by Facilitation Expert | May 3, 2022 | Communication Skills, Leadership Skills, Meeting Structure
Whether you’re facilitating a complex meeting or a daily standup, if your meeting participants don’t trust you (or your methods), they will not trust the meeting results.
Robin Dreeke, of People Formula, led the FBI’s Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program. Tips in his book[1], “It’s Not All About Me: The Top Ten Techniques for Building Quick Rapport with Anyone” speak loud and clear to professional facilitators. Below, we’ll examine a few of his recommended techniques for building trust.
Know What Done Looks Like
“The first step in the process of developing great rapport and having great conversations is letting the other person know that there is an end in sight, and it is really close.”
Whether you come from an Agile mindset or waterfall background, leadership begins with a line of site. You must know where you are going. When you don’t, everyone senses that you are groping and lost. Trust begins with the willingness to follow a leader who knows where they are going.
Become Non-verbally Appealing
“When you walk into a room with a bunch of strangers, are you naturally drawn to those who look angry and upset or those with smiles and laughing? Smiling is the number one nonverbal technique you should utilize to look more accommodating.”
Trust should not be assumed, but it can be earned. Your non-verbal and para-verbal signaling is more important than word choice if you want to build trust. You can’t say one thing but display something else. In addition to human connection methods such as empathy, seeking to understand, and avoiding judgments, consider the following:
-
- Tilt your head a bit to the side so you don’t run the risk of looking straight down on people.
- Stand at an angle or a bit to the side and avoid being ‘front and center’ too much. You want to give people visual access to the front and center, whether it’s an easel, screen, or whiteboard. We call this area W.I.P. or the work-in-progress area. When that work is finished, move it to the side for the next content that belongs front and center, not you.
- And of course, smile (sincerely).
Slower Rate of Speech
Research has shown that rapidly speaking in certain situations can increase credibility and even make you sound more intelligent. The goal, however, when meeting new people is to make them feel comfortable. To accomplish this we are better off speaking slower than normal and pausing at times to give people space to absorb what we are saying.
Educators understand Cognitive Load Theory suggesting that any learning experience has three components: 1. Intrinsic load, 2. Germane load, and 3. Extraneous load. Of course, if I say much more on this topic, you will rightfully accuse me of causing cognitive overload. Therefore, if you want more on this topic, I recommend “Effective Education Videos” (I know, ironic eh — an article on videos).
Put on Your Sweater (Hide Rank)
Putting your ego aside and focusing solely on the wants, needs, and opinions of people around you isn’t always easy. But being non-judgmental builds trust.
According to Robin Dreeke, “People who allow others to continue talking without taking their own turn are generally regarded as the best conversationalists.”
Facilitate each topic as a learning opportunity. Seek out the stories of others. Remind yourself that good things happen when we prioritize our two ears over our ego.
Listening Builds Trust
Listening skills build trust quickly, so learn to put your own agenda on hold. We all have agendas. The key to building trust with people, however, is to put our own wants, needs, dreams, and opinions on hold to better learn about the person we are speaking with. After all, the most valuable people take the time to understand what other people value.
As Robin Dreeke says — “When the focus is on the other person and we’re not anxious to tell our own story, we also tend to remember the details. We’re mindful.”
Thoughtfulness
Thoughtfulness doesn’t have to be a big thing. Little gestures like offering a participant who is coughing a cup of water, a mint, a tissue, or even hand sanitizer can go a long way in building trust and rapport.
Questioning
“Once the individual being targeted supplies more words and thoughts, a great (facilitator) will utilize the content given and continue to ask open-ended questions about the same content.”
Focus Builds Trust
According to Robin Dreeke, one of the most reliable trust-builders is our “focus.” After all, as human beings, we frequently prefer different things. One thing we have in common is that we love to know that our voice is being heard and we are truly seen.
Below are five Best Practices articles that reinforce the basis of trust and support the topics we spoke of above.
Remember, nobody is smarter than everybody.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
[1] Adapted from “According to an FBI Behavior Expert, These 10 Techniques Quickly Build Trust with Anyone, by Michael Thompson, Personal Growth, Medium
______
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.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
Go to the Facilitation Training Store to access proven, in-house resources, including fully annotated agendas, break timers, and templates. Finally, take a few seconds to buy us a cup of coffee and please SHARE with others.
In conclusion, we dare you to embrace the will, wisdom, and activities that amplify a facilitative leader. #facilitationtraining #MEETING DESIGN
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
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.
by Facilitation Expert | Apr 7, 2022 | Communication Skills, Facilitation Skills, Leadership Skills, Meeting Support
In “Executive Presence: The Missing Link Between Merit and Success,” Sylvia Ann Hewlett affirms that executive presence is “an amalgam of qualities that telegraphs that you are in charge or deserve to be.”
Fortunately, you don’t need to be born with executive presence. Although, you can find many of the same traits among effective facilitators—traits you can learn and strengthen.
Therefore, the following article explains executive presence and then provides five tips on how to improve your executive presence.
Executive Presence and Facilitation
Dr. Amy Cuddy’s research indicates that executive presence can be calculated. Indeed, her formula suggests that executive presence is a function of Credibility PLUS Ease DIVIDED BY Ego. Significantly, note in the equation below, a very remarkable way to increase executive presence is to reduce the ego. Chiefly, for facilitators and most leaders, that means avoiding the first person singular, “I” or “me.”
Defined: Executive Presence
In our complex, fast-paced world, it is vital to be noticed, heard, and trusted. Executive presence is the ability to radiate a sense of poise, confidence, decisiveness, and dignity. Similarly, executive presence derives from being authentic, building confidence in others, and inspiring others to take meaningful action. Therefore, Executive presence represents a persona that lets everyone around the person know that they are in charge, confident, and capable of leading others. Hewlett claims that executive presence develops from combining three factors:
- Gravitas (how you act)
- Communication (how you speak)
- Appearance (how you look)
When combined, they can make leaders and facilitators the galvanizing force of an organization. Subsequently, employees demonstrating these executive presence skills are often “fast-tracked” or found in leadership positions.
The Characteristics of Executive Presence
When you think of leaders you genuinely admire, most likely they exhibit traits and talents, such as…
- A talent for “painting” a clear vision
- Speaking in such a way that naturally attracts people
- Teaching others how to think: how to plan, how to prioritize, and how to solve problems
- They tell great stories
- They work calmly in high-stress situations
Each of the three sources found in the footnotes has its description of characteristics. Consequently, we’ll show you all of them in the following table and then combine their definitions, as appropriate.
The Characteristics of Executive Presence
| Nine Dimensions |
Eight Traits |
Eleven Factors (Cuddy) |
| Personal |
Character |
Credibility |
| • Passion |
Charisma |
• Foundational: integrity, expertise, preparation |
| • Poise |
Command |
• Inflection patterns |
| • Self-confidence |
Composure |
• Speed of speech or using pauses |
| Communicative |
Conciseness |
• Vocal power and resonance |
| • Candor – communicative |
Confidence |
• Qualifiers, fillers, or “diminishers” |
| • Clarity – communicative |
Connection |
• Props or fidgets |
| • Openness – communicative |
Credibility |
Ease |
| Relational |
|
• Foundational: diet, sleep, exercise |
| • Thoughtfulness |
|
• Stability: grace under fire |
| • Sincerity |
|
• Congruence: external or internal |
| • Warmth |
|
• Connection with others |
|
|
• Authenticity: the ease of self-assurance |
Dimensions of Executive Presence
The following, while not exhaustive, provides ample explanation for understanding the dimensions, traits, or factors of executive presence.
Candor or Credibility
Credibility refers to the language and resources that you use when providing information or direction. It also includes the methods by which you gather information and credit sources. People listen to an executive because of their powerful communication methods and because they believe they’re qualified to present the information. Being interested in truth and honesty, a willingness to accept and engage the organization’s environment as it is, not as you would like it to be.
Clarity or Conciseness
If you can’t articulate it clearly, then you are not ready to communicate it to others. Conciseness includes the ability to present all necessary details without overwhelming others. When possible, create your story and tell it in an intuitively clear and compelling way.
Openness or Character
Character refers to inner traits and values. Those with executive presence often have high emotional intelligence, helping them connect with the organization at all levels. Character also includes ethics and morals and how they influence your work. The willingness to remain neutral and consider other points of view without prejudging them.
Passion or Command
You convince others of your commitment to what you are saying and doing through expression, motivation, drive, and engagement. Your facial expression must match your message when your voice modulates pitch, volume, and pace. Ensure you only speak when making eye contact and manage your eye focus appropriately when communicating with more than one person.
Poise or Composure
An ability to control your emotions, recognize emotions in others and manage your response to them. Composure comprises self-awareness and the ability to present yourself in a disciplined yet engaging manner. A look of sophistication and unflappability that creates the impression you are comfortable in your surroundings and able to handle adversity.
Self-Confidence
Communicate confidence both in what you say and how you say it. Look the part. Choose your wardrobe and accessories carefully. There are many factors to confidence, including nonverbal communication skills and consistency among mannerisms when communicating with team members. An air of optimism and assurance that convinces others you have the required strength, resources, and resolve to initiate and to lead.
Sincerity or Credibility
Filler language such as “um,” “uh,” and “so” immediately detract from executive presence. As do minimizers like “just,” “sort of,” and “this may not be a good idea but…” When someone with a strong executive presence speaks, there is no doubt about the conviction behind their words and the thoughts driving them.
Thoughtfulness or Connection
Connection refers to the interpersonal skills you use to develop professional relationships and encourage productivity. Skills that foster teamwork and include the ability to adapt to new work styles while promoting effective communication.
Warmth or Charisma
You develop warmth through active listening skills. The people you are communicating with need to know your focus is on them. They matter to you. Charisma represents an ability to engage others and encourage them to trust and rely on you. It relies on powerful communication skills, both verbal and nonverbal. Charisma includes the ability to narrow focus to a single situation and how it affects the goals of the organization. It encourages others to interact with you because you have become accessible to others, physically and emotionally.
The contributing factors above have little to do with the content. Instead, they focus on how you package content, question, or challenge it, and explain it through a story. A picture is worth a thousand words, a metaphor is worth a thousand pictures, and a story is worth a thousand metaphors.
FIVE TIPS FOR EXPERT FACILITATION
-
Communicate to Understand and Connect — Reflect the ‘Why’ behind the ‘What.’
Talking is only one part of the communication process. Decision-makers above you will take more notice of your listening skills. Usually, there is more than one right answer, and a good listener develops insight as to the conditions to support various outcomes. Executive presence demands that you control your emotions, sense emotions in others, and facilitate their understanding. Then manage their response. Since they need to own the answer, be open to feedback, engage in interactive communication, and with active listening, reflect the ‘WHY’ behind the ‘WHAT.’
-
Display Quiet Confidence with a Sense of Light-heartedness — It’s NOT thinking less about yourself, it’s thinking about yourself less often.
Be authentically “in the moment.” Welcome witticisms from others. Develop the ability to laugh at yourself. Light-heartedness is the universal language of leadership and confidence. Capturing your audience is not solely about charisma or extroversion. To some, charisma can even reflect a superficial, non-trustworthy characteristic. True confidence comes with undertones of humility. You don’t have to have the answer. You need a method or procedure to lead. It’s NOT thinking less about yourself, it’s thinking about yourself less often.
-
Emanate Conviction and Integrity — When you are honest about their flaws, you become more relatable and trustworthy.
Believe in what you’re saying. Stand, gesture, and move with energy and intention. Avoid body language that says, “I’m nervous” such as a furrowed brow. People trust those who do what they say they will do. They respect others who stand by their convictions and whose values cannot be shaken because they are deeply committed to doing the right thing for the right reason. People are drawn to those with executive presence because they are genuine. When you are honest about their flaws, you become more relatable and trustworthy.
-
Stress ‘WHY’ Before ‘WHAT’ — If the ‘WHY’ is critically important to them, people become self-inspired.
Strategic thinking reflects how all the pieces in an organization are interdependent. Lead others with strategic questions. Focus on why and not who, what, or how. People with executive presence make it a practice to listen, observe, collect, and assess information. When you start your communication with a strong ‘WHY,’ you engage your participants based on their wallet share. If that ‘WHY’ is important to everyone, you should come across as passionate. If the ‘WHY’ is critically important to them, they become self-inspired.
-
Summarize and Apply Powerful Pauses — Take a breath, make eye contact, and be comfortable with the silence.
Use questions to drive consensual understanding. Then give their input a moment to ‘sink in’ before moving on. Take a breath, make eye contact, and be comfortable with the silence. Silence positions you as thoughtful and measured. Then vary your voice with your volume, pacing, pitch, inflection, pausing, and tone to stress inflection points. A lower, rather than higher, pitch connotes authority and expertise. Speaking too quickly reveals nervousness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
While there are hundreds of articles on the topic and the importance of executive presence, here are a few either referenced above or that we found helpful:
- https://www.harperbusiness.com/book/9780062246899/Executive-Presence-Sylvia-Ann-Hewlett/
- https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_may_shape_who_you_are
- https://www.selfleadership.com/blog/executive-presence-definition-strategy
- https://www.executivepresence.com/what-is-executive-presence
- https://www.inscapeconsulting.com/
- https://www.corporateclassinc.com/what-is-executive-presence-training/
- https://booherresearch.com/top-10-tips-to-increase-your-executive-presence-and-expand-your-influence/
- https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/executive-presence
______
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.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
Go to the Facilitation Training Store to access proven, in-house resources, including fully annotated agendas, break timers, and templates. Finally, take a few seconds to buy us a cup of coffee and please SHARE with others.
In conclusion, we dare you to embrace the will, wisdom, and activities that amplify a facilitative leader. #facilitationtraining #MEETING DESIGN
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
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.
by Facilitation Expert | Mar 3, 2022 | Analysis Methods, Meeting Structure, Problem Solving
The purpose of this article is to help you manage and facilitate the transformation of the abstract (sourcing innovative ideas) into the concrete (managing new product concepts).
We hope you beg, borrow, steal, and modify heavily from our technique called Product Concept Management (PCM or Catalyst). Whereas this is the third of three connecting articles, remember to see (1 of 3) and (2 of 3).
Catalyst describes our method for clarifying the “fuzzy front-end” in product development. Meanwhile, the “fuzzy front-end” represents the time and space between a thought (e.g., problem or solution) and the decision to act by first converting the thought into a concrete concept. For your questions or suggestions, please contact us at +01 (630) 954-5880 or by email at info@mgrushfacilitation.com.
Sourcing Ideas
MANAGING CONCEPTS DEPENDS ON QUALIFYING INNOVATIVE IDEAS
Managing innovative ideas relies on one primary task: qualifying innovative ideas As explained in our last article Converting Raw Product Ideas into Polished Product Concepts (2 of 3), managing concepts means improving the certainty of ideas. We do this by adding information to the description of the idea and the pains it cures. Now we more fully explain the skills supporting four primary activities to QUALIFY innovative ideas:
SKILLS REQUIRED
The qualifying activity requires a broad set of skills to interpret product descriptions, envision them being applied in the market, comprehend market structure (distribution, competition, customer segments), and reasonably assess new product idea revenues and profit-generating potential. Since no one person may have the required talents or time to do everything, Catalyst workshops provide a wonderful opportunity for qualifying innovative ideas.
The qualifier role, fulfilled by a single individual or a team, also identifies resources that are needed to complete the idea qualification. Resources may include production and technical experts, engineers, scientists, economists, sales managers, lobbyists, regulation experts, and experts in customers and competitors.
Summary of Qualifying Skills
Qualifying Skills
Reminder about Sourcing Innovative Ideas and Managing Concepts
A fully qualified and complex product concept exceeds one descriptive sentence. The first QUALIFYING task reviews the idea for a minimal description, typically provided by the idea Author. To us, a comprehensive concept might also answer dozens of questions, such as:
A Raw Product Idea Transformed into a Manageable Product Concept with a Checklist of Issues
Technical/Physical Description
Describe the “need” (or “pain”) as a problem, want, or “hankering.” ABCs . . .
A. Ambition Size the opportunity in currency and units/volume
B. Benefits What are the benefits of the product to the buyer/customer? (Economic, emotional, . . .)
C. Choices What are the customer’s/user’s other options to solve the problem, satisfy the need or want, or achieve the improvement? Why? When, where, and how was the idea conceived?
Qualification Checklist
QUALIFYING enhances the character of a new product idea, enabling assessment and further development by adding information to the description of the idea. QUALIFYING also evaluates the idea for commercial potential and technical feasibility. A comprehensive Product Concept (qualified idea) resembles a business case.
SOURCING INNOVATIVE IDEAS
SOURCING innovative ideas requires one primary activity: discovering innovative ideas, and involves several supporting activities. The other activities support retrieval, including storing ideas and providing coaching, feedback, and incentives to idea authors. DISCOVERING innovative ideas depends on structuring a network of sources that feed raw or fragmented product ideas to our PCM technique.
MODES OF DISCOVERY
Continuous (Steady-State) Discovery
We advocate the design of a steady-state discovery apparatus to provide a continuous flow of ideas into Catalyst.
Based on understanding portfolio priorities, targeted markets, and technology priorities, the organization should structure information gathering, invention, and analysis activities to align with their future direction and constraints (available resources). Preferred sources of information might include:
- Channel members
- Competitors
- Customers
- Prospective customers
- Suppliers
Other sources include:
- Analogous markets (surrogate channels and suppliers)
- Experts in government and regulatory affairs
- Experts in specific technical and commercial subjects
Discrete (Singular) Discovery
Sometimes the need develops to seek innovative ideas through singular activities. Singular discoveries do not depend on regular, continuous activities. Discrete activities are similar to steady-state activities but differ in intensity, resource commitment, method, and results. Sources of information in discrete discovery activities are identical to the steady-state mode listed above.
DESIGN OF CONTINUOUS (STEADY-STATE) DISCOVERY
The principal characteristic of continuous DISCOVERY is the identification, training, equipping, and continual communication of resources involved in information gathering, analysis, and ideation.
Building The Network
Designing steady-state DISCOVERY requires identifying, prioritizing, and selecting network sources that can be accessed continuously. The option of actively seeking innovative ideas through intensive problem discovery, solution discovery, and other creative approaches already exists in most organizations – by way of existing customer-facing and other technically oriented resources.
We recommend a role-based network. Primary advantages when constructing a network include:
- Leverages existing reporting and support structures (such as IT for global access; contact between author and development, etc.).
- Leverages resources that are likely most qualified to establish communications between authors and their idea source (e.g., between a salesperson and customer).
- Uses existing resources, logistically positioned to minimize cost and responsiveness to local situations (improves overall performance, responsiveness, and consistency of contact between author and source).
PCM Leverages the Existing Network of Potential Authors and Sources
Summary of Networked Author/Source Characteristics
Technical resources, such as product and manufacturing engineering, laboratory scientists, installers, and field service technicians are valuable resources with “ears” and “eyes” tuned to problem DISCOVERY and pain identification. Customer-facing resources such as sales, marketing, distributors, and executives are valuable resources to listen for market opportunities.
Catalyst Characteristics
Value Chain Approach
Use the value-chain perspective when constructing a PCM SOURCING network. Using the value chain as a guide, PCM identifies participants who can provide innovative ideas. The network includes target market segments from market strategies and focuses on products that harmonize with the product portfolio strategy.
Catalyst Value Chain
Summary of Continuous Discovery Sources and Activities
DESIGN OF DISCRETE (SINGLE-EVENT) DISCOVERY
Discrete discovery mode provides a one-time selection of a method, participants, and target for the information gathering, analysis, or invention activity. Managers or team leaders organize single-event discovery opportunities. We recommend the use of the Problem-Solution Matrix (described below), to identify appropriate methods and tools.
Problem-Solution Matrix Summary
Problem-Solution Matrix
We’ve cut a lot of this series (three connecting articles) to keep each article to 2,000 words. Therefore, let us know where we over-cut or if you need further clarification and we promise to reply promptly.
______
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.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
Go to the Facilitation Training Store to access proven, in-house resources, including fully annotated agendas, break timers, and templates. Finally, take a few seconds to buy us a cup of coffee and please SHARE with others.
In conclusion, we dare you to embrace the will, wisdom, and activities that amplify a facilitative leader. #facilitationtraining #MEETING DESIGN
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
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.
by Facilitation Expert | Feb 10, 2022 | Leadership Skills, Meeting Structure, Meeting Support
As defined in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, a team is
“two or more draft animals harnessed to the same vehicle or implement.”
Okay, this may not be how you think of your team, but think about it–it’s a great description of what a successful team looks like. A group of individuals who, by working together, will achieve far more than one individual would working alone.
Empirical evidence supports this simple fact: working teams can accomplish more together than individuals acting separately. Team building through the combination and interaction of experience, abilities, knowledge, commitment, and creativity gives teams a powerful advantage for advancing business change.
Team Building and Building Teams Drives Success
As part of our series on Product Innovation (and our Catalyst Product Concept Management), we recommend the use of facilitated workshops that bring stakeholders, thought leaders, and implementors together with key designers and planners, under the guidance of professional facilitators. The network of individuals required in the analysis, design, and implementation of new products can be overwhelming. The guidance of trained professional facilitators in Catalyst, new product development, and voice-of-the-customer assures the highest integrity. We rely on a proven method that may be adapted to your organization when seeking to support your mission and objectives through product development or process improvement. If you have suggestions about how we can improve this or other Best Practices, please reply or contact us at (630) 954-5880, or by email at info@mgrushfacilitation.com.
Facilitators significantly contribute to organizational effectiveness when they support cohesive teams. The following provides some valuable tips on continuous team-building techniques.
Character of Teams
Teams have the characteristics of working toward a common goal, having shared experiences, and sharing work products for the good of the organization as a whole. Teams produce much more than a collection of individuals when assembled in meetings, sharing information, and following a common agenda.
Effective teams develop their own lexicon, memory, respect, and trust among members. Teams share responsibility, accountability, and glory for their shared output and behavior.
Teams may be built through their time together – or broken. We advocate a deliberate effort to build teams among the participants of your workshop, some obvious and others not-so-obvious.
Team Building
Successful team building can be facilitated despite the obvious challenges of separate priorities, individual goals, and variability of commitment among team members. Yet team building is rarely accomplished as the result of a single staged exercise.
Team building needs to be continuously supported by structuring appropriate events with open and safe exchange of individual biases, ideas, and constructive criticism.
Perform these team-building steps as appropriate:
- Deploy team-building activities throughout your workshop, especially early and upfront.
- Look for agreement beginning with shared mission, vision, and values, and then more detailed team and workshop goals, shared responsibility, and common success factors across products, departments, and business units.
- Plan on using breakout teams frequently, and then use them more often than planned.
- Have the participants perform a self-assessment of their effectiveness as a team at intervals, such as at the close of each day, and engage them in self-diagnosis and remedy.
Team building activities include:
- Staged activities aimed specifically at team building such as business simulations, icebreakers, warm-ups, and situational gaming.
- Activities in the course of the workshop, not apparent as team building activities, such as breakout sessions, combined homework/evening assignments (outside of the workshop), and joint analysis and presentations.
- Identify and reinforce common ground. Where two or more participants exhibit differing goals within the workshop, identify the common elements of their positions while concurrently recognizing their differences. Work to amplify the importance of their commonality to support organizational objectives, yet carefully probe for differences. Differences attributable to uncommon vocabulary or objectives imposed by others not attending the workshop, or even no longer with the organization.
- Most importantly, seeks to determine if challenges to team building are endemic to the culture that must implement the solution formed by the team. If so, share your observations and concerns with the executive sponsor(s) or product owner. The sponsor should structure appropriate action that needs to take place outside of your meetings and workshops.
Within MGRUSH, workshops represent much more than just a generic technique. Workshop design achieves a specific set of results and furthers the design and implementation of change in very specific ways.
Workshop Design and Focusing
The focusing stage of workshops develops a clear understanding of the mission, scope, and objectives of the workshop for all participants, and by extension, those indirectly supporting the workshop (such as sponsors, supporters, and other stakeholders).
Orientation and Focusing
The focusing stage occurs during orientation or early in the launch to:
- Introduce the project or product
- Launch the team
- Introduce the sponsor(s)
- Review and confirm the business purpose
- Confirm the mission, scope, and objective of the project or product
- Identify management priorities, concerns, opportunities, challenges, and constraints
- Identify and articulate the motivating concerns driving this project or product
- Affirm expectations about deliverables, performance, timing, work product, behavior, and other characteristics during development
- Identify additional workshop/project participants, sources (SME or Subject Matter Experts), and beneficiaries
- Management commitment — This is NOT to be obtained during the focusing stage of the workshop. Commitment is already obtained. Here the commitment is expressed and stressed to the workshop participants
Focusing preparation
Complete the following steps to launch team building prior to significant events, ceremonies, and workshops.
- Identify participants
- Notify participants of their involvement and contributing roles
- Confirm the availability of participants
- Reserve facilities, equipment, and refreshments
- Learn about workshop participants’ subject matter expertise
- Review techniques, work products, tools, issues, and challenges
- Create materials to be used during the workshop (or a version of previously created materials)
- Prepare likely assignments for breakout sessions
- Draft likely assignments for home/evening work
- Prepare “seed content” for discussions (to be used if the participants are slow to share their points of view, concepts, or insights)
- Prepare and review (with sponsors, and organizers) the workshop agenda; revise it as necessary
Focusing implementation
Complete the following steps that support team building during the workshop.
- Perform the warm-up/startup activities
- Welcome the participants
- Confirm workshop purpose, scope, and deliverables
- Review workshop agenda
- Review workshop/project “ ground rules”
- Confirm workshop/project mission, scope, and objectives
- Set expectations for deliverables and work product objectives
- Obtain commitment, identify principles, values, and organization policies
- Develop and articulate the case for action
- Identify supporting participants
- Document material presented, covered, analyzed, discussed, decisions reached and tabled, and open issues
- Wrap-up session and daily activities
- Close workshop
Focusing work products
The focusing workshops should also validate or produce work products, including:
Workshop:
- Mission statement
- Business purpose statement (may be pre-prepared)
- The case for action or charter
- Team principles, values, and (applicable) policies (that govern team behavior)
- Statement of “success” – what it looks like
- Critical success factors
- Risk factors and risk management approaches
Project or product plan
- Statement of work
- Project organization chart
- Project GANTT chart or sprint sequence
- Staffing and support plan
- SME identification
- Team member profiles
Next Steps
- Assignments
- Open issues
- Meeting schedule and agenda
Supporting In-formation
This activity identifies and articulates the motivating concerns that create the need for this project or product, such as (these are not exclusive of each other):
- Market threats
- Cost position, trends
- Customer needs and personas
- Financial, and market performance shortcomings
- Growth and stability (or lack of)
- Strategic position
- Position company for sale, increased valuation
- Repair history of too few new products
- Improve culture and morale
In the context of the motivating concerns, focusing and launch articulates the impact of action and inaction. Work product should include:
- State likely outcomes if the company/organization proceeds on its current path
- Reveal probably outcomes due to actions of customers, competitors, others
- State value/impact of an improvement in product concept management
- State value/impact of no action regarding product concept management
Best Practices / Lessons Learned
The organization and team may benefit from a scan of other practices, ambitiously seeking “best practices” from which they might model or derive “lessons learned.” This scan identifies or articulates activities of other units within the organization and its competitors or others that can be modeled for their product concept management activity. The content of the “best practices / lessons learned” session will likely include:
- Current PCM (Product Concept Management or Catalyst) practices
- History of PCM efforts
- PCM and NPI (new product ideation) efforts of other organizations
In the context of the best practices/lessons learned, this workshop activity articulates the organizational knowledge about PCM and new product ideation. We often think of PCM as a process that encourages plurality and most often includes
(a) the new product ideation activity and
(b) the business case evaluation
but is most distinguished as being sandwiched between these two more visible activities. Orientation and focusing activities articulate and permit comparison of past, current, and developmental efforts at PCM by other parts of the organization, its competitors, suppliers, and other third parties.
Work product should include:
- Organizational units having new product ideation processes, experience, process flow, and lessons learned
- Product or process surrogates or business units have had, have, or are developing PCM, its reason for being, experience, process flow, and lessons learned
- Organizational units having business case development processes (often the first stage of a Stage-gate-like product development process), and description of the process, its reason for being, experience, process flow, and lessons learned
______
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.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
Go to the Facilitation Training Store to access proven, in-house resources, including fully annotated agendas, break timers, and templates. Finally, take a few seconds to buy us a cup of coffee and please SHARE with others.
In conclusion, we dare you to embrace the will, wisdom, and activities that amplify a facilitative leader. #facilitationtraining #MEETING DESIGN
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
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.
by Facilitation Expert | Jan 6, 2022 | Meeting Structure, Prioritizing, Problem Solving
Product Concept Management (PCM or Catalyst) is the technique of designing, implementing, and continuously managing the ideation, gathering, qualifying, maintenance, archiving, and evaluation of new product ideas into fully polished concepts.
This article advances a 3-step method you can use to transform new product ideas into innovative sources of revenue and increased efficiencies. If you have suggestions about how we can improve this or other Best Practices, please reply or contact us at (630) 954-5880, or by email at info@mgrushfacilitation.com.
Converting new product ideas into full product concepts requires numerous disciplines, including technical, information systems, creative, marketing, and financial management. This cross-functional demand on an organization is often the point of failure for most organizations in their attempts to maintain a fertile pool of new product ideas.
A NEW PRODUCT IDEA TECHNIQUE
The PCM technique comprises three major steps: “SOURCE” ideas, “MANAGE” ideas (into complete concepts), and “USE” concepts for further evaluation and possible development. These three steps have numerous activities embedded within them.
The most significant step of PCM is to publish (USE) a concept for further development. Without the movement of a product concept onto commercial development, there is no useful work accomplished. At the same time, most businesses focus today on the SOURCING step. That is the SOURCE and volume and “creativity” of the ideas put into the system for consideration.
With our PCM technique, the bulk of activity occurs during the MANAGE step. PCM holds that ideas are raw, slight notions of a product or business opportunity. Most new product people face having enough “good” ideas. In truth, many ideas are “good,” but suffer from a lack of certainty about their future opportunity. In our view, this is what distinguishes good ideas – their degree of certainty. We define the MANAGE step in PCM as the set of activities that convert new product ideas into polished product concepts. The concepts are then available for serious consideration and additional investment.
Polished Product Concept Technique (PCM or Catalyst)
Step
|
Description
|
Leads To…
|
1. SOURCE
|
The SOURCE step captures the “authoring” activities where ideas arise—invented, gathered from others, or derived from analysis. Ideation occurs here, from employees, vendors, customers, and field people. Ideas may originate spontaneously, through analysis, or by listening well.
Authors must introduce their ideas in the best form they are able to provide. Groups and teams serve as combined authors.
The requirements are low for what is considered an idea, although expectations are high for the effort invested by authors when describing their idea(s). |
MANAGE step |
2. MANAGE
|
The MANAGE step converts ideas into tangible concepts, making them available to others over an extended period.
The principle behind qualifying ideas is that all ideas are ‘good,’ but that in their description they carry varying degrees of certainty. The impact of the degree of certainty is that the most ill-formed idea, which is expected to have high potential – with a high degree of certainty – would easily attract investment for further development. Similarly, an elegant idea known to have poor revenue prospects – with certainty – would attract little investment. PCM adds value by reducing uncertainty that matches well with decisions and investments.
PCM views that all ideas have value – for someone at some time. Ideas and concepts can have long shelf lives, and some are known to be recognized years after they were first written down. The MANAGE step receives catalogs, stores, updates, files, and fashions ideas into concepts. |
“Use” step |
3. USE
|
The USE step provides the first decision on the future use of an idea. The SOURCE and MANAGE steps treat all ideas with a consistent level of interest. The USE step selects ideas from the database and pushes them further, such as a business case. The selection process operates like a query. The reviewer decides on the traits of the idea that will fit the strategic, tactical, portfolio, financial, technical, and social needs. Ideas that satisfy the selection criteria may then be advanced further. |
Business evaluation |
WHERE PCM FITS IN NPD
A Typical Gated Process
The gated new product development process consists of activities that evaluate, screen, and develop new products. With a gated process, investments in new products match their potential. New product ideas are refined for their commercial success. Products that appear not to be winners are screened or deleted for further development at one of the gates. The earlier a poor-performing product is screened, the more efficient the process.
The “Stage-Gate™” process from Dr. Cooper of Ontario, Canada[1] has five gates as shown below, and starts with the premise of “a great idea.”
The activities of getting new product ideas, gathering them, and turning them into valid opportunities are often missed. Like the Stage-Gate process, most start with the presumption of “the great idea.” They focus on developing the product, not filling the hopper with complete and robust “ideas.”
PCM revolutionizes the new product development (NPD) process by providing a disciplined method to manage a pool of problems and solutions. PCM fits in front of every NPD process because they all begin with the presumption of a great idea.
The Fit of PCM in Gated Processes
PCM contains a lot of activities (activities to design, use, ideate, gather, qualify, maintain, store, and assess new product ideas) to support the overall goal of building a well-managed source of qualified new product concepts for managers.
We defined three major steps to PCM: SOURCE, MANAGE, and USE. (Using the metaphor from publishing, we also refer to the three steps as Authoring, Editing, and Publishing. The distinct roles for participants in PCM are therefore: Author, Editor, and Publisher.)
Roles in a new product idea transformation
PCM is built with Six Sigma methods in mind. In keeping with the spirit of Six Sigma, we will discuss each of the PCM steps using the “right to left” method. Most processes flow from left to right (from inputs to outputs) in a process flow diagram. We will explain from the output back (left) towards the required inputs. This article then focuses on the USE step. Our next and final article (3 of 3) provides more detail on the MANAGE and SOURCE steps.
USE (Publishing — developed product concept)
The USE step reviews ideas for their desirability. When an idea is found to be attractive, it is moved into the next step of a group’s new product process. The USE stage selects ideas that demand more investment. Poor judgment in this stage corrupts the new product process, wastes time and money, and weakens market position.
The USE step is not necessarily a continuous process. It is a discrete activity that occurs when a reviewer has a need or desire to add a new product to his/her new product development portfolio. Thus, the interaction between the MANAGE step and the USE step is intermittent, and largely driven by the event of a “query,” or an attempt by a reviewer to identify another idea worthy of new product development.
USE Step Activities
Descriptions of USE Step Activities
Activities
|
Description
|
Query
|
Submit a query to identify ideas that are of interest or value. |
Review
|
Examine ideas returned by the query. Prioritize ideas for their fit and attractiveness. |
Select
|
Apply explicit (and implicit) criteria and identify ideas worthy of further development. |
Modify
|
Some ideas may be enhanced or made acceptable by changes imposed by the reviewer. Ideas that can be improved in their accuracy (of forecast or technical feasibility), or improved in their acceptability, are modified by the reviewer. |
Feedback
|
As conditions change, information is provided to the qualifier to guide future qualifications. As ideas are reviewed, information about the quality of the evaluations is provided to the qualifier. |
Direct
|
Direct the qualifier about required and desired analysis, information, and output formats. |
MANAGE (Editing)
The core activity in the MANAGE step improves new product idea quality while storing them. When a new product idea comes from an author, it is added to the idea database. The idea is also qualified so that it can be reviewed by an editor.
MANAGE Step Activities
QUALIFYING
The primary activity in the MANAGE step is “QUALIFYING” an idea. The qualification process is comprised of four activities: Interpretation, Investigation, Analysis, and Forecasting.
Description of MANAGE Step Activities
Activities
|
Description
|
Log
|
Review recent ideas. Assess for completeness and prioritize for qualification. (If there are more than one qualifier or multi-person (team) qualifiers, assign the team.) |
Qualify
|
|
|
|
Judge the idea for clarity. As needed, speak with the author to further describe, clarify, and refine the idea.
Interpret an idea for its commercial and technical content (may contain industry, segment, and other specific vocabulary and meaning).
Review the idea for completeness, and get the idea author to provide more information.
Detect the timeframe for use of the idea (near-term, distant, event-triggered, etc.). |
|
|
Assess the information to adequately qualify for the opportunity. Identify sources of information and required methods.
Perform an investigation of the ideal opportunity. Gather information about marketing, distribution, technical development, production, customer demand, competition, and regulation. |
|
|
Analyze the opportunity for (1) technical feasibility; (2) customer appeal and purchase behavior; (3) fit with distribution channels; (4) competitive options and positioning, (5) trends and future market conditions; and (6) fit with existing product portfolio, cannabilistic impact, and marketing strategies.
Determine market(s) size or impact on customer lifetime value. Build assumptions. |
|
|
Forecast revenue stream, investment, and timing. |
Store
|
Finish documentation; update idea database. |
Archive
|
Assess the inventory of ideas for relevance. |
Feedback
|
Feed back to idea authors about the status of their submittals. (Not intended to provide direction to authors about the likelihood of an idea being used for more development.) |
Coach
|
Give support to authors to encourage submissions and enhance the completion of their ideas, including support around customer motivation, competitive choices, and tangential uses. |
SOURCE (Authoring — capturing new product ideas)
The core activity in the SOURCE step is discovering ideas, and describing them sufficiently to be added to the PCM organization. When a new product idea is conceived, it is first put to paper to describe – as well as the author can – the need for, performance, and benefits of the new product idea.
SOURCE Step Activities
Articulated ideas are added to the company’s idea database. The SOURCE step is ongoing as well as ad hoc, built of (possibly) many sources of ideas. There are three primary types of DISCOVERING activities: Invent, Gather, and Analyze.
DISCOVERING
SOURCING is the most complex, far-flung, and resource-intensive activity of the three major steps within PCM. When launched on a wide scale, SOURCING spans time (present and future opportunities), spans the organization (engineering, marketing, service, and manufacturing, e.g.), and spans the marketplace (suppliers, distributors, customers, potential customers, e.g.). Thus, SOURCING places great demands on the PCM group to properly direct, manage, and resource activities to gather new product ideas.
Description of SOURCING Step Activities
Activities
|
Description
|
Discover
|
|
√ Invent
|
Conceive ideas about problems and potential solutions. |
√ Gather
|
Observe and collect the points of view of others. |
√ Analyze
|
Compare ideas to product line gaps, competitors’ offerings, and future trends. |
Articulate
|
Express an idea in a form that gives adequate information to qualify further. |
Submit
|
Input of an idea for qualification (usually into an idea “hopper” or database). |
Motivate
|
Provide reasons to authors to build and submit ideas. Can be the design and use of incentives and performance rewards. |
Train
|
Prepare authors to invent, analyze, or gather ideas or idea fragments by providing instruction in various methods of problem/opportunity recognition and idea formation. |
Equip
|
Furnish authors with direction in the areas where ideas are desired, and by giving them tools, templates, and equipment to identify problems/opportunities, and clarify ideas. |
Our summary spares you, the reader, from many of the details found in the transformation of new product ideas. For more information, simply drop us a note at info@mgrushfaciltation.com. Our final article (3 of 3) in this series will focus on details that support the MANAGING and SOURCING steps.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[1] Business Horizons, Volume 33, Issue 3, May–June 1990, Pages 44-54, Stage-gate systems: A new tool for managing new products, Robert G.Cooper
______
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. We call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
Go to the Training Store to access proven, in-house resources, including detailed agendas, break timers, and templates. Finally, take a few seconds to buy us a cup of coffee and please SHARE with others.
In conclusion, we dare you to embrace the will, wisdom, and activities that amplify a facilitative leader. #facilitationtraining #MEETING DESIGN
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
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.
