Debriefing after a facilitation helps identify logistical and audience issues, creating a proactive plan for addressing these issues in future facilitations.
Last week, I shared advice for surviving awkward facilitation moments. Today, let’s plan ahead for future facilitations by debriefing on your last facilitation.
This activity is ideal for:
- Anyone who recently facilitated a meeting, workshop, discussion, or panel
Here’s what you need:
- A facilitation outline from a recent meeting, workshop, discussion, or panel
The steps:
Debriefing after a facilitation helps identify steps to take to reduce future logistical and audience awkward moments.
For the sake of this activity, let’s focus on a meeting, workshop, discussion, or panel you recently facilitated.
Take out your facilitation outline. This example below is from a two-part theory of change training I recently co-facilitated for a funder:
This was the program officers’ version of the facilitation. The facilitator’s outline looked like this (without all the detail):
The first four columns were the same as the program officers’ version, but in our facilitator’s outline, we added two additional columns for identifying the materials and setup needed for the corresponding activity, along with instructions for how the activity should go.
Set up your debrief like this:
In “Planning & Facilitating Valuable Workshops (Part Four): Evaluating Your Workshop“, I recommended surveying workshop participants to identify themes related to workshop usefulness, workshop flow, facilitator style, and knowledge increase/behavioral change.
Now, let’s evaluate your facilitation expanding on these elements. As you evaluate, think about the logistics, audience dynamics, and audience engagement that occurred during the facilitation.
Under each column, take notes as you respond to the following questions:
Flow
- How was the timing for each agenda item? Too much, just right, or too short?
- How well did each agenda item build on the next?
- What agenda items should be included or removed for the next facilitation?
- Were there any disruptions in the flow of the agenda, and what was the cause (logistics, audience dynamics, or audience engagement)?
- If there were disruptions, how can you address this for future facilitations?
- Did you have to repeat instructions for any activity?
- Did you experience any tech issues if the facilitation occurred online?
- Did you experience any room or tech issues if the facilitation occurred in-person?
Style
- How confident were you in facilitating the subject matter?
- How confident were you in facilitating your assigned agenda item?
- If you were a co-facilitator, how well did you facilitate with your co-facilitator? What did you appreciate about your co-facilitator?
- If you were a co-facilitator, in what ways can the communication be strengthened between you and your co-facilitator for the next facilitation?
- If you facilitated alone, would this facilitation benefit from having a co-facilitator?
Usefulness
- How useful was each agenda item to the facilitation?
- How useful were the materials, documents and resources highlighted for each agenda item?
- How useful were the instructions you created for each agenda item’s activity?
- Based on participant feedback, did the content of this agenda item support participants’ learning about the subject matter?
- Based on participant feedback, which agenda items were most useful? Should you consider expanding on these items for future facilitations?
Let’s process
The purpose of this activity is to reflect on logistics, audience dynamics and engagement that occurred during a recent facilitation.
As you reflect on your responses, it’s possible that you may see some themes. I’ve noticed that for some facilitations, logistics were the main culprit. For others, it may have to do with either my facilitation style, how strong I am in the subject matter, or something that occurred with the audience.
Now that you’ve evaluated your facilitation, write down ways to improve on the agenda item for next time.
Key takeaway
Debriefing after a facilitation is integral to your growth as a facilitator.
Try this activity and let me know how it goes for you (or if you need support.)
Raise Your Voice: Do you debrief after a facilitation? Share below in the comments section.
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