How to run a better meeting is like learning to be a better listener, easy to understand but hard to do.

Why? Poor muscle memory. What can we do about it? Change our muscle memory. While perfect practice remains the best way to overcome poor muscle memory, take a closer look at the International Institute of Business Analysis™ (IIBA®), in particular the newest edition of their Guide to the Business Analyst Body of Knowledge ® known as BABOK® Guide v3.

In the Business Analyst Body of Knowledge about disciplined and structured thinking, the term ‘facilitate’ appears 112 times over 514 pages. Statistically, ~25 percent of its pages indicate the need, reference, or link to the importance of facilitation.

Operational Definitions

Good and Bad Muscle Memory

Interestingly, and perhaps to avoid redundancy, the IIBA provides two different operational definitions for the term ‘facilitation.” In section (9.5.1) focused exclusively on facilitation, they state (pg 217) that:

Facilitation is the skill of moderating discussions within a group in order to enable all participants to effectively articulate their views on a topic under discussion and to ensure that participants in the discussion are able to recognize and appreciate the differing points of view that are articulated.

Later in the much-appreciated Glossary, they use the following definition (pg 456):

facilitation: The art of leading and encouraging people through systematic efforts toward agreed-upon objectives in a manner that enhances involvement, collaboration, productivity, and synergy.

In addition, we also humbly suggest that facilitation is both an art AND a science. Therefore, we use the term SMart, suggesting the combination of an objective scientific method (SM) combined with the subjective and adjustable features, the ‘art’ (ergo, SMart). To the extent possible, we aspire toward repeatable, consistent outputs by using the rigor of disciplined structure.

The Business Analyst Body of Knowledge further provides a reference to many of the opportunities for us to improve our muscle memory by becoming better facilitators, and although too many to list, here are a few samplings where you ought to focus your practice efforts to become more facilitative when leading groups of people:

Initially, facilitate . . .

• alignment of goals and objectives
• analysis and deep understanding of the organization’s processes
• articulation of the product vision statement
• consensus building and trade-offs and ensure that solution value is realized and initiative timelines are met
• coordinated and synchronized action across the organization by aligning action with the organization’s vision, goals, and strategy
• cost management and reduce duplication of work
• decision-making and conflict resolution, and ensure that all participants have an opportunity to be heard
• drawing and storing matrices and diagrams to represent requirements
• estimations of the value realized by a solution
• holistic and balanced planning and thinking
• identification of potential improvements by highlighting “pain points” in the process structure (i.e., process visualization)
• interactions between stakeholders in order to help them make a decision, solve a problem, exchange ideas and information, or reach an agreement regarding the priority and the nature of requirements

Furthermore, facilitate . . .

• approval process
• change assessment process
• knowledge transfer and understanding
• meetings with set agendas and meeting roles or informal working sessions
• organizational alignment, linking goals to objectives, supporting solutions, underlying tasks, and resources
• planning, analyzing, testing, and demonstrating activities
• prioritization
• recording, organizing, storing, and sharing requirements and designs
• release planning discussions
• requirements and design traceability
• review sessions, keep participants focused on the objectives of the review, and ensure that each relevant section of the work product is covered
• stakeholder collaboration, and decisions, and understand the relative importance of business analysis information
• understanding and decision-making, the value of proposed changes, and other complex ideas
• Workshops

Additionally,

They also provide some wonderful goals for effective facilitation including:

• encouraging participation from all attendees,
• ensuring that participants correctly understand each other’s positions,
• establishing ground rules such as being open to suggestions, building on what is there, not dismissing ideas, and allowing others to speak and express themselves,
• making it clear to the participants that the facilitator is a third party to the process and not a decision maker nor the owner of the topic,
• preventing discussions from being sidetracked onto irrelevant topics,
• remaining neutral and not taking sides, and
• using meeting management skills and tools to keep discussions focused and organized.

Finally,

it is interesting that in this third edition, within the Section called Interaction Skills, they broadened the scope of facilitation by:

• Facilitation and Negotiation—split competencies and renamed Facilitation

Particularly interesting to us since many times participants are in violent agreement with each other, but need a solid facilitator to arrive at a common understanding.

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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 every day 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.)

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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.