Essential Facilitation®

Whether the setting is a corporate boardroom, an offsite conference room, or a community center, facilitation skills are essential for anyone who leads meetings and wants successful outcomes with maximum support.

Interaction Associates pioneered group facilitation over 30 years ago. We have shared our extensive experience with hundreds of organizations through the Essential Facilitation workshop.

Essential Facilitation® provides a solid framework and proven techniques for resolving conflicts, creating buy-in, and building lasting agreements – skills as valuable in everyday life as they are in business. Our methods have been used by hundreds of organizations to generate faster decisions, increase creativity and productivity, and shorten cycle times.

The Project Management Institute has approved this workshop for up to 24 PDUs for Project Management Professionals.

Who should attend

Anyone who leads groups, teams or meetings can benefit from learning facilitation skills. Participants may include:

• Project Managers
• Quality coordinators
• Internal consultants
• Trainers and teachers
• Change agents
• Group, team, or project leaders
• Team members
• Facilitators

Benefits for participants

The Essential Facilitation® workshop is a three-day, highly experiential workshop that provides a solid foundation of facilitation theory and practice. During the workshop participants will learn to:

• Keep discussions on track
• Design results-focused agendas, group processes, and implementation plans
• Design and conduct planning sessions and cross-functional team meetings
• Use a variety of strategies and tools to help groups make decisions more easily
• Leverage diverse points of view and communication styles
• Share ideas, responsibility, and success in a way that values everyone's contribution
• Model behaviors that help others improve group interaction

Benefits for the organization

Effective facilitators unlock the power of the individual and show groups how to reach their desired goals. As facilitation skills improve within the organization, employees become more creative and productive, and are able to seize opportunities for dramatic gains in performance.

How participants learn

Over three days, participants will have numerous opportunities to practice what they've learned, and they will be encouraged to focus on real-life issues facing their organizations for immediate application. With an average student-to-trainer ratio of 10 to 1, each participant receives video feedback, private coaching, and personal attention. If needed, groups are divided by experience level, so both novices and advanced facilitators can improve their performance.