Virtual Facilitation

18Connect the Dots

Figure 18.1

When you're on an aeroplane and you're coming in to land, you start really high up with a good perspective of things. You're looking at the world from above and seeing the bigger picture. You can see the main roads, the forests and the full coastline. As you come closer to the ground, you trade this wide perspective for a more detailed view, where you can see small houses, cornfields or the white tops of the waves in the ocean. The closer you get to landing, the more detail you're able to see of what's on the ground.

Your job as the facilitator is to fly your participants into the session, starting high in the air and gradually coming to land the plane. Remember to think about your participants. They probably haven't spent the past few days looking at the context and content of the session like you have, so you need to help them through by drawing the bigger picture. It's your responsibility to tell them why your session is important and why you are doing each step in the process.

This isn't just about flying them into the session, but about helping them to zoom out to make sense of your session, and making it relevant to them. Often we expect people to be able to do this for themselves, but always remember that if your participants are involved in more things than just your session, they will probably need more help than you think is necessary. ...