 |
Pushing the
Boundaries: Facilitation Frontiers
Charles Sturt University, Bathurst - New South Wales, Australia 26-28 November 2008
|
| Program
|
| Registration |
| Location
& Venue |
| FAQs
|
| Health
& Sustainability |
| Sponsors
& Exhibitors |
| Organising Team |
| Key
Contacts |
| AFN 2008 Conference |
| AFN Home |
Session
Presenters
Workshop Descriptions
Wed 26 November
1
Martin Butcher
Exploring engagement in a complex environment- an experimental experiential exploration using your lifestyle as a metaphor
[Level: Any; Max: 24]
I have designed this workshop to enable participants explore possibilities in a complex environment. The workshop will use a number of simple facilitation techniques combined together to create a rich process for participants to explore complexity. My intention is to create an inclusive environment; an environment that will enable both those new to facilitation and the 'old hands' (and those in between) to come away feeling that it has been a positive and worthwhile use of 90 mins of their time.
2
Stewart Hase &
Shankar Sankaran
Using pre-workshop Delphi Questionnaire to facilitate a planning process effectively [Level: Intermediate; Max: 20]
This session demonstrates and explains the use of a modified Delphi technique that enhances the use of the Search Conference using email. The technique has been used successfully in corporate and community engagement sessions especially for visioning and planning purposes.
In particular the technique is applied where organisations cannot allocate sufficient group process time or where staff cannot be released to undertake the search conference process.
A volunteer group of conference participants will engage in the modified Delphi prior to the conference.
The session will demonstrate how the Delphi findings are utilised in a face to face setting and involve all participants in the process.
2
Brendan McKeague &
Fr Brian Bainbridge
Open Space Institute of Australia Web
Organising for Self-organising: feeling the power of 'letting go'! (Open Space) [Repeated in Session 7] [Level: Any; Max: 30]
Open Space Technology is one of the world’s foremost facilitation models for inviting inclusivity, participation, high energy, playful learning and the effective, sustainable resolution of complex, urgent and contentious issues.
One of the strange things about Open Space (OS) is that the facilitator appears to do less than in rmany other models of facilitation. The capacity to ‘let go’ in such a model often pushes the boundaries of the facilitator’s personal patterns of behaviour, training and conventional cultural conditioning.
We invite you to join us in exploring the underlying philosophy of complex adaptive systems, the power of self-organising and the evidence that supports our assertion…..it’s so much fun to work less hard in order to achieve more – and to feel ‘at home in the universe’!
Gain some insight into the importance, and legitimacy, of a “letting-go” approach to facilitation – and a sense of how an OS facilitator needs to be comfortable living with the tensions of ‘knowing, yet not knowing…’!
Presenters will share stories on the theme from personal experience and invite the group into an interactive process to evoke and express participants’ own wisdom and curiosities – predominantly conversational style.
1+2
Glen Ochre &
Ed McKinley
Groupwork Institute of Australia Web
Introduction to Facilitation (double session) [Level: New or Intermediate; Max: 24]
The session will introduce and frame Facilitation, gather and work on participant’s keys issues/challenges, input on areas of greatest interest to participants, model facilitation throughout the session, drop in appropriate exercises and activities as appropriate at the time, have fun and finish with an altogether verbal evaluation.
The participant will be able to understand more fully the Profession of Facilitation, to use key processes and micro-skills, and to have participants issues/challenges addressed.
1
Nigel Russell & Carla Rogers
NoMadMeetings Web
How to run WICKED online meetings! [Level: Any; Max: 35]
Take the madness out of meetings and experience the immediate benefits and long term gains from meeting at a distance effectively.
With the pressure to reduce travel, cut costs and carbon emissions yet maintain output, organisations need to hold effective meetings and build relationships at a distance. Facilitators have a key role to play in helping others engage at a distance and utilise techniques and tools to make these remote interactions effective – in fact amazing, rich and powerful!
In this session participants will: Distinguish and actively practice 3 critical elements in running amazing at-a-distance meetings, and experience novel techniques for engaging remote participants.
Participants will engage in a live meeting and immerse themselves in the key techniques which make at-a-distance meetings really work and actively test these meeting techniques and tools and see and feel how they work!
1
Tom Schwarz
Kinnogene (Aus) P/L
Introducing and using a safe space process for polarized issues and views: the Flip Flop Debate...in an exploration of a topic that matters – “Do Values really matter ? Can’t we do without them?”
[Level: Intermediate and Advanced; Max: 60]
Most people (and many facilitators) see conflict as barriers and boundaries to group work and gaining meaningful outcomes.
This session's approach directly confronts these boundaries and reframes using structured conflict to encourage a high intensity emotional engagement with any polarising topic or entrenched positions. This enriches, deepens and fast-tracks the group’s dynamics yielding deep, fresh insights and perceptual shifts.
People are also moved to perceive the issue FROM the default first person (me) TO that of the second position (the other) perspective. For many facilitators the outcome is to push their boundaries around their perception of their views and stance regarding deep issues such as values and change – and how they then work with these in organisations and life in general.
2
Telos Partners Australia Pty Ltd
WebCo-facilitation: the Magic Minefield - navigating the pathways to ‘the zone’ for co-facilitators [Level: Any; Max: 50]
Co-facilitation can feel like working in a minefield. There is no map for safe pathways, you don’t know where the surprises are located and you never know what you will strike.
Meaningful co-facilitation is when both facilitators choose to step together into the minefield – confident that the trust that develops between them will allow their individual talents and insights to work their magic. They work together to defuse difficult situations and explore complex issues as they arise – both between themselves and within the group.
Group participants report that the outcomes from working with good co-facilitators are so much better than working with two good facilitators. So how do facilitators learn to work to navigate the minefield of co-facilitation – what do they need to think, feel and do before and during the event to deliver?
We will be drawing upon:
- our personal experience as co-facilitators within an international consulting group, sometimes having to quickly prepare to co-facilitate across different organisational and cultural boundaries
- our experience training facilitators in co-facilitation
- data analysis from evaluations / reviews of work we have undertaken to train large cohorts of co-facilitators.
Session
Presenters
Workshop Descriptions
Thur 27 November
3
Sue Bull
Catholic Schools Office, Diocese of Broken Bay NSW
Web
'Don't fence me in': breaking boundaries in home/school partnerships [Level: Any; No Max]
Developing parent educator teams as facilitators of parenting programs across school communities
Parents as volunteers exist in many schools but parents sharing their professional skills as adult educators is poorly utilised in school communities.
Using a range of interactive processes, this workshop presents an innovative model of training parents as professional facilitators across local school communities. It provides a range of strategies to empower participants in developing effective home – school partnerships that break the boundaries of current practice.
Modelling two strategies to open discussion, the workshop reveals specific principles of adult learning, interactive processes and practical co-facilitation strategies to cater to cultural diversity and local group needs.
Participants will:
- enhance self learning and knowledge of facilitation processes for diverse local communities
- discuss a range of strategies to enhance working partnerships with parents in local communities
- develop an action plan to set clear methods and processes relevant to current roles
5
Ian Colley,
Chia Moan,
Monica Redden,
Annie Talvé
Make Stuff Happen
Web
Dead or Alive?: applying first aid to depleted corporate lingo
[Level: Any; Max: 50]
Language shapes reality. Words have energy and can stimulate our imagination or shut it down. Naming things as they are is fundamental to developing a shared understanding between people and a firm platform for communication. This is a core concern for facilitators and we play a critical role in ‘pushing the boundaries’ in relation to the use of lazy and obfuscating language.
Don Watson called them ‘weasel words’. We use them everyday to impress, fit in, bamboozle, or show how damn clever we are. They’re inescapable; but are they inevitable?
Innocent or corrosive? - you can decide in this playful weasel-busting session, where we apply first aid to the worst offenders.
It’s not just a joke though: depleted words can lead to depleted thinking. Not to mention imagination, direct talk and trust.
And what about democracy? Weasel words often privilege the world view of a particular managerial caste, freezing out anyone who isn’t part of the club.
Facilitators (to use our jargon) are often caught in the middle. Do we challenge or conform? It’s confusing.
Are you willing to let go of your ‘capabilities’ and your ‘empowered workforce’; your ‘stakeholders’ and your ‘benchmarks’?
Get off the weasel wagon and come to this session. There are prizes to be won, and there is poetry to be made……...
The session is highly interactive; drawing on the huge reservoir of gobbledegook participants bring with them; playfully reframing the most gross and ridiculous examples; developing tactics for challenging the profligate use of depleted language in the future.
4
Helen Colman
Catholic Schools Office, Diocese of Broken Bay NSW
‘Who facilitates the facilitator when the facilitator’s facilitating….?’ Facilitating ‘expert’ mentor teachers in their role of mentoring early career teachers. [Level: Intermediate; Max: 30]
I am currently facilitating a group of ‘expert’ classroom teachers to develop their own skills in facilitation for the purpose of mentoring early career teachers ie teachers in their first 1-3 years of teaching. This approach to mentoring has a twofold aim: to develop the personal leadership potential of the mentors, while at the same time providing a nurturing and positive learning environment for teachers at the start of their teaching career.
This workshop will engage participants in a range of interactive activities that will lead to a formulation of the concept of mentoring. Processes of modelling, critiquing and debriefing will challenge participants to discover the ‘mentor within’.
The participant will be able to:
- articulate the concept of mentoring;
- interact with others in the role of both mentor and mentee;
- demonstrate one or more skills involved in facilitating a network group
3 or 5
Global Learning
Web
Facilitating with Interactive Meeting Technology [Repeated in Session 5] [Level: Any; Max: 50]
This session will provide participants with a ‘hands-on’ experience of interactive meeting technology. This technology presents facilitators with new and better ways of working with groups, both large and small.
Participants will understand the usefulness, accuracy and speed of interactive technology for meeting and workshop support, and to consider how facilitation can be accelerated when working with clients.
iMEET! (the technology) is wholly designed and developed in Australia.
4 or 6
Global Learning
Web
Blending the Learning: Supporting face-to-face workshop facilitation with online communities of practice [Repeated in Session 6] [Level: Any: Max: 50]
This session will examine the ways that facilitators can support and sustain online learning communities as part of organisational development programs. The program will utilise online technology as a means to capture ideas and discussion from the session.
The participant will be able to understand ways in which facilitators can gain advantage by using interactive web technology in order to support participants' learning and development, both pre- and post-workshop.
3+4
Dale Hunter,
Stephen Thorpe,
Zenergy Web
Joan Firkins
Facilitation Works Web
Ed McKinley &
Glen Ochre
Groupwork Institute of Australia Web
Social change facilitation: Meeting complexity of social change with synergy and co-operative work (double session) [Level: Any; Max: 50]
Building from the groundbreaking "Facilitating Social Change Conference" held at Commonground in May, 2008, facilitation practitioners with a diverse range of experience will explore 'pushing the boundaries and facilitating frontiers' toward making a difference for a just and sustainable future.
The workshop will feature feedback from the FSCC conference: Our purpose - our process - our outcomes (insights, transformations, disappointments) to pass on to other facilitators with an 'open' process.
An insight from the Facilitating Social Change Conference is that 'social change facilitation' may be based on somewhat different values to group facilitation and this insight will also be explored further during this session.
6
Greg Jenkins
TinCAN Learning Company Web
What can Organisations Learn about Leadership Development from Indigenous kids? [Level: Any; Max. tba]
AFL Indigenous Academies in Western Sydney is a timely showcase for anyone planning a leadership development program in their organisation. In this workshop, you will be immersed in some of the facilitation tools and experiential learning techniques that seem to work with indigenous and disadvantaged populations.
The three insights from this program have the potential to transform the way we plan leadership development in organisations, schools and communities.
5
Shirley O'Toole
Shirley O’Toole Facilitation & Training Web
Songs of the Soul: facilitating change through music [Level: Any; Max: 20] [Repeated in Session 8]
The power of story is well known in facilitation circles. This workshop challenges facilitators to push their ability to gather stories to co-create songs with their participants. Song-writing is a particularly powerful tool in social change.
The workshop includes right-brain games, sharing stories, song creation, and sharing songs.
Participants will be able to:
- create basic rhythms
- synthesise key themes; and
- combine these two skills to create songs that reflect experiences of other participants.
3+4
Peter Rennie
Leadership Australia Web
How to engage stakeholders by mapping the social system (double session) [Level: Any; Max: 20]
This presentation builds on some of the work that began at the Facilitation of Social Change Conference held at Commonground in May 2008. The challenge in so many situations is to respect and understand another’s perspective and actions, and that takes both time and a willingness to do so.
System mapping facilitates both understanding and engagement by stakeholders in the system. It helps people to understand that real social change needs multiple interventions at different levels and a commitment to a sustained process.
Participants will:
- learn how to map complex systems
- experience the impact of mapping a system using everyday objects
- deepen their understanding of systems theory
- discover how to apply these principles in their own lives and work
5+6
Cindy Tonkin
Ludic Creative Web
Life is not a rehearsal - start improvising! (double session) [Level: Any; Max: 100]
Improvisation pushes the boundaries of thinking and responding. It takes you into the frontier of the unknown, unplanned and as yet unaccessed, to the deeper psychological reserves of which we know so little, and to which we respond so well.
Participants will be able to:
- notice their own response to pressure
- stop their inner voice
- begin to breathe easily when faced with an unexpected challenge
- unleash their creative mind
- respond in a relaxed manner
- build on the ideas of others
This workshop by its very nature is improvised, and draws on games we use to create the improvising mindset before a show. It’s NOT about making a show, it’s about the mindset facilitators need
Session
Presenters
Workshop Descriptions
Fri 28 November
8
Hedy Bryant
Charles Sturt University &
Tom Schwarz
Kinnogene (Aus) P/L
A fundamental tantrics for facilitators: To scribe or not to scribe? [Level: Any; Max: 50]
The session explores, reflects on, and expands a core facet of facilitation – scribing - as a metaphor for the need to reflect on and explore all facets of one’s facilitation, exploring one’s routine practices such as scribing in alternative ways to move beyond these and truly push the boundaries of facilitation.
This co-facilitated session will be highly experiential and interactive.
Participants will work through a series of questions:
- to elicit (illicit is also allowed) a fleshing out of the context and why this may be important to them
- to then move to making meaning of the group's inputs, with consequences explored; and
- to discuss what this might imply to them for their future facilitation practices.
Some of the answers will be in multi-modal format –and mirth and fun will be mandatory requirements.
7
Andrew Gaines
Alliance for Sustainable Wellbeing Web
Creative group problem solving [Level: Any; Max: 20]
The workshop will be mostly experiential. You will learn special creativity procedures, and then apply them to actual situations.
This offers a fresh approach to making group creativity come alive that is modelled on the thought processes of professional inventors.
Our creativity procedures enable groups to tap into their rich store of knowledge and experience aspects of the mind that typical brainstorming and problem solving ignores. Group alignment is achieved by imaginatively redefining the problem. Good for solving challenging problems and developing new opportunities.
This workshop shows ways to activate the productive unconscious, and also how to get group alignment in a way that bypasses potential conflict.
8
Graeme Gibson
Real Options Web
Strategic questioning [Level: Any; No max.]
Strategic Questioning is one of a range of conversational/ questioning techniques that have wide application for facilitators, groups and society as a whole.
Participants will be able to understand the basis for strategic questioning and effectively apply it in all aspects of human interaction - from informal group discussion to facilitated events.
8
Greg Jenkins
TinCAN Learning Company Web
Change Implementation – the New Frontier for Facilitators
[Level: Intermediate to Advanced; Max: tba]
Working out what needs to be done is the easy part of the change process. Facilitators have for decades been helping groups work out their mission, vision and change strategy. However, whilst having a plan is a worthy goal, it’s in the implementation that things come unstuck. In this workshop you will experience a taste of the three stages necessary for implementing successful, sustainable change. This experiential session will appeal to anyone involved in facilitating change in the business, education or community sectors.
7
Brendan McKeague &
Fr Brian Bainbridge
Organising for Self-organising: feeling the power of 'letting go'! (Open Space) [Repeated from Session 1] [Level: Any]
See description in Session 1
8
Shirley O'Toole
Shirley O’Toole Facilitation & Training Web
Songs of the Soul: facilitating change through music [Level: Any; Max: 20] [Repeated from Session 5]
The power of story is well known in facilitation circles. This workshop challenges facilitators to push their ability to gather stories to co-create songs with their participants. Song-writing is a particularly powerful tool in social change.
The workshop includes right-brain games, sharing stories, song creation, and sharing songs.
Participants will be able to:
- create basic rhythms
- synthesise key themes; and
- combine these two skills to create songs that reflect experiences of other participants.
8
Carla Rogers
Evolve Facilitation & Coaching Web
The Marketplace™ – Innovations in large group facilitation and community engagement [Level: Any; Max: 100]
Imagine you are at a market - What do you see? Colour, movement, action, people talking, humour, noise, and most of all diversity. Participate in a live meeting marketplace™ which combines the best of our long tradition of ‘going to market’ with facilitation and community engagement values and principles.
Meeting marketplace™ is fun, informal, and participatory, enabling the expression and exploration of diversity while yielding valid and rich information you can take away and use immediately.
Be inspired and stimulated, feel connected and creative in this marketplace as you explore what supports you in being at your ‘facilitation best’.
Dr Jessica Dart
Clear Horizon Web
Closing event/Evaluation (an example of large group evaluation process)
Presenters
Workshop Descriptions
Sat 29 November Post-Conference Workshops CANCELLED
Post
Marie Martin &
Anna Alderson
Learning Conversations
Web
CANCELLED
Co-facilitation; what is it, why do it, how, when and with whom?
[Level: Intermediate & Advanced; Max: 30]
Co-facilitation is more than facilitation. When we co-facilitate, we often spend most of our time preparing to work with the group. That is what we are being paid to do. We take for granted that we, as co-facilitators, will be able to work together.
Is there a way of ‘facilitating’ our experiences of co-facilitation? How do we ‘push the boundaries’ of our facilitation so that we can include a co-facilitator? How do we ‘push the boundaries’ of our relationship with a co-facilitator to include the group? How do co-facilitators co-facilitate?
The day will evolve according to the needs and interests of participants. Participants can expect to:
- reflect on their experiences of co-facilitation and/or hear about others’ experiences
- explore dimensions of co-facilitation
- laugh, talk, draw, write and play together
We promise a day of interactive, experiential activities through which we will all learn and have fun.
Post
Tom Schwarz
Kinnogene (Aus) P/L
CANCELLED
Sustainable Change in Multi-stakeholder & Conflict groups AND
Do values really matter? Can’t we do without them?
[Level: Advanced; Max: 40]
Participants will deepen their insights into what it is we ask of organisations and individuals when we work with them in two significant transformational areas - ‘Values’ and ‘Change’
Participants will be able to:
- gain insight into how they engage groups more deeply through a sequence of dynamics flow and processes that take a group on a journey: a) from an initial state of individual/stakeholder/sub-group polarizing views and positions on issues; b) through a safe space to express these, AND working with these usefully on ways forward, using hard (flip-flop debate) and soft (generative change) interaction approaches; c) during which they will experience looking at the world from ‘other’s shoes – the 2nd position/perspective’; and d) during which they will experience the paradigm of moving forward through differentiation and integration of 'all voices'.
- obtain insight into where along the participatory processes consensus journey such safe-space processes are useful.
Participants will have also gained exposure to large and small group processes, and experienced and discussed how to craft a variety of techniques into an overall outcome-focused design
Post
Stephen Thorpe
Auckland University of Technology;
Zenergy Web
CANCELLED
Online facilitation skills [Level: Any; Max: 30]
This event provides cutting edge facilitation skills training within an interactive learning workshop. It gives facilitators the opportunity to delve into in the world of online group technology and best practice and to stretch their online facilitation competencies.
The workshop will include aspects of one-to-all presentation, Q&A, and participant interactive sessions with a range of online group technologies.
I will draw from my doctoral research, online training resources and group experience.
Upon completion of the training workshop participants will:
- be able to identify the unique aspects of facilitating online groups
- be able to apply a person-centered approach to facilitating online groups
- have explored and applied a range of facilitation processes within online settings; and
- have explored the use of a range of online text-based, audio and video tools
