How to Facilitate a Meeting | Video

As a Project Manager, you’ll often need to facilitate meetings. In this video, we will look at the basic facilitation techniques and the disciplines for how to facilitate a meeting.   

This video is safe for viewing in the workplace.

This is learning, so, sit back and enjoy

Around 20 Tips for Facilitators

• Prepare in advance
• Have an agenda
• Make sure the room is suitable and all the materials you need are present and tested
• Choose the most prominent position – head of table (or middle of row)
• Be on time and be ready
• Introduce the meeting – explicitly state the meeting objective
• If people don’t all know one another, do a round of introductions
• Posture
• Ask for note taker (or otherwise ensure the group captures discussion points, agreements, decisions, and commitments)
• Set ground rules and outline process
• Alertness – looking around
• Ask questions
• Expect people to listen
• Keep meeting on track and conversation on topic
• Quickly deal with any disrespectful or otherwise poor behavior
• Address conflict, allowing the substance to be debated in a respectful and constructive way
• Make sure everyone gets to contribute
• Monitor and manage the time
• Create breaks when energy flags
• Be clear when you are 
  • Facilitating 
    Drawing out contributions
  • Summarizing 
    Ensuring a shared understanding 
  • Advocating 
    Promoting one point of view (not really part of the facilitator role)
  • Concluding 
    Bringing a conversation to a close and the process of testing for and gaining agreement
• Review key decisions and commitments
• Close the meeting – and Thank people for their contributions
• Follow-up

The Key Skills for Facilitating Meetings

• Asking questions
  Finding the right question to move the conversation forward and gain a broader perspective
• Observing mood
  Noticing desire to speak, agreement, disagreement, discomfort
• Listening
• Balancing perspectives
  Hearing different points of view
• Drawing out contributions
  Allowing everyone who wants to, to speak – and also getting the points of view of the shy, low-confidence individuals
• Protecting less confident colleagues
• Dealing adroitly with conflict
• Summarizing
• Synthesizing themes and ideas

Eight Meeting Facilitation Tools and Techniques

1. Pre-meeting check-in
2. Round Robin (Go-round)
3. Red Herring/Black Hole
4. Silent reflection
5. Brainwriting
6. Car Park
7. Small Groups
8. One word…

Recommended Videos

Carefully curated video recommendations for you:

• How to Run a Great Project Team Meeting | Video
• Lessons Learned Meeting: How to make it Excellent | Video
• How to Hold a Daily Stand-up Meeting | Video
• 5 Tips for Better Meetings | Video
• Meeting Actions: How to get People to do Them | Video
• How to Facilitate Productive Project Meetings – with Rich Maltzman

Our Meetings Training courses…

• Leading Effective One-on-One Meetings
• How to Get the Most from Your Meetings

What Kit does a Project Manager Need?

I asked Project Managers in a couple of forums what material things you need to have, to do your job as a Project Manager. They responded magnificently. I compiled their answers into a Kit list. I added my own. 

Check out the Kit a Project Manager needs

Note that the links are affiliated.

Learn Still More

For more great Project Management videos, please subscribe to the OnlinePMCourses YouTube channel.

If you want basic Management Courses – free training hosted on YouTube, with 2 new management lessons a week, check out our sister channel, Management Courses.

For more of our Project Management videos in themed collections, join our Free Academy of Project Management.

For more of our videos in themed collections, join our Free Academy of Project Management.