Facilitation Skills and Techniques

The Facilitator Institute focuses on the training of individuals who can effectively facilitate process improvement and problem solving efforts in public or private sector organizations. The Institute represents an intensive period of training that provides substantive learning, interactive exercises to apply the principles, and the building of a toolkit of techniques useful in working with teams, task forces and other groups.

Who should attend a program of this nature?

The Facilitator Institute prepares people to serve as effective group facilitators for work teams engaged in process improvement efforts. People from many levels and functions within an organization -- including senior managers, clerical workers, union leaders, supervisors, scientists, engineers, and other key employees -- would do well to participate in the training. The Institute also aids individuals with lead responsibility for workplace transformation initiatives by fostering learning related to systems thinking and change.

In the Facilitator Institute participants will:

• Examine the global context for the application of quality improvement tools and techniques in the workplace.
• Focus in-depth on the core concepts and principles of quality improvement -- customers and stakeholders, teamwork, learning, system thinking and leadership.
• Learn skills that are fundamental to any facilitator's toolkit:
  • communication skills,
  • presentation skills,
  • skills to generate ideas,
  • skills to arrive at the root causes of problems,
  • skills to acquire a "profound knowledge" about problems,
  • meeting process skills,
  • conflict resolution skills,
  • interest-based bargaining skills,
  • statistical process control (SPC), pareto charts, is/is not analysis, five Why's, process mapping, and
  • evaluation methods
• Focus on ways to link data, knowledge and action to drive continuous improvement.
• Practice facilitating actual meetings.
• Focus on the role of union leadership in change efforts and the link between labor relations and the organizational changes taking place.
• Learn techniques for self-assessment so as to support continuous improvement of their skills as facilitators.