this is right away, with a celebratory cup of tea, looking over a sea of screwed-up pieces of paper whilst you strip post-its from the walls. Record this conversation. Cover each activity and gather other people’s recollections and views.
Don’t Give Space for Distraction
Distractions break the flow and energy of a workshop, so it’s essential to create an environment that minimises them. Remove electronics from tables, change the seating arrangement to clicks as best you can, and have breakout spaces with tables for group work and an open auditorium for discussion.
I always tell collaborators they will get a 45-minute lunch and a morning and afternoon break. I will guarantee the time of lunch only. These are sacrosanct and mean collaborators can organise lunch calls and manage their inbox fires during breaks.
Ahead of time, it’s important to set the expectation of what level of attention you’ll require from your collaborators.
How to manage it
Deliver your promises in each session to secure goodwill and attention.
Keep exercises short and sharp in small groups in virtual environments to minimise distractions.
Talk to people offline, during coffee or through instant messaging, and remind them of the value they can bring to the session. Ask them specifically to reengage, lest you fear the group missing their crucial input.
When energy is low, call a break. Get caffeine and sugar into your collaborators, and then continue.
Don’t Forget About Next
There will be an “afterwards” when you've got to make what was discussed real.
Don't forget to include this time in your project plan, whether you've got a 60-minute retro or a five-day effort. Remember that what your collaborators leave for you in the facilitation room will not be presentation ready. Your job includes bringing everything created together into something coherent, something that every collaborator can see themselves reflected in and something that other people can use to make change happen.
How to manage it
Recording a walkthrough of all the outputs as a video at the end of the session is the best lo-fi shareable asset. If you have no more time, this will tell stakeholders more than a collection of photos ever could.
Next photograph everything at least twice. It used to be that we'd lug a big DSLR around the world to sessions, but luckily, now you can just do it on your phone. So take a photo of every piece of paper in a logical order and that'll create a session timeline.
Finally, use your agenda as a storyboard, write bullet points of each outcome and include photos of each stage. Those are your lowest fi ways of sharing the outcomes of a workshop.
And we’re done!
By identifying these five things in your sessions and dealing with them early, you’ll be on your way to facilitating successful workshops. Remember to stay confident, maintain control, capture everything, minimise distractions, and don’t forget about next.
Until next time, Happy facilitating!