Meeting Facilitation Techniques

1. Encourage participation from all group members

· Use brainstorming technique

· Show that you value ideas, opinions, and experience

· Limit/edit your own opinions and ideas and defer to the group

· Ask for different points of view

· Don’t allow a member to monopolize

· Thank participants for their contributions

· Ask open-ended questions

2. Focus on ideas and not on people

· Refer to the idea and not the person

· Rephrase comments to focus on the topic

3. Keep the meeting on track

· Manage both the flow and content of the meeting

· Let the participants carry the content

· Focus on how the content relates to the desired outcome

· Focus on covering the agenda items

· Refer to the Ground Rules to get back on track

· Speed up or slow down the pace as appropriate

· Periodically summarize what’s been said

· Help the group to reach conclusions

4. Close the meeting effectively

· Restate what has been accomplished in the meeting

· Identify action items and assign them including timeframes

· If necessary, resolve agenda items not covered

· Determine date, time and location of next meeting

· Thank all participants for their input

Module VI-Team Development