Agile Facilitation: Creating Solutions That Stick

Leader: David Spann, Senior Consultant, Cutter Consortium

Length of workshop: 2 1/2 days

General Overview: Consider for a moment how much money is wasted when a group of people get together without a predefined purpose, without any meeting design. agenda, or ground rules. The picture gets worse as, after two or more hours, these same people leave without any action items defined. If this kind of meeting takes place in your organization, you need Agile Facilitation. When you lead a meeting, your challenge - and responsibility -- is to facilitate the tough discussions surrounding issues, discoveries, and agreements, even when you may be personally affected by the outcome. Agile facilitation techniques make it discovering that which is not yet known or agreed upon the regular outcome of your meetings. In his Agile Facilitation course, David Spann, a professional facilitator as well as an expert in Agile leadership, will divulge the techniques leaders, managers and other internal facilitators can adopt to help teams reduce cycle times, increase customer satisfaction and enhance organizational value (ROI).

Who Should Attend: Agile Facilitation is for leaders, managers and other facilitators who want to help groups of people excel. It's for those in organizations where group solutions are preferred over directives or mandates. This course is for anyone who leads meetings.

Course Objectives: Over the course of the 2 1/2 day workshop, you'll discover new meeting management techniques, work on meeting design, and practice facilitative delivery in this safe environment. Through David Spann's interactive training style, which highlights practical applications of Agile Facilitation and divulges real life experience, you'll:

• Understand conflict dynamics and trust building
• Grasp the purpose behind purpose (organizational alignment)
• Know the ingredients of a great meeting (both status and work meetings)
• Master the tools and techniques for requirements gathering, executive sponsor involvement, cross-functional interactions, virtual conversations, etc.
• Practice designing and facilitating your next great meeting

Workshop Agenda David Spann instructs in an interactive training style, highlighting practical applications of Collaboration Leadership and divulging real life experience.

Day 1

• Introduction, Personal Objectives & Overview
• Ground-rules
• Decision framework
• Role of the Agile Facilitator
• Defining Purpose: the key to success
• Designing Agile Meetings: daily standup, problem solving, retrospectives, planning

Day 2

• Trust Building 101
• Dealing with Conflict
• Negotiating with the Meeting Sponsor
• Gathering Input/Requirements
• Sorting & Prioritization
• Defining Action Items
• Creating a Communication Plan
• Accurate Documentation
• Managing the Virtual Meeting
• Meeting Evaluation

Day 3 (1/2 day)

• Individual and team practice (recommended but optional)