5 lessons on flexibility, from facilitation
What I learned by organising and leading ideation workshops
Over the last few weeks, I had the opportunity to organise and facilitate two ideation workshops with different clients. Helping a group of people work together towards a goal, fostering conversations, and provoking ideas was truly gratifying, but it also left me feeling drained of energy. However, I returned home from each workshop with many valuable lessons for future reference. Among other things, I want to focus on five lessons about flexibility, which I believe can be applied in other contexts as well.
Contingency Time
This lesson is straight out of Project Management 101. Contingencies are not "if" but "when" and "how many." Allocating time (usually 10-20% of the schedule is optimal) to address contingencies is a must-do when planning activities. This applies to a one-hour activity, an entire day of workshops, or even a three-month project. It makes you more robust against risks, and in the best-case scenario, it gives you enough leeway to refine your work and maximise value. This was something I already knew when I prepared the schedules, and it proved to be pure gold during the first workshop. Due to participants arriving late, the day started an hour and a half behind schedule. However, because of contingency time and some cuts here and there, we were back on track by lunchtime, and we could start the afternoon activities without any pressure.
What I find to be the best strategy, though, is not to plan actual empty times, but rather to distribute contingency time over activities in the schedule that can benefit from more time but can be easily resized if needed. For instance, explanations of activities, group discussions, voting, or breaks benefit from contingency time, which can be added to their duration. During the day, I keep in mind which activities can have their times reduced without compromising the result of the activity.
Redundancy
This is another strategy for added flexibility in case of extreme contingencies and to react to the audience (more on this in the next paragraph). What I mean by redundancy is planning at least two activities, or in the case of an ideation workshop or design thinking process, cycles of "divergence/convergence" that serve the same purpose. This approach is somewhat related to agile practices. The concept behind it is to have complete iterations of small sizes over the same scope instead of a single, focused large block.
By planning redundant activities, it's easy to cut one or more of them from the schedule if you need to recover some unexpected lost time, to gift extra time over a particularly engaging activity, or to avoid activities that don't suit the participants' inclinations. Remember, there's no need to blindly stick to the plan at all costs. The goal of the workshop is not to do all the activities but to achieve valuable output through a process. By having a redundant schedule, you grant the possibility to adapt and react by cutting off activities without resulting in an incomplete process.
Reading the room
The facilitator's most important responsibility is probably reading the room. I've experienced this firsthand while facilitating groups that I didn't know before the workshop, which is often the case when co-designing with clients.
From the moment you walk into the room, start observing the situation. Try to understand people's skills and inclinations, and guess the relationships at the table since most people already know each other.
Keep reading the room during the activities to understand how to engage everyone and make sure they don't feel uncomfortable. Notice if they are losing focus, getting distracted, or suddenly stop participating.
All of this information is crucial to react to by applying other strategies. If you prepare for flexibility but don't adapt to the actual situation because you're focused on something else, then there's no point in being flexible. As a facilitator, you need to be well-prepared for the activities beforehand so that 80% of your focus during the workshop can be on the participants.
This way, you're ready to adapt in several ways, such as:
Distributing people into smaller groups in a way that balances their skills and attitudes.
Asking people with more charisma or actual power among the group to speak last so that they don't polarise other people's opinions.
Cutting off or modifying an activity to engage the group based on their attitudes.
Calling an extra break when people look drained and distracted.
Choosing a distracted person to take a note-taking role to bring their attention back to the activities.
And more.
For example, during last week's workshop, I noticed that the group was very accustomed to working together and open to discussion, but most of the group was uncomfortable generating solutions and feeling creative by themselves, becoming defensive and insecure. To adapt to this situation on the spot, I:
Changed a concept-generation activity from individual to groups of three.
Replaced a 15-minute silent art-gallery session with a 30-minute show-and-tell session, thanks to the contingency time available and the lower number of concepts produced by groups relative to the individual alternative.
Cut off a time-boxed 6up-1up session for a more relaxed, open discussion of the three most-voted concepts, standing up in front of the wall together, as participants came back from the last break with very tired faces.
Tool set
Deeply linked to the previous point, another strategy to adapt to any situation is to master your craft. Expanding your knowledge and preparation, and having a wide range of activities in your tool set, is essential to adapting to specific groups and situations.
It is easy to stick to a well-known pattern of activities, a routine that you feel comfortable with because you have done it so many times. But this approach focuses on providing a superficial one-size-fits-all activity, instead of creating value for clients by understanding that the workshop is just a tool, a means to a specific goal that should be your real focus. Moreover, as previously discussed, it exposes you to the risks of unknown and diverse groups and situations.
To understand the underlying structure of the process, study and prepare yourself. Collect as many activities as possible and understand their roles. Notice that some activities not only serve the same purpose, but are also variations of the same activity (think of crazy8 and 6up-1up). Focus on their specific characteristics to understand how and why to choose one over the other, depending on the context. Such activities are often interchangeable inside the structure of an entire day of workshop, but they can fit differently with your time schedule or your participants' inclinations. Learning to shift from one activity to another on the spot is a powerful skill that guarantees flexibility in the process.
The web is full of resources, such as guides, articles, blogs, entire books, or courses. Be sure to collect all that you can handle in your toolbox before the day of the workshop.
The Crystal Glass
This is more a result to be achieved than a strategy to be applied, but keeping it in mind can provide guidance and serve as a polestar and motivator.
During my last workshop, a thought (and a feeling) struck me, and I remembered an amazing essay: The Crystal Goblet, or Printing Should Be Invisible by Beatrice Warde (1900-1969). In this short piece, Warde draws an analogy between good and bad typography and drinking wine from a pair of goblets - one made of pure gold and adorned with a beautiful pattern, and the other made of clear, transparent crystal. She points out that if you care for the wine and want to appreciate its characteristics, you would probably choose the crystal goblet, which allows you to see the wine's content in its purest colours. In other words, the container should be invisible to your experience of the wine.
The analogy highlights the fact that typography should serve the content it delivers, and the best typography is one that is "invisible" to the reader. Not literally invisible, but so simple and elegant that the reader won't notice or care about the typography, but only focus on reading the words and understanding the ideas on paper (or on screen, nowadays).
I believe the same concept can be applied to facilitation. It's not about the workshop, the activities, or the facilitator. It's about the content, the ideas, the output, and the outcomes at the end of the day - the experience and the thoughts provoked during the process for the participants, the alignment generated in the team, and the value it delivers in the end. A good facilitator is someone who can adapt and learn from the context, stimulate participants when needed, but never interrupt a stream of thought or a conversation. They guide the group toward the goal and the purpose of the day, softly, without being seen, but still containing and leading all the other actors and elements.
Takeaways
In the end, flexibility is a valuable approach in different aspects of life and work. What I learned and will take away from facilitating a workshop are:
Plan for the unexpected;
One is none, two is one;
Be aware of the context and prioritise people;
Learn your craft and be prepared;
Focus on the content, not the container.
Weekly retrospective
If you liked this post and you think some of your friends would like as well, please share it with whoever you like.
Thanks for reading and see you next week!
Tobia