Facilitation

How to facilitate a good DeliverCon Session

Thank you for facilitating a session at DeliverCon: YOU ARE AWESOME 👏

You have offered to help others have a good session and that’s really appreciated.

• We trust you, you’ll make the best decisions you can to help the session.
• You are not there to make notes, before the conversation starts insure you have a volunteer notetaker.
• You are not expected to have knowledge of the topic, and you can also participate in the discussions.
• You are there to help the group start and to help people have a voice during the discussion if needed.

It’s not likely, but you may also have to remind a group about the code of conduct. You can also hint at this if needed by saying things like:

• “Remember to think of each other in this session. Please give time and room for others to speak, they may not be as confident as you.”
• “Delivercon is about giving all members of our community a voice”

Remember: You don’t have to do anything you are not comfortable with,you have support from the organisers if you need it. They will be wearing a [insert colour here] lanyard, or you can call text them on 07919 691980

Facilitation/guide ideas:

These are all suggestions. There is no right / wrong way to do things and we encourage you to use any techniques that you are comfortable with, or try new ones if you want to experiment!

Below are just a few common situations where facilitation can really help the group, with some suggestions on how you might tackle them.

Getting started

Ask the group if the person who pitched can explain the pitch and start the discussion.

If that person is not there, ask the group if someone would like to share what about the pitch made them attend this session.

Involving everyone

You may find that a few people dominate the conversation or that the conversation goes quiet. You could try:

• “Would anyone else like to share?” (if things stall and silence doesn’t work)
• “Does anyone who has not spoken have something to say?” (To help others participate)

Turn taking

Before the conversation starts is can be useful to agree how participants signal they want to contribute.

Maybe your group suggests they want to raise their hands to talk, or maybe they want to go around the room. Either way you might need to help out and call out who is next.

If you have a larger group you might want to suggest breaking them into smaller groups to discuss and then leave time at the end for each group to feedback and reflect on what they and others discussed.

Stuck on the topic

If a group is really stuck then you might suggest they look at the discussion as an anti-problem. Sometimes understanding what bad or negative looks likehelps a positive conversation emerge.EG:

• “Instead of looking for improvements, how could our community make this really bad?" Followed up with
• “OK we now have several bad things, that we don’t want - are things currently like that? How could we improve?”

Most importantly: Don’t feel you have to fill every gap in the conversation