Small Group Facilitation: Improving Process and Performance in Groups and Teams

Use of Appropriate Techniques

A well-crafted agenda is one way to keep the group focused on the purpose of the session. The agenda may or may not include a running timeline for the session as discussed in Chapter 4. In any case, the facilitator needs to be very aware of time. Failure to do so will result in a very rushed ending to a session or, more likely, failure to accomplish whatever was planned and expected. I can remember a discussion with a facilitator whose group failed to accomplish its purpose. I asked, “What happened?”

The response was that the group members were having a good time discussing something else that came up (unrelated to the point of the session), and the facilitator thought that it was important to let them have this ...