Project Management: Facilitation Skills

I was riding my motorcycle down a quite stretch of road on a nice sunny afternoon. The steady hum of the engine and the sound of the wind were muffled through my ear plugs. My brain was wandering off to dream world, not a good idea on a motorcycle, when a pothole jarred me back to reality quickly. I was jostled and my adrenalin pumped through my veins.

I’ve had similar experiences managing projects, things are going very smoothly, on time, on budget, with the agreed to scope, achieving the project objectives, when something “bad” happens. My primary analyst who’d been on the project since its inception has to quickly leave the country. This example of losing a critical resource is a risk on most projects. The risk is usually accepted (unless there is additional information that increases the probability since creating contingency plans associated with the more improbable risks uses valuable team time and energy. Having a risk management plan that defines the process to use when an improbable risk is realized is the simplest way to manage this type of an event. Whether the complexity and size of the project requires formal documentation or not, the project manager must be prepared to put on a facilitators hat when these types of events occur.

I started learning facilitation tools and techniques fairly early in my project management career and I’m grateful it worked out that way. I’d like to say I had a grand plan laid out to hone my project management skills but that isn’t the case. I wanted to learn how to run meetings better because of the time that was being wasted, I wanted to close open items sooner since open items chew up time and resources and I wanted to be able to manage the team effectively and efficiently. I believed that being a good facilitator and gaining an understanding of the associated tools and techniques would help in all of those cases.

I best course I took is Interaction Associates Essential Facilitation. I was able to apply the tools and techniques I learned right away in my project management job. I found that the meetings I had became much more effective and my ability to lead improved as well. The book How to Make Meetings Work by Interaction Associates founders Michael Doyle and David Straus has been an invaluable source of tools and techniques for continuing to develop my facilitation skills and as a gentle reminder of managing time wisely.

There are a host great facilitation methods and tools that provide project managers a wealth of knowledge for managing meetings, creating plans that work, making decisions, resolving issues and creating contingency plans for risks when needed. There isn’t a one size fits all when discussing facilitation techniques. Different teams need different guidance and the project manager must find the tools and techniques that work best for their team. Facilitation skills ensure that the project manager understands team dynamics and ways of dealing with time sensitive set backs or opportunities. Being knowledgeable in the field of facilitation is an important ingredient to project success.

Ride On, Manage On.