Event review: Facilitation Uncovered

SLA Europe DigiComms

SLA Europe started a new program recently and hosts a series of events aimed at the Information Professional. These events range across diverse subjects, and the latest event topic was Facilitation.

As part of SLA’s ongoing commitment to the personal and professional development of their members, these events are offered free to SLA members and are also offered for a small fee to non-members.

These events are aimed at people in every stage of their professional career. You may be a newbie, someone who is in the middle of their career or someone who has longevity as an InfoPro and just needs a refresher. These events tick the right boxes for many who want to continue to learn and they are a worthwhile way to spend an early evening and network with the attendees afterwards. Some of our SLA members are independent consultants and they turned up for this event.

I attended this event because it was relevant to my current employment and I felt I needed a bit of a refresher for my new role.

So – Facilitation. As a trainer and teacher in a former life, I know the concept, but whether I was up-to-date with the subject was another matter, and I didn’t feel that confident with the topic, having done no serious training with groups for a while.  Our host Linda Cockburn began by asking us to introduce ourselves to each other – which was important because we had non-members in attendance and we didn’t know each other. Linda then split us into groups and gave us a pop-up board to put ideas onto about the types of facilitation issues we all had.

It was interesting to see the differences and the similarities that were posted and gave us good grounding for later discussions.

Linda talked at length about the ways that we can keep our sessions under control and obtain good results; she said the Facilitator is the only person who cares how the group is going to achieve their goal.

We learned some hot Facilitator tips:

  • Welcome people in the first instance as the host
  • Praise people even if they are negative
  • Enable people to have a contribution
  • Get others to speak
  • Stop arguments
  • Enable trust; don’t pick on people
  • Don’t use too much technical jargon
  • Limit expectations
  • Prepare, prepare, prepare – planning is key
  • Split people into small groups; the dominant people can’t dominate if you do this
  • Be open if you make a mistake
  • Know your role
  • Stay neutral; YOU are the facilitator
  • You have an outcome in mind
  • When there is uncertainty, groups are key
  • The Facilitator is the only person who cares about how the group reach their goal
  • The Facilitator reminds people of what the end point is supposed to be
  • The Facilitator is not wholly responsible for the outcome

This was followed on by a question/answer and discussion session, some of which centered around working with the student community. The information imparted to us was relevant across many working scenarios and was highly valuable to the attendees.

After learning so much we were also given three detailed handouts to take with us that reinforced what we had learned that evening. They were very detailed, and although some of it is plain common sense, I have kept my notes at work to look at them before I train groups of people.

It was an event that was worth my time and attendance. I’d also like to extend my thanks to Perfect Information for the happily received refreshments.

If you’d like more information about SLA Europe’s events, please check our event listings.

Jane Ray, SLA Europe Events Committee

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