The Facilitator's Fieldbook

by Tom Justice, David Jamieson

Overview

An invaluable guide that provides you with the comprehensive tools and knowledge you need to help your teams--and, ultimately, your organization--succeed.

The completely revised third edition of this longtime go-to resource for novice and experienced facilitators provides new team-building exercises as well as updated information on virtual meetings, mediation, strategic planning, and much more.

Loaded with procedures, checklists, guidelines, samples, and templates, The Facilitator’s Fieldbook covers all the key areas of successful team management, including:

• establishing ground rules
• planning meetings and agendas,
• brainstorming,
• resolving conflict,
• making decisions,
• and helping groups optimize their time.

You’ll also gain tips on maintaining the tone and flow of meetings, and will learn to determine when to delegate projects to individuals rather than assembling a group. Collaborative projects have become an increasingly prevalent feature of modern business strategies and workplace dynamics. But intentional, strategic facilitation is essential to making sure these groups and teams are effective.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814420119
Publisher:	AMACOM
Publication date:	08/31/2012
Sold by:	HarperCollins Publishing
Format:	eBook
Pages:	45
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

TOM JUSTICE is an organizational development practitioner and the president of Justice Associates, a consulting firm specializing in organizational capacity.
DAVID W. JAMIESON, PH.D., is department chair, Organization Learning Development, University of St. Thomas and coauthor of Managing Workforce 2000.

Read an Excerpt

Preface

The use of groups and teams in most aspects of organizational life has steadily risen over the past decade. The normal ups and downs of working in groups have brought elation and frustration to many, prompting an interest in learning how to help groups and teams operate effectively. Consequently, publications and workshops on teams, team development, and teamfacilitation have proliferated, offering an abundance of definitions and theories to choose from.

The result? While some resources out there do offer solid guidance, in numerous cases this proliferation has led to oversimplifications, too many models, and unnecessary confusion.

We have written this book to clear up any confusion about one highly important topic in this age of participation: facilitation. As the domain of facilitation is helping people successfully work together in groups and teams, its art and science are not only critical to future achievements in organizations, but also integral to advancements in the societies that support those organizations.

The more businesses and communities use participation, involving groups of people to plan, manage, and problem-solve, the more facilitation will play a role in their success. This has been true since our first edition in the 1980’s and has only increased as the world of work has gotten more complex, organization forms have proliferated and the involvement of more diverse stakeholders has become paramount.

CONTENTS AND ORGANIZATION

In this Third Edition of the Fieldbook, you will discover what facilitation is and what facilitators need to do. You will find a selection of resources—procedures, guides, and samples—designed for facilitators at all levels of experience.

To keep the book’s contents as user-friendly as possible, we have organized the work of facilitation into three phases, with primary tasks and outcomes for each. This three-phase model frames the scope of what facilitators need to think about and do and what skills they must develop to be effective; it also creates an organizing structure for the many facilitation resources we have included. We have tried to be fairly comprehensive in our selection of resources, supplementing the basic facilitation material with more sophisticated methods for special situations and nontraditional facilitation challenges.

We hope that by bringing clarity to the task of facilitation and providing resources for immediate use, we will expand and improve the practice of facilitation. The word facilitate is derived from the Latin word facilitas, which means easiness. While working with groups has never been, and probably will never be, completely easy, we trust that The Facilitator’s Fieldbook will lend some quality of ease to facilitators and groups alike.

'

Excerpted from The Facilitator's Fieldbook, Third Edition, by Tom Justice and David W. Jamieson. Copyright © 2012. Published by AMACOM Books, a division of American Management Association, New York, NY. Used with permission.

All rights reserved. http://www.amacombooks.org.

Table of Contents

Contents

Preface
Contents and Organization
Changes to the Second Edition of The Facilitator's Fieldbook
Acknowledgments
About the Authors

Introduction
The "Altogether" View of Facilitator Personal Qualities
Primer A: Understanding Adult Learning
Primer B: Understanding Group Dynamics and Decision Making
Primer C: Understanding Process Consultation
Primer D: The Manager as Facilitator

SECTION I-PHASE I: PREPARATION
Overview
Facilitator Resources
CONTRACTING FOR FACILITATION
ORGANIZING THE GROUP
SETTING GROUP NORMS
MEETING PLANNING

SECTION II-PHASE II: WORKING WITH THE GROUP
Overview
Facilitator Resources
GETTING STARTED RIGHT
GROUP MEMORY SYSTEMS
ANALYZING THE DATABASE
DECISION MODES
HANDLING CONFLICTS AND COMMON PROBLEMS WITH GROUPS
EVALUATION AND GROUP CLOSURE

SECTION III-PHASE III: IMPLEMENTATION
Overview
Facilitator Resources
MEETING RECORDS
PREPARING, PRESENTING, AND REVIEWING RECOMMENDATIONS
IMPLEMENTATION PLANNING

SECTION IV-SPECIAL MEETINGS
Overview
Facilitator Resources
PLANNING MEETINGS AND TOOLS
LARGE-GROUP PLANNING METHODS FOR ORGANIZATIONAL AND
COMMUNITY CHANGE

SECTION V-FACILITATING IN A VIRTUAL WORLD
Overview
Facilitator Resources
FACILITATING IN A VIRTUAL WORLD: TECHNOLOGICAL TOOLS AND APPLICATIONS

SECTION VI-USING THE FACILITATOR'S FIELDBOOK
AS A TRAINING TOOL
Overview
Facilitator Resources
TRAINER'S NOTES
Index

 

Editorial Reviews

. . . perfect for novices or seasoned veterans.

T+D

"...provides quick and easy access to the frameworks, task breakdowns, and deliverables for defining what needs to be done…tremendous time and frustration saver for anyone facilitating meetings." —PMWorld Journal

From the Publisher