Courseware.co.uk

Facilitation Skills Training Materials

Fully Customizable

It is impossible to be part of an organization today and not attend meetings. Staff meetings, project meetings, planning and coordinating meetings - they all take time.

There has been a growing realization that we have to pay attention to the process elements of meetings, if we want them to be effective. With its focus on asking rather than telling, and listening to build consensus, facilitation is the new leadership ideal, the core competency everybody needs. Managers and supervisors are often asked to facilitate rather than instruct or manage their meetings and training sessions.
This two-day workshop has been created to make core facilitation skills better understood and readily available for your organization. It represents materials and ideas that have been tested and refined over twenty years of active facilitation in all types of settings. This workshop will help you teach participants how to:
- Distinguish facilitation from instruction and training
- Identify the competencies linked to effective small group facilitation
- Understand the different between content and process
- Identify the four stages of team development and ways to help teams through each stage
- Use common process tools to make meetings easier and more productive

Learn more... Course Outline 

 

Target Audience

Our courseware is primarily purchased by five types of trainer; HR managers, corporate trainers, private training firms, educational institutions, or private consultants. The target audience varies on the instructor and the type of training required by a particular organization.

The students for this course are usually facilitation staff or managers involved in facilitation.

Prerequisites

No previous experience or training in facilitation is required, though students should possess basic numeracy and literacy and ideally have a basic understanding of using computers and software applications, such as Microsoft Word.

What You Actually Receive
  • Student Workbook Customizable. Can be opened in Word and you can make any change you like. 1
  • Instructor Guide Customizable. Offers additional instructor information. 2
  • Ice Breakers and Activities Customizable. Choose from a folder filled with with activities to use in the classroom. 3
  • Pre-Assignment Customizable. Evaluate your participants prior to the training and gain valuable insight to their expectations,   needs and current understanding of the subject matter. 4
  • Course Outline Customizable. Detailed course outlines help you stay on track. 5
  • PowerPoint Slides Customizable. We’ve even done your presentation slides for you. 6
  • Recommended Reading Lists Customizable. Provide you students with a summary of additional materials on the subject matter. 7
  • Promotional Advertorial Customizable. Advertise your training internally or externally with these detailed sell sheets. 8

Courseware.co.uk is the only European organization authorized to sell Velsoft courseware. Velsoft Courseware offers training material as a customizable product and does so in a way that differentiates it in the workplace learning and performance market. Velsoft sells ‘courseware’. The term courseware has been around for years but, because of the Internet, courseware as a product has become a growing, preferred method of purchasing instructor-led training material. Courseware (short for course material in a software format) is considered software. In particular, it is software designed to eliminate prep time by providing proven, pre-written courses in an electronic format. The electronic aspect offers several key advantages such as instant access and customizable flexibility so the trainer can ‘localize’ the content.
 
As an instructor, you simply open this Facilitation Skills course material in Microsoft Word (or any word processing program). You have the rights (for your location) to edit the content to suite you or your students’ needs. Instantly you have your course… we have saved you hundreds of hours, thousands of dollars and given you the confidence to walk into the classroom. All you do is simply print-on-demand as many course workbooks as you need – when you need them.

You Also Receive
  • Customizable Rights are given on a per site location to edit the content to suit the training needs or corporate environment. 1
  • Instantly Available Courses are instantly available as a download or can be shipped on CD. 2
  • Proven Velsoft courses are used every day by thousands of trainers in countries all over the world.

    Before release, each Velsoft course is tested in the classroom and sent to beta testers. Some courses are also tested at St. Mary’s University via Kay Parker (for more detail see the last step in section titled How Courseware is Created).     3
  • Easy to use All courses and materials are easily opened in Microsoft Word or any word processing program. 4
  • Print-on-demand Instructors only print what they need, when they need it. 5
  • Flexible Instructors can easily remove sections, combine courses, ‘localize’ examples, add new content, etc. 6
  • Unlimited number of users Rights are sold on a per location basis. Each location is permitted to use the material with as many staff at the location as they like (including future training). 7
  • No annual renewal fees Organizations are not required to pay renewal fees. 8
  • Unlimited re-printing rights Ongoing use means organizations are not limited to the number of times they can reprint the course material. 9

Facilitation Skills Training Outline

Introduction and Course Overview You will spend the first part of the day getting to know participants and discussing what will take place during the workshop. Students will also have an opportunity to identify their personal learning objectives.

Definitions Participants will explore the differences between instruction, facilitation, and management in small and large groups.

What is a Facilitator? Through a lecture, participants will learn about the history of facilitation, some key skills, the levels of facilitation, and the facilitation process.

Types of Groups Facilitators must work with all types of groups. In this session, participants will discuss two common types (participatory and conventional) of groups in a small group setting.

Content and Process It is very important for facilitators to understand the differences between content and process, as they have a different role in each element. These concepts will be explored in a large group discussion.

Group Norms During this session, participants will learn about team norms and set some for themselves to guide the rest of the workshop.

Types of Thinking This session will explore divergent thinking, convergent thinking, the groan zone, and multi-voting tools through a lecture and a large group exercise.

Controversial Issues Facilitators are often asked for their help when a group has a controversial issue to deal with. In this session we will learn about a tool that can help participants facilitate these types of issues: the gradient of agreement.

Communication Skills A key part of the facilitator’s toolbox is communication skills. We will discuss how to ask good questions, how to actively listen, how to use non-verbal messages, and how to listen for common ground.

Common Facilitation Techniques We will spend several hours looking at twenty techniques that facilitators often use. First we will explore these techniques through lecture, and then participants will role play the techniques in front of the large group.

Effective Feedback Giving and receiving feedback is an important part of facilitation. We will look at both elements during this session.

Facilitating an Open Discussion During this session, we will look at some facilitation techniques that the facilitator can use to ensure everyone in the group gets a chance to speak.

Managing Divergent Perspectives Usually, if a lot of people are taking part in a discussion, there are a lot of differing perspectives on the issues. The facilitator’s challenge is to help people value one another’s contributions. Through a lecture and a case study, this session will look at some ways that the facilitator can do this.

The Language of Facilitation This session will look at four language techniques that facilitators commonly use.

City Council Participants will apply the knowledge learned so far to a case study.

Agendas Agendas can be a great tool for facilitating meetings. We will look at how to develop an agenda and we will develop a sample agenda.

Dealing with Difficult Dynamics Participants will work in small groups to complete a mix-and-match exercise on difficult people and how to manage them.

Interventions This session will look at some techniques facilitators can use to intervene. Participants will have an opportunity to practice these interventions in a role play.

Sustainable Agreements As a facilitator, you want to make sure that all points of view have been considered, so that when an agreement is reached, it is one that everyone is happy with. During this session we will look at the components of a sustainable agreement.

Stages of Team Development This session will explore Tuckman and Jensen’s four stage model of team development: forming, storming, norming, and performing. We will also look at some ways that a facilitator can help groups move through these stages.

Analysis Tools SWOT analysis and force field analysis can help the group analyze internal or external problems. We will take a brief look at how to use both tools.

Workshop Wrap-Up At the end of the day, students will have an opportunity to ask questions and fill out an action plan.

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