Not all situations are covered by cookbook agendas or avail a methodologist to help. The facilitator must develop their approach another way. Therefore, use the Single Question Approach to develop new questions that lead to a meeting method complete with a detailed agenda.

The Single Question Approach breaks down the big question that analyzes the primary problem by breaking it into detailed supporting questions. Focused questions provide groups with traction and are much easier to answer.

The Single Question Approach

Method for the Single Question Approach                      

The Questions          

What is the single question, the answer to which the group needs to know to accomplish its purpose?

Example:   A workshop to design a newsletter could begin with the single (and broad) question, “What is the content and format of this newsletter?”

Sub-Questions              

What sub-questions must be answered before we can answer the single question we just formulated? While preparing, talk to participants and find out what questions they suggest we answer during the meeting. Test your questions prior to the meeting for clarity, precision, and completeness.

Example:   Our newsletter workshop question can be answered when the following sub-questions are answered.

• Who is the newsletter audience?
• What is the purpose of the newsletter?
• What are their interests?
• Why would they read a newsletter?
• What do they already know?
• What do they want to know?
• Which media would they prefer?

Sequencing                  

Sequence them in an appropriate order—which needs to be answered first, second, and so on. Sequencing creates topical flow—facilitators lead with coherent agenda steps, not a laundry list of questions. The order is based on which answers help in answering subsequent questions.

Example:   For our newsletter, the questions might be answered in the following sequence.

1. What is the purpose of the newsletter?
2. Who is the newsletter audience?
3. Why would they read a newsletter?
4. What are their interests?
5. Do we know what they want to know?
6. What do they already know?
7. Which media would they prefer?

Organizing                   

Next group the questions. We could just leave them as is and step through the questions in this order, but it doesn’t clearly provide us with our deliverable. Participants think better when we categorize information to create natural breaks. Group the questions into a single, definable product at the end of each set of questions—or question.

Example:   In our newsletter example, we might have four key categories; Newsletter Purpose, Audience, Content, and Media.

• Question 1 defines the Newsletter’s Purpose.
• Questions 2 and 3 define the Audience.
• Questions 4, 5, and 6 define the Content.
• Question 7 defines the Media.

Agenda                       

 What are the best descriptors and sequence of the categories?

Example:  Our newsletter workshop simple agenda might be . . .

• Introduction
• Purpose of the newsletter
• Audience
• Content
• Media
• Review and Wrap up

Comments

• Advantages—Good if under time pressure and you need a 
quick agenda. Forces a decision. Include within other agendas.
• Disadvantages—Very difficult in conflict-ridden or very 
complex situations.

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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.

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Facilitation Expert

Terrence Metz, MBA, CSM, CSPF, PSP01, HTTO1, is the Managing Director of MG RUSH Facilitation Leadership, Training, and Meeting Design, an acknowledged leader in structured facilitation training, and author of “Meetings That Get Results – A Facilitator’s Guide to Building Better Meetings.” His FAST Facilitation Best Practices blog features nearly 300 articles on facilitation skills and tools aimed at helping others lead meetings that produce clear and actionable results. His clients include Agilists, Scrum teams, program and project managers, senior officers, and the business analyst community among numerous private and public companies and global corporations. As an undergraduate of Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and an MBA graduate from NWU’s Kellogg School of Management, his professional experience has focused on process improvement and product development. He continually aspires to make it easier for others to succeed.