Notes from Agile Facilitation Tools & Techniques Course

These are the notes from the facilitation workshop / course held by Sue Johnson.

My Aphorism

You need to show the same audacity for not facilitating a session having no or negative value, as opposing a team’s decision contradicting Agile values.

Great Facilitation Skills

Having made them write it down => great facilitation skill for helping with the introverts
Put someone on the spot, a big NO NO
Bring it to the team, they are there with their best interest
Good to do process check in intervals in the meetings
Secondary Facilitator

Originally from Group Gold Mining book
I want to use it as an opportunity to coach a person to become a good facilitator

If it is about your job, you don’t want to facilitate that meeting, an example of what not to facilitate

Even the meeting is not a good option

Facilitator needs to make sure it is not becoming a slugfest
Do we get instructions to become a parent / husband / wife? On how to become a good communicator / facilitator
Get the participants in group first, before introducing the group activity
Give them what and let them find the how, on how to facilitate neutrally
Facilitator is more about facilitating than being a facilitator
Will you be tempted to influence the team? And can you be a team member? To ask a manager before attending a team meeting
Facilitating a group is much harder v.s. a team. You need more time to prepare, as they don’t know each other to the extent of team members.

Use of Empathy Map

Empathy Map (Source)

If people are flooded with emotion, you can’t work with them (and facilitate the session), you need to take a break
You need to understand that an angry woman most probably will cry at work. It is not appropriate to be angry at work for women.

Good to Remember Questions

What’s your gut feeling, are we missing any of those? (Referring to your feeling in an indirect way)
Do You want to say more about this?
I want to hear from the people I didn’t hear
Stand right by a person, works both for quiet people and talkative people
How do you know? A god way to asking if it is really the case
Ask for an example, good one or BS
Is that true or is that your opinion (stronger word to use: story)?

Conflict

Everyone is right but only partially (our own version of truth)
Distinction between Interest & Position
Go back to facts, we need to walk those people down the ladder when resolving issues
UNMET NEEDS => Reason behind having conflict, look for what’s missing
You Are Always Right! From each person’s perspective they are right, try to use that a lot and believe in it sincerely. Look from their perspective.
Conflict around ideas not people
You can improve on Negotiation Training
Conflict, alternatives to:

Disagreement
What wants to happen?
Emerging things

						Spiral of Doom
Who it is going to be won						Fantasy
As we start to files attached, we start to move to world of fiction						Fiction
Fact going through our believes						Faction
There are facts supporting that conflict						Fact
¢	¤	¢	¤	¢	¤	¢	¤	¢	¤	¢	¤
Fact	Fact	Faction	Fiction	Faction	Fiction	Fiction	Faction	Fiction	Faction	Fiction	Fact

Powerful

We are powerful people, we thrive on:

Powerful Observation
Powerful Question
Powerful Request

Open Space

Open space is for complex problems that there is no simple answer to it.
A theme is good to have for an Open Space

Individual interaction

Individual exercise -> group exercise

(time to reflection, talk before think)

introvert -> extrovert

small group -> big group

Haiku for Team Dynamics

Work togetherish

Live happy with conflictish

Grow with each otherish

Miscellaneous

5 to 1 ratio for positive to negative feedback ratio
Radical Candor

Deep Democracy

Arc of Facilitation (Very similar to 5 Retrospective stages)

Learnings Summarized at the end of the session