I am an ICA Certified ToP Facilitator (CTF) and a licensed provider and experienced lead trainer of the full range ICA:UK Technology of Participation (ToP) facilitation training courses – see how I work, and please contact me with any questions or for further details.
Meetings That Work – Practical tools to design and lead effective meetings – 2 days (New for 2017!)
Group Facilitation Methods – introducing the foundations of the ToP approach, two powerful techniques for structuring effective conversations and building group consensus – 2 days
Action Planning – participatory planning for short-term projects and events – 1 day
I deliver in English only, and in English with simultaneous interpretation. I draw on the worldwide ICA network to provide ToP training materials in many languages, and to arrange for experienced local ToP trainers to deliver with me (or without me) in many languages.
I also draw on my own experience and the wealth of curriculum developed by ICA over many years to design and deliver tailored programmes to help particular groups to meet their learning goals.
Please contact mewith any questions or for further details – including how to commission a tailored course for your group and availability of scheduled public courses, in the UK and worldwide.
“Move beyond ‘seat of the pants’ facilitation and reliance on instinct, and use the most powerful facilitation methods and processes available in the world today.”
Well done and thank you to Bill Staples and ICA Associates in Canada for another great little video in their series introducing ICA’s Technology of Participation (ToP) facilitation approach – see also Introducing the Technology of Participation on Vimeo and How I work.
This new 3 minute video (above) previews ICA’s flagship 2-day ToP Group Facilitation Methods training course. This course introduces the foundational ToP Focused Conversation and ToP Consensus Workshop methods, through demonstration, theory, practice and application.
This course, and others building on these two foundational methods, are available from ICAs in all continents worldwide – including ICA Associates and of course ICA:UK. For links and further details, please see ICA International or contact me.
I was pleased to have the opportunity to join one of the new online ToP Group Facilitation Methods courses of ICA Associates of Canada the other week. I had been sceptical of the value of online training for face-to-face facilitation, but I was impressed and came away convinced!
The Technology of Participation, pioneered and refined by ICA in over 40 years of experience worldwide, is a proven system of facilitation methods and tools that can be adapted and applied to help all sorts of groups accomplish a wide variety of tasks together. It has been central for many years to how I work myself. Today’s Group Facilitation Methods course was first piloted in the early 1990s, and is now delivered by national ICAs and their local partners all over the world to many thousands every year. In my own 20 years of experience of the course I have become familiar with many variations in how it is and has been delivered, not least which of the core ToP methods are included in the standard two days of training – only Focused Conversation and Consensus Workshop, or also Action Planning. Tailored, in-house courses vary even more widely in their formats than scheduled, public courses. Additional courses cover additonal tools and methods, and support learners to gain the skills and competencies they need to apply them effectively in their own situations.
The basic structure of the course, however, has proven remarkably powerful and resilient across time and context. First, demonstrate each method. Second, talk through the theory of how and why it works and how to use it. Third, give every participant and opportunity to practice the method in safe and supported small groups with expert and peer feedback. Fourth, support participants to plan how they will use the method for real in their own situation in the near future. End-of-course participant satisfaction ratings on ICA:UK Group Facilitation Methods courses commonly average over 8/10, and 10/10 is not unusual. How could such a tried and tested approach possibly be translated effectively into a virtual environment, I wondered?
One of the keys to the effectiveness of the online course, I have concluded, is the choice of Blackboard Collaborate for the virtual training room. While many ToP practitioners have adopted Adobe Connect as their platform of choice for virtual ToP facilitation, the whiteboard facility in Collaborate does seem to work better for virtually replicating the real-world sticky wall, such a valuable tool for the ToP Consensus Workshop method.
Perhaps more important is the advance preparation that is expected of participants before the course, including advance scheduling of homework and practice time inbetween the virtual sessions. While the face-to-face course is commonly delivered in full in two consecutive eight-hour days, the virtual course is delivered in six two-hour sessions spread over two weeks or more, with considerable homework expected as well. Participants receive the same GFM course workbook, but by email in advance, and also e-books of the Art of Focused Conversation and the Workshop Book. They are expected to review the workbook and at least the introductory chapters of the two books in advance of the course, meaning that they arrive with a good overview aleady and some considered questions to ask. This makes a considerable difference to the depth of discussion achieved online.
The first week of the online course covers the Focused Conversation Method and the second week covers the Consensus Workshop method, while face-to-face courses most often cover one method per day. Session one of each week demonstrates the method and introduces the theory, and is followed by homework to embed the theory and raise further questions to address in session two. Session two completes the theory and supports participants to plan their own real-life practice of the method. Before the course begins they have real-life group sessions scheduled to enable them to practice for real, rather than with each other as on the face-to-face course. Session three debriefs the practice sessions, and looks at further applications for the method in particpants’ own situations.
The course I joined, with sessions timed for North America and Europe (at 6-8pm London time), was attended by six participants from various locations across the US and Canada, plus me and Bill Staples of ICA Associates as guests. Another parallel course was running the same days with sessions timed for North America and Asia, and was being attended largely by a group in Korea. Both courses were being led by veteran ToP trainers Jo Nelson and Wayne Nelson, with focusing on technical support.
The group were a mix of independent professional facilitators and managers and internal consultants within large organisations – not so different to groups I am familiar with from face-to-face public courses. I was very impressed with how much value they were clearly getting from the course, and how much they were appreciating it. It was clear to me that the virtual demonstrations of the methods did not provide an equivalent experience to face-to-face demonstrations. For participants with sufficient experience of group work, however, and with their advance reading on the methods, they clearly provided a perfectly adequate basis for the theory and practice to follow. Moreover, that theory and practice seemed to me to be no less rich and insightful than in face-to-face courses of my experience. What was lost by not spending intensive face to face time together seemed to be more than compensated for by having considerably longer study and reflection time over the whole two week period of the sessions. What was lost by not practicing together with each other, and sharing peer feedback based on direct experience of each others’ practice, seemed to be more than compensated by practicing in participants’ own real-life contexts and working with real groups to address real issues. While I was fascinated by the many comparisons I was able to make between the online course and the many face to face courses I have led, the group were clearly not burdened by how the course might have been in a face-to-face version but were engaging with it and appreciating it just as it was.
I have no doubt that many learners will continue to prefer face-to-face training, and that many will gain more from that than from its online equivalent – not least those who might for any reason fail to give due time and attention to the homework that is such an essential element of the online course. Equally, however, I am now convinced that there may be many learners for whom the online course might be a perfectly acceptable alternative when face-to-face not possible for travel, cost, timing or other reasons – and that there may be some for whom a virtual environment may suit their learning style better, even when learning methods and skills of face-to-face group facilitation.
I think the key for learners will be to select the type of course that best suits their learning needs and style, and their context and preferences as well. This innovative new online course of ICA Associates is doing a great service to learners by making the ToP Group Facilitation Methods course available online for those that might benefit from it more than face-to-face, and for those that otherwise might not be able to benefit at all.
Future courses are scheduled for August and November/December 2013 – for details visit ICA Associates. Online training in virtual ToP facilitation is available from ICA USA.
This article was first written for the IAF Europe newsletter, April 2013
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The first week of April was Facilitation Week in Moscow. The centrepiece of the week was the 4th annual Moscow Facilitators Conference, held on April 5th. This was accompanied by two days of facilitation training before the conference and another two days afterwards. The conference week was convened by Liudmila Dudorova, chair of the IAF Russia chapter, and her facilitation company Personal Image. The annual conference under Liudmila’s leadership has clearly played a significant role in promoting facilitation in Russia and attracting increasing numbers of Russian facilitators to IAF, as evidenced by the ever growing numbers of Russian delegates at the annual IAF Europe conference.
The conference itself attracted around 65 delegates at the four star Vega conference hotel, for a full day programme from 10am-7pm. Most came from Moscow, but some also from other regions of Russia and from neighbouring countries. Most were leaders, managers and practitioners within large Russian companies, or independent professional facilitators and other professional contractors who offer facilitation alongside other services.
The conference theme of idea generation, innovation and the exchange of experience was explored through eight sessions, in plenary and in two parallel groups. I was delighted to be invited to join as an international guest presenter, along with Bruce Rowling of Pinpoint Facilitation. Bruce has worked with Liudmila and her company in Russia over several years, but for me it was my first visit so I was delighted to be able to see something of Moscow while I was there.
I provided two days of pre-conference training to a group of 28, introducing three of ICA’s Technology of Participation (ToP) facilitation methods, namely Focused Conversation, Consensus Workshop and Action Planning. I also provided a keynote presentation to the conference, sharing some experience of how these methods have been applied by ICA:UK in partnership with the Royal Society of Arts – in engaging and mobilising the RSA’s 27,000 Fellows to contribute to social impact through civic innovation, toward achieving the RSA’s ambition to be ‘the best place to have an idea’. My presentation can be viewed in my recent post. Bruce provided a conference session and post-conference training drawing on the Pinpoint approach and graphic facilitation. Neither of us would have been of much use to anyone without the expert and tireless interpretation of Mikhail Rossus, although Bruce was at least adept at Russian small talk involving hello, vodka, thank you and goodbye! I am grateful to ICA Ukraine for providing ToP training materials in Russian for me.
Further conference sessions included Liudmila’s own masterclass on facilitating creativity and innovation in companies, Tim Nestik on knowledge management, Alexander Dudurov on graphic facilitation, Alexandra Kosulina & Mariya Pronina on idea generation, Victoria Bekhtereva on innovation projects and Julia Linkin with a case study of Open Space facilitation in a bank. Creativity was emphasised throughout the day, starting with a jazz duo accompanying our opening exercise to depict how we generate ideas, by collage in the style of Matisse!
I experienced a great spirit of sharing and learning at the conference, just as at all the IAF conferences I have attended, and clearly a great passion for facilitation. I also experienced a great hunger for tools and methods, and a particular sense of urgency in learning and applying them. When I asked what participants hoped to gain from my conference session, the majority of responses were to do with tools and methods to apply. In tailoring my pre-conference training in advance, I was advised that participants would appreciate more methods and want little time on practice and planning to apply what they had learned, and this was certainly borne out in my experience. In another conversation a conference delegate suggested to me that Russians like to learn and apply quickly because they feel they have some catching up to do – and they intend to catch up and overtake. Certainly few UK courses I have delivered have attracted such close (and very welcome) attention as this one. Every moment’s break was taken as an opportunity to photograph the latest graphics, flipcharts or cards on the sticky wall for later reference, and several audio devices were recording the whole course for later playback. I left in no doubt that ToP methods will find a valuable and active place in the toolkits of many Russian facilitators, and that facilitation itself has an important role to play in Russia.
I gained many new Facebook friends and LinkedIn connections from my visit, so I invited them to share some of their own reflections on the conference. This is what they wrote:
“This year’s conference was dynamic and really energy-intensive. It was nice to see a lot of new members and enthusiastic people who are so involved in facilitation. During our work-shop we were happy to feel the engagement of the group, their enthusiasm, genuine interest and active position. And it is very important that our European colleagues have time to visit our conference, thank you Martin for coming!” – Alexandra Kosulina, Moscow
“What I can say about this conference? There were a lot of people who know what is facilitation and who use facilitation at work, and if compared with last year’s conference the number of such people has increased considerably. This is really good, and says that the facilitation in Russia goes forward at a steady gait. The conference was very instrumental and practical – speakers, case studies, master classes – everything was very useful.” – Mariya Pronina, Moscow
“I really enjoyed it. I especially liked your examples and case studies. Thank you” – Alex Kuznetsov, Moscow
“The conference was full of new knowledge and techniques, but the most important discovery for me was the ToP method of Focused Conversation (ORID) which you set out in the training before. Last week I used it in a discussion on our annual report with the employees of our company, and I was impressed by the results – it really involved them in the discussion, and most importantly in the process of developing specific solutions for the future in a meaningful and constructive way.” – Sergey Shupletsov, Moscow
“The training was very useful to me. It broadened my knowledge of effective methods of facilitation: the ToP methods of Focused Conversation, Consensus Workshop etc. The method of Action Planning was especially interesting to me. I already practiced this method when carrying out a session on implementation of organizational decisions. It helped the group while being focused on the purposes to draw up effectively the plan of action. In addition, I also applied this method to accomplish my personal decisions. The model of behaviour shown by Martin during his facilitation has also been very inspiring to me. It is a striking example of the possibility to operate the group progressing towards making the decision, showing respect and trust for the ability of a group to create the decision by itself” – Leonid Bogdanov, Kiev
“It was interesting for me to see your style, new methods and especially new materials. Your training was just really important to me. The conference was rich in new contacts, insights and ideas. For example, just tomorrow I’ll use some new methods from that day. The Jazz of facilitation in the beginning was so magnificent!” – Victoria Bekhtereva, Moscow
“For me it was great to discover the way to plan a project with ToP Action Planning. Especially the idea of grouping actions by teams that allows the project teams to form and work afterwards in those teams. The idea of using the Focused Conversation method in personal life is also very interesting. I certainly will try to do it. And of course the networking process during the session was valuable. My next step is to go deeply into the ICA books for more information and cases.” – Ariadna Denisova, Moscow
I am very grateful top Liudmila and Mikhail for hosting me so generously, and to everyone involved for making my first trip to Moscow such a memorable and enjoyable one. I look forward to following the further growth and development of facilitation and IAF in Russia through the many new connections I made in Moscow. Also I hope that other chapters of IAF in Europe and elsewhere (my own England & Wales chapter included) might emulate the Moscow Facilitators Conference in its approach!
I shall be leading ICA:UK’s ToP Group Facilitation Methods course in London again in April. Please follow the link for full details and online bookings, and do contact me with any queries:
I am an ICA Certified ToP Facilitator (CTF) and a licensed provider and experienced lead trainer of the full range ICA:UK Technology of Participation (ToP) facilitation training courses – see how I work, and please contact me with any questions or for further details.
These courses are accredited by the Institute of Leadership and Management for an ILM Development Award, and participants are eligible for student rate IAF membership representing a 50% discount on their first year’s fee.
– Practical tools to design and lead effective meetings – 2 days (New for 2017!)
