Responsibilities of a Facilitator

Tom: Hi Dan, I heard that you are going to be facilitating a ideas generation meeting next week. Are you prepared?

Dan: I have a selection of techniques that I am going to use and I am quite familiar with them. I am a little unsure, however, about the responsibilities of a facilitator and in fact I don't even have a good definition of a facilitator. I am sure that it is something more than someone who turns up with a few tools and techniques to use at a meeting. Do you have any ideas?

Tom: I have always used the following as a general definition and responsibilities of a facilitator.

A facilitator is a person who has a role to enable other people to operate effectively in a group in order to arrive at a mutually satisfactory conclusion.

The job of the facilitator is to make it easy for others to conduct their business. The facilitator is essentially focused on enabling others to provide the best and most relevant contributions to the topic in hand and on ensuring an appropriate outcome. The facilitator ensures that group members use the most effective methods to accomplish tasks efficiently with adequate time to consider ideas and alternatives.

Responsibilities of a Facilitator

• remain neutral on content
• draw out participation
• ensure balanced participation
• encourage dialogue among participants
• provide structure and processes for group work
• listen actively and ask others to do the same
• encourage different points of view
• record, organize and summarize input from group members
• move group through stages of group decision making and concensus
• encourage the group to evaluate its own progress and development
• capitalize on differences among group members for the common good
• protect group members and their ideas from attack or from being ignored
• emphasize that the group is a reservoir of knowledge, experience and creativity and use facilitation skills to tap this resource

Good luck with the assignment.

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Project Terms of Reference

Tom: I hear that you started working on a new project Dan. How is it coming along?

Dan: It's still at a very early stage and I'm just really getting it off the ground. I've been putting some documentation together following the standards and guidelines that we use in this organization. I really seem to be creating a lot of documents. Are they all really necessary?

Tom: The documents that I would suggest are really quite minimal. Most project methodologies use many more documents than I would recommend and require you to rewrite or reinvent a lot of your work. With the framework we we use in this organization we evolve each of the documents so you never lose anything or have to rewrite anything. Remember, a document is simply a way of gathering together what people are thinking and saying. Without a place to record this our projects would be full of misunderstandings, ambiguities and errors.

Dan: In that case what document should I focus on at the beginning of a project?

Tom: Well after the initial Idea Sheet you should be starting to compile a Project Terms of Reference document. It is called many different names but what it does is provide a place for you to gather together all the initial thoughts about a project. Remember it will evolve.

Here are some notes on the Project Terms of Reference and what to include in it:


The Project Terms of Reference

The purpose of the document is to allow an informed decision on whether or not to start a project. If the project is not worthwhile, it stops immediately and the organization saves the time, money, and effort of starting a project, only to find later on that it is not viable. If the project is worthwhile the document acts as a baseline which is key to effective change management throughout the project. The project’s Sponsor or Project Board agree to more detailed project work by signing off this document. Key sections of the document include:

Background

• The business reasons for doing the project. May identify problems or difficulties, their effect on the organization, and the reason for doing something about them (or the impact of doing nothing).
• A statement of the current situation and key historical events, describing the context within which the project is to be done.
• References to pertinent people, places and events
• Cross-references to other work being done
• Cross-references to the business mission, vision and strategic objectives

Objectives

• A statement of what is expected to be achieved during the project.
• Multiple objectives should be listed separately in order of priority.
• The objectives should be: concise, unambiguous, relevant, measurable and realistic

Scope

• A specification of the boundaries within which the work is to be undertaken
• What processes, functions and operations the project will cover
• What areas the project will NOT cover
• What business areas, jobs and geographical locations will be affected

Constraints

• To describe any restrictions which could well influence the way in which the project is undertaken.
• Examples of constraints that may apply are:
• Timescales: When the assignment should be started and completed. Any critical dates, such as start of financial periods. Target dates for presentation and review of draft report.
• Budget: In man-days and cost.
• Resources: Availability of staff undertaking the project.
• Methods: Refers to standards or procedures that have to be followed
• Tools: May refer to tools which have to be used to implement or manage the project

Assumptions

• A list of all assumptions.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Project organizational structure
• Key roles and responsibilities (e.g. Sponsor, Project Manager)
• Use the VICARS Matrix

Key Deliverables

• This section describes the outputs from the project. These would normally be the physical outputs but could include 'changed state’ outputs (i.e. trained employees). Examples include: Project Terms of Reference, Microsoft Project Plan, Risk Register, Product Specifications, Organizational Structure and Job Descriptions.

I hope you find this useful Dan. Let me know if I can help with anything else.

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Low Cost / No Cost Recognition

Tom: Hi Dan. How is your project doing? Is it on schedule and are you controlling the budget?

Dan: Hi Tom. Yes, the projects going really well. In fact I would like to reward some of the team members for the great work they have been doing. The problem is that I do not really have any money in the budget to do anything expensive or elaborate. Do you have any ideas?

Tom: A couple of years ago I was doing a lot of work with a large international organization and they asked the same question. They were wanting to recognize their staff more often but did not have a huge budget to do it with. Over a period of several months and working with groups from all over the world we brainstormed and came up with the following list of what we called Low Cost / No Cost Recognition. Perhaps you'll find something in this list:

Low Cost / No Cost Recognition

• Give positive feedback to individuals at a team meeting
• Organize a team lunch or dinner
• Company branded T-shirts, bags, baseball caps
• Project branded T-shirts
• Article in the local newsletter, including photograph
• Presentation to the senior Management Team or Project Board
• Flowers/gift sent to home address either to the employee or the partner of the employee
• Offer dinner for employee and partner
• Gift vouchers
• Letter or message from higher management thanking them for their efforts on a project
• Breakfast at the office with the team
• Long weekend away with partner
• Visit to another business unit
• Small presents - pen, key-ring, travel bags, briefcase, etc.
• Send to a conference or seminar
• Visit to another company in the form of benchmarking
  
• Write article for a professional journal
• Peer to peer award (coffee and donut coupon)
• Breakfast meeting with senior management
• Team photograph
• Team outings - bowling, beer and pizza, etc.
• Team building / development day - this should have some substance and be linked to the workplace
  
• Celebration cake
• Free tickets to local sporting events
• Team presentation to external visitors
• Send on a training course
• Family visit on site
• Announcement in company magazine
• Free gourmet food hamper
• Employee of the Week award
• Thank-you letter to home (so they can share with partner)
• Special assignment (i.e. investigate use of new software tool)
• A day or half-day or a couple of hours off work - this is probably the best received recognition
  
• Flowers to spouse for inconvenience if employee has been doing a lot of overtime
  
• Write article for internal newsletter
• Time off for charity or community work
• Ask to take on a new challenge
• Given the opportunity to speak about your work at a professional conference
• Given the opportunity to learn a new skill

I am sure all of these would not be suitable for every team or company but they may give you some ideas.

Good luck and best wishes to your team.

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