Schlagwort: facilitation

You have right to remain silent! Everything you say can and will be used to stretch the workshop endlessly…

As a facilitator or leader you should get the best out of everybody and invite everyone to participate. Ok. But experience teaches us to invest where it pays off most. Sometimes that is a few dedicated and smart people instead of ‚everyone‘.

Many workshop methods are designed to open the mouth of everybody in the room until e v e r y t h i n g has been said – by e v e r y b o d y.

The ‚let’s all ask each other syndrome‘ results in:

• too many people invited to the workshop
• precious sticky notes wasted
• endless feedback rounds noone likes
• a discussion that didn’t get under the surface

There is this story that a large number of people produces better estimation results than the best individuals. That is why, some say, we should utilize #swarmintelligence and enable #participation.

But can the problem that your workshop has to address really be approached by ideas, opinions and guessing?

In my workshops I encourage people to decide: ‚Hey, if you don’t have anything to say right now, it’s ok. You don’t have to contribute if you have no clue how. Thanks for saving everybody’s time!‘

Any moderator or leader should know when the moment has come and silence is the best way someone from the team can contribute at the moment.