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Facilitating Community Engagement: Skills and Competencies

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I have been fortunate enough through my career to have sat as a member of community coalitions and advisory groups that were highly effective.  In my Master’s degree program I studied community engagement processes and been mentored by some very skilled community leaders.  I have also had the fortune of managing successful coalitions and advisory committees.  Through these experiences, I have come to understand that the skills required to facilitate a community-based group process are different than simply facilitating a group.

There is a large body of literature supporting the “how and why” of the coalition development process, community engagement and community organizing (a few of which are listed below) so providing “coalition development 101″ is not my intent..  Instead, the focus in this post is  to provoke thought around the unique skills required to facilitate a community engagement process like a coalition or community advisory group.

I once had a conversation with a distant colleague and we were reminiscing about a mediocre community engagement processes that we both served on.  We were discussing the quality of the facilitators who led the process and we agreed that, while the facilitators ran productive meetings, that meeting facilitation skills were not enough to sustain what was a complex community collaboration process.  As we brainstormed together, we created a list of competencies that the paid facilitators lacked in managing the process.  Taken together the list suggests the requisite skills needed to meaningfully facilitate community engagement processes.

Meeting Facilitation:  Not wanting to throw the proverbial “baby out with the bathwater,” the obvious fact needs to be stated. Having strong meeting process skills comprises the first competency of managing community engagement.  Being able to develop a meaningful vision, mission, goals, objectives, group process, documentation and communication cycle are the foundational skills of any facilitated process.

Consensus Building and Dispute Resolution:  A second skill area required for community engagement involves understanding mediation and interest-based problem-solving.  Facilitation is not the same as mediation, despite the fact that many confluent the two concepts. The ability to separate interests, needs and impartially structure a process that mediates differences is very different than a facilitation skill of ensuring equal voice and participation. Consensus building and dispute resolution lay the foundation for building structures of trust.

Systems-thinking:  I consider systems thinking to be a core facilitation competency in general.  However, in the context of a community engagement processes systems-thinking takes on critical importance.  Specifically, when one is facilitating a community engagement process, it is imperative that the facilitator understands both the “bricks and mortar” infrastructure of the community (i.e., organizations, policy, and governance) but also understands the social infrastructure of the community.  Without an understanding of how systems work, a facilitator engages the community with a truncated depth perception especially when it comes to the critical processes of stakeholder analysis and power analysis.

Empowerment Theory: Community engagement also requires more than a cursory understanding of empowerment educational theories.  Based on the application of the theories of Paulo Freire facilitation becomes the act of empowering the community. True facilitation designs a respectful process that allows individuals to co-create solutions and in the process develop mutual trust, respect and a sense of community.

Participatory Evaluation and Outcome Mapping:  Finally community engagement requires an innate understanding of participatory evaluation theories.  The process of facilitating community engagement is just that — Engagement.  When community engagement is not going well, the root cause is often traced back to a reliance on meeting facilitation skills and focusing on the means and not the end. Understanding participatory evaluation theories give a facilitator a deep appreciation and understanding of the ends-planning rather than means-planning.  Ends-planning influences the process design and often necessitates a re-thinking of traditional facilitation tools.

As I reflect on the list of skills and competencies required to effectively facilitate a community engagement process I realize that the goals of this list are high and it is a rare moment when the task, resources and group allow all of these skills converge.  However, what it is clear that the overriding theme of facilitating community engagement is the paradoxical challenge of giving away control and power in order to accrue back trust, collaboration and process ownership.  Facilitating community empowerment requires not only an understanding of group process but, in the words of a mentor of mine, “group process squared.”  Community engagement takes basic facilitation skills and requires them to be lengthened, deepened and expanded by a social theory multiplier.

Part two of this post will discuss measuring progress in a community engagement process.

Coalition Development Resources

Web Resource (PDF):  Developing Effective Coalitions
Web Resource (PDF): EPA’s Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Model
Book: The Spirit of the Coalition
Book: Coalitions and Partnerships in Community Health

Again, you comments are always welcome.

Rapid Framing as a Facilitation Competency

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More than once, I been in a meeting where ideas are being fostered — convergent and divergent — and the facilitator is fielding comments, writing notes and after the conversation runs its course, three or four easel chart pages latter, everyone pauses and it becomes clear that the group is thinking, “now what?”   Then turning to the facilitator I hear the words, “So where do we go from here?” Instantly, as if someone has opened the drain plug, the energy begins to trickle out of the room.  So what goes wrong in meetings like the ones just described? It is my perspective that at the moment the facilitator deferred rather than took control of the process that s/he lost the group.

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My experience has taught me that one of the critical skills that a facilitator needs to posses is the ability to assess, synthesize and hypothesize as a rapid framing tool. The skill of rapid framing is a combination of systems thinking and inquiry.  Much like a computer operating system works in the background to keep your computer ordered while you run your word processing program, assessing, synthesizing, hypothesizing and framing is the “operating system” of the facilitator.  Effectively holding the larger system in the background context allows the skilled facilitator to truncate the “pause of desperation” with a skilled intervention that breaks the log-jam of information overload and allows the group to productively move forward.

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Let me give you and example.  I once was facilitating an advisory group that was tasked with creating an outline for a fairly complex grant that involved service delivery through multiple channels, required the use of subcontracted advisors, evaluation and marketing functions.  After creating brainstorm lists for each component of the grant, the team experienced a “pause of desperation.”  Staring at the pages of easel paper hung all over the walls it was clear that the group was feeling overwhelmed by the complexity and sheer quantity of information. At that moment rapid framing was needed. I stepped over to a dry-erase board and began to sketch a system’s view flow diagram of the overall project based on all that I heard and processed. This visual served as an organizer to reduce the complexity. Almost as if someone opened the window to let in a fresh breeze, the group energy increased, with folks offering feedback to my visual hypothesis and one person actually getting up, taking the pen from my hand and editing the diagram until there was a consensus on the model.  The pathway for developing the proposal outline based on the several hanging easel sheets became simpler and clearer. The group needed help conceptualizing the frame but was very capable completing the structure once the frame was developed. While this illustration underscores the importance of purposeful visuals it also demonstrates the power of a rapid framing.

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This leads to the question of tactics.  What does a rapid framing look like in practice? At some level I believe that the ability to assess, synthesize and hypothesize is more innate and intuitive rather than cognitive and linear however, my training in mediation helped me see that basic rapid framing skills can be taught.  Skilled mediators and facilitators share the core skills of active listening, empathy, and impartiality and with this foundation there are four stages that need to happen in order create and use a rapid frame effectively.

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Synthesize Constantly: As I stated above a strong facilitator is constantly holding the larger system in the back of his/her mind and as the process unfolds s/he constantly organizes, sorts and summarizes the story and narrative.

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Create a Frame: As a facilitator is listening, organizing, comparing and synthesizing during the process, when a group gets stuck, s/he has enough narrative to make proposal in the form of a frame.  In my illustration above, I drew a diagram as a draft frame for the group based on the conversations, notes and directions that I was mentally assembling as the team brainstormed and jumped from one concept to the next.  The frame may be right or may need editing but the purpose is to move the group process forward.

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Test the Frame: After creating the frame, the facilitator then needs to check it out with the group.  “Based on what I am hearing from you, I would suggest that you are here.  Does this resonate?”  At that point the group is invited not to focus on their “stuckness” but are invited into the solution space.  Continuing my example above, when the pen was removed from my hand the editing of the idea was well underway and the group was unstuck.

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Give Back the Locus of Control:  At this point, the facilitator has broken the paralysis but such an intervention comes at the risk of the facilitator shifting into a leadership role.  The final stage of using rapid framing is to create an intentional pause and reflection on the intervention.  The purpose of this reflection is to shift the locus of control back to the group before moving on.  At this point it is finally okay to say, “So where do you go from here?”

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Many facilitators I have met over the years have the ability to run good meetings.  However, when the stakes are high there is often a need for a skilled facilitator who brings a deeper understanding of systems thinking, the ability to process information, and the mental agility to create rapid and iterative frames.  Skilled facilitation can insert rapid framing as a way to manage the chaos of ideas and then to back out in order to keep the group in control of the process.  Such facilitation is useful when there is more at stake than running a good meeting.

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As always, your comments are welcome.

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Visual Learning In Facilitation

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Have you ever encountered a facilitator whom over the course of a meeting wrote down lots of words on easel-pad paper, filled up the wall space with page after page of notes and at the end of the meeting simply transcribed the notes into a word processing document or worse, never captured the content at all? How useful was that?

Elsewhere, I contend that using visuals appropriately is a core competency of a facilitator and in this post want to expand some on the purpose and functions of using visuals as a facilitation tool. Far from being the “facilitator thing to do” the effective use of visuals is critical to the facilitation process. Visual learning is a component of most experiential learning theories detailing that people learn by processing with all senses available to them. As a result, facilitators should not be in the business of “writing things down on easel pads” but should be employing learning theory in their use of visuals. In my understanding of experiential and adult learning theories, I would suggest that visuals have three primary functions in facilitation including:

Organizing, Naming and Representing: The effective use of visuals in facilitation has the purpose of getting the group into a place of shared understanding and the co-creating of ideas. To do this, a facilitator needs to use visuals to organize ideas, name common elements and represent complex issues. At the most basic level, an example might be a facilitator listing the results during brainstorming and then helping a group sort and narrow items. However the task of shared understanding and co-creation often requires access to more sophisticated visual processes.  Brainstorming and narrowing are wholly inadequate to capture complex concepts.  Other tools  such as concept mapping, story-boarding, logic models, event-planning, decision trees or other flow diagrams are necessary to meet complex needs. When a facilitator gets stuck on making and narrowing lists, s/he fails to access the wider dynamic of systems thinking that is required to move from ideas to a shared understanding and representation of those ideas.

Orienting and Navigating: The second use of visuals in facilitation is to provide a sense of orientation and navigation. Think about times that you shop online or complete an online survey or register for a new website. These days we take for granted that whenever we are completing a multi-stage online experience, there is often clear guidance somewhere on the computer screen telling us that we are “at step three of a five step process” or that we are “60% of the way through the survey”. If we get lost or stuck, help is a click away. In group facilitation it should be no different. While a printed agenda might be the most basic visual to orient a group to where they are in a process, good facilitation effectively uses visuals to mark progress through a given task. Visual learning tools that a facilitator might use to keep groups on track might include a printed organizer, visual metaphors or icons approach to mark transition points, or purposeful color coding. Orienting and navigating become even more critical when the facilitated process extends over time and multiple sessions. When a workgroup is together for 12 meetings over a period of six months, visual orienting and navigating are important facilitator functions.

Summarizing and Narrating: As I suggested in the opening paragraph, there is nothing more useless than a transcription of flipchart notes. Yet, often such transcription is appended to meeting minutes. Visual learning requires the facilitator to synthesize large amounts of information and represent it as summary and story narrative. Summarizing and narrating, discards early draft ideas (like initial brainstorm lists) and focuses instead on the shared understandings and the things that are permanent. Again, if the facilitator has been successful in visually creating shared understanding and keeping the group organized, the summary and narration might include a simple task grid to identify actions, assignments and accountabilities or as complex as creating a final storyboard.

While, anyone holding a box of markers and easel paper might be able to run an effective meeting, the use of visuals in facilitation is really about process. In an expanded view of the facilitation process, visual learning is very different than writing things down. Visual learning is based on learning theories such as Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligence theories mode or other experiential learning theories. In addition, the tools used to support visual learning in facilitation are also connected to theory. So, for example, Google search concept mapping or logic models and you will see that such tools are not simply drawing circles and arrows. The point is that the use of visuals in facilitation needs to be thoughtful, intentional and purposeful for groups and facilitators to be truly effective.


Facilitating Collaboration: Five Potential Models

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Facilitators are often called in to help design projects involving multiple stakeholders such as in convening interdepartmental workgroups, cross-functional teams or inter-agency committees and coalitions. For these assignments one of the key assessments that the facilitator needs to make is to determine whether the convening is for the purpose of accomplishing a task or for the purpose of creating collaboration. When I inquire about this I sometimes hear, “I thought every time you brought people together it was for collaboration?” I explain that there is a difference between working together and collaboration. This distinction is not so subtle. Facilitating the development of a product with multiple stakeholders giving input requires a facilitator to create clear expectations, foster information sharing, follow though and problem-solving and tracking progress. Facilitating for the purpose of developing collaboration requires organizing the stakeholders around a common model that is congruent with the sought after outcomes. Developing a product requires tactically working together where collaboration suggests a “shared mind” or shared systems view. (1)

When facilitating for collaboration the first task is for the stakeholders involved to understand and agree to the model of collaboration. In this process, a key role of the facilitator is to clearly describe models of collaboration and have a toolbox big enough to implement the models based on the customized and tailored needs of the group. At this deeper level, collaboration models typically have distinct organizational and governance structures attached and, in some cases, have legal structure implications. My intention is clearly not to offer legal advice but to simply introduce five models of collaboration that can serve as the basis of collaborative groups and teams.

Coalitions: The most readily assessable model of collaboration is the community coalition model. In a community coalition the focus of the collaboration is to concentrate the collective power of the members and focus it on action. Typically coalitions have membership guidelines, operating procedures and often bylaws, governance structures and elected leadership positions. There is a fairly large literature base and many textbooks describing the process and functioning of effective coalitions. Collaboration is based on shared goals and vision related to the action agenda. At times, coalitions use structured memoranda of understanding to help operationalize the collaborative process. A Google search will turn up numerous references for developing coalitions. One succinct primer on coalitions was developed by the Prevention Institute.

Communities of Practice:  Collaboration based on the concept of “communities of practice” involve the creation of a “learning guilds” that support the development of shared expertise and competencies. Developing collaboration around this model primarily focuses on distributing knowledge, competency and building networks between people. While the concept of communities of practice has appeared in the knowledge management literature for at least two decades, Etienne Wenger is one theorist that clearly develops the theoretical framework for this model.

Cooperatives:  A third model for collaboration is found in the concept of developing a cooperative. The drivers for cooperatives are seven principles relating to membership, control, participation, autonomy, learning, networking and social responsibility. Through co-ownership and participatory governance, a cooperative model has potential to encompass both learning and action. The University of Wisconsin has a great resource center dedicated to cooperatives.

Cohousing: At first glance the model of co-housing communities might seem a bit abstract to apply to the business or nonprofit sector. Cohousing is a property ownership and management concept where groups of individuals co-own homes that have elements of both social contact and individual space. Typically, cohousing communities have common facilities such as open space, courtyards, play space, and, in some cases, even shared living space like a communal kitchen. The governance structures for co-housing communities are egalitarian or even Socratic and emphasize problem solving and unanimity. Leaping to inter-agency collaboration, governance around shared values and interest in commons can be powerful. In a day when agency mergers increasingly being seem as a way to keep similar mission driven organizations viable, a co-housing model may be an instructive alternative that allows agencies to retain independence by designing and operating collaborations out of a shared space. A resource on Cohousing is the Cohousing Association of the United States.

Industry Clusters: A final model for collaboration to consider is found in the concept of industry clusters. Industry clusters are basically the associations of companies that share the same maket-space in a particular geographic location. The concept is to create a critical mass of related technologies, workforce and suppliers linked by buyer-seller or peer-to-peer relationships. The intended outcome is that “firms and workers in an industry cluster draw competitive advantage from their proximity to competitors, to a skilled workforce, to specialized suppliers and a shared base of sophisticated knowledge about their industry” (Reference: Oregon Clusters Website). Collaboration in an industry cluster approach balances the needs of individual companies and organizations against the larger need of the entire market with the goal of creating a network effect where the whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

There is a myth perpetuated that “collaboration is an unnatural act” but thinking about the models and process of collaboration is, at its core, systems thinking. If we are intentional about imagining what collaboration could look like, it can serve as a frame for a strategic conversation about the role collaboration plays in strengthening the capacity of stakeholders as they seek to expand, grow and achieve a common mission.

As always your comments are welcome

(1)One critical texts that needs to be on your shelf is Michael Scharge’s book No More Teams!: Mastering the Dynamics of Creative Collaboration.

Workplan Development Process

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I believe that a workplan is a critical component of process improvement but is often under-resourced in the planning process.  For example, I was recently asked to facilitate a meeting for an interdepartmental team that was in the early stages of operationalzing a major quality improvement initiative.  The described goal of meeting was to develop a clear workplan to guide the group over the next year but the draft materials I reviewed: a) interchangeably used the concepts of goals and objectives, b) assigned multiple people as responsible for the same tasks and activities, c) included no milestones or accountability measures, and d) failed to incorporate any discussion of the approval chain for the deliverables.   It was clear to me that the task was much larger than the single meeting, which begs the question, what is a reasonable process for developing workplans?  Here is my suggested process:

Step 1 Assess the Value Proposition.  As I have shared in another post, assessing the value of a task is at the core of any facilitation process (and consulting relationship).  There needs to be a clear relationship between the value of any performance improvement process and the effort that goes into designing the process.  In the case I briefly outlined above, the operative concept was that the workplan was the basis of a major quality initiative that would ultimately impacting future budgeting processes, performance measures and work-practices.  With the expectation of “implementing a major quality improvement initiative,” developing a workplan in a single meeting would be a stretch for all but the most experienced teams.  So the first step is to assess the task and allocate the resources appropriate to the expected return on the up-front “investments” of time, money and staffing.

Step 2 Establish Clarity around Goals and Objectives. Elsewhere I conceptually discuss goals and objectives in more detail. It suffices to say that workplan development begins with being clear about the world-changing goal and the tactical objectives required to make the change a reality.  In the case described above, the goal was nothing short of a “seismic change in the organizational culture where quality improvement was to become the institutional norm.”  The objectives would be the activities and tactics that the team needed to achieve the goal and the workplan would be roadmap to get them to the goal.  Typically the clarification process to distinguish the goals from objectives is a two-step facilitation process. In the first step the team needs to come to a consensus around the goal statement.  In the second step the team needs to brainstorm and sort the list of tasks required to achieve the goal.  At this stage you write the goal that is clear and complete and identify conceptual objectives that you will further detail in step four.

Step 3 Establish Owners, Team Members. Resources and Approval Process.  The success of workplan implementation is dependent upon someone owning the plan and having the authority to ensure that the plan is implemented.  At this point in the process it is critical that for each conceptual objective is assigned an owner who is accountable for the objective and supporting workplan.  There are occasions where a task may require co-owners (for example, if there are separate implementation and fiscal functions) but co-ownership is only successful when the co-owner roles and authorities are clearly spelled out.  Once an owner is designated, the implementation team, resources and constraints of a task need to be assigned.  Finally, teams need to be clear about the decision-making or approval process associated with the objective.  The purpose of this entire step is to establish the implementation expectations for each conceptual objective.

Step 4 Develop SMART Objectives. At this point, the team takes each conceptual objective and creates a clear tactical objective statement.  One of the most common formatting acronyms for Objectives is “SMART,” where the letters stand for

Specific: Answering “who, what, and how much,”
Measurable: Defining what it looks like when you get there,
Achievable:  Ensuing the activity is within the capacity of your organization and the authority of the team,
Realistic: The cousin of achievable is ensuing that the resources available to support the objective, and,
Time-bound: defining the objective’s ending point.

Step 5 Create Action Steps.  Teams are now prepared for the hard work of developing actions steps that guide the progress towards the objective.  The essential framework is to identify the action steps, due date, team lead, and accountability measures or milestones.  Accountability measures and milestones often get left off of workplans but are critically important because these become the monitoring tools for the workplan owner.  In the process of creating action steps teams need to develop a common understanding on how detailed and deep does the team go in the action steps? Does the team list primary tasks only?  Subtasks? Sub-Subtasks? The balance point will differ from team to team and may take some experimenting by team members.  The balance you are looking for is to be able to monitor the forward motion of the process, ensure communication and accountability without creating unrealistic expectations of documentation and reporting.

Step 6 Create the Workplan.  The final step of the process is to create a formal workplan.  In another post I elaborated on the concept of workplan documentation and point you to that entry for ideas and workplan templates.

As the opening step suggests, implementing this six-step process to create a workplan will scale from a 1-2 hour exercise for low value projects to perhaps several hours for high value initiatives.  While the six steps outlined here may seem like a lot of work, much of the process can actually be summarized on a single worksheet (such as this template).  Whatever the scale of the workplan development process, those teams that invest the attention, focus and resources in working through these six steps will reap the benefits of improved performance.

 

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