Scaling up engagement and dialogue – IAF webinar recording & outputs

Scaling up engagement and dialogue - the power of facilitation and communications in partnership

Thank you again to the 100 or so who attended this session yesterday, and especially to IAF for the invitation and to Michael Ambjorn of AlignYourOrg for co-hosting with me.

In this session we explored the ladder of engagement, and how we can climb it with those that we work with. We invited you to share your experience in changing the conversation, at scale, so we can all become better at it.  We explored together how the roles, skills and tools of the facilitation and communications professions can complement each other, and help us to scale up engagement and dialogue for positive social change.

We drew on some insights of previous work on the power of partnership between facilitation and communication, including research for our chapter in the forthcoming book the Power of Facilitation #FacPower.

We applied some of the tools of the two professions to generate new insights together, including four external digital tools in addition to zoom – Google Docs, Easyretro, Flinga and Mentimeter.


The slides, recording and other session outputs follow here:

Contact details and zoom chat have been shared by email with participants only – if you have not received yours, please contact me.


See also about mehow I workwho I work with and recommendations & case studies, and please contact me about how we might work together. Please do not delay before contacting me – the earlier I hear from you, the more chance that I will be able to help and the more helpful I may be able to be.

Register now on Eventbrite also for my regularly scheduled ToP facilitation training courses in London and Brussels, and now also online.

Facilitation Competencies for Agilists – session recording & outputs

Facilitation Competencies for Agilists - Agile Tour LondonWhat skills, knowledge, and behaviours must facilitators have in order to be successful facilitating in a wide variety of environments? To what extent do these vary, if at all, when working online rather than face-to-face? What can we do, individually and together as Agilists and as peers, to develop our own facilitation competence?

Thank you again to all those that attended this session last week during Facilitation Week, and especially to Agile Tour London for the invitation and to Megan Evans for co-hosting with me.

This session adapted the format of the ICA:UK Online Focused Conversation Series: Taking time to connect, learn and reflect. This was a series of taster sessions around different topics – both to examine and explore the topic, and to demonstrate the use of ICA’s ToP Focused Conversation Method.

In this session participants acquainted themselves in breakout groups with the IAF Core Facilitation Competencies and shared experience of their application, both online and face-to-face. In plenary we reflected on the extent to which these competencies vary when working online rather than face-to-face, if at all. Participants also reflected on what they could do, individually and together as peers and Agilists, to develop their own facilitation competence.

For more on ICA’s Technology of Participation and facilitation online, register now for Introduction to Facilitation OnlineIntroducing the role of the facilitator and the ToP approach, plus some key tips & tools, 2.5 hours, next on 11 November.


The recording and other outputs follow:

  • the slides and mentimeter outputs shared on SlideShare
  • the Zoom recording in Youtube

This session was previously held also in September, in partnership with the Agile Coaching Retreat and co-hosted by Dawn Williams with over 100 participants – see:


See also about mehow I workwho I work with and recommendations & case studies, and please contact me about how we might work together. Please do not delay before contacting me – the earlier I hear from you, the more chance that I will be able to help and the more helpful I may be able to be.

Register now on Eventbrite also for my regularly scheduled ToP facilitation training courses in London and Brussels, and now also online.

Exploring Facilitation Competencies with IAF Romania – free facilitation webinar

What skills, knowledge, and behaviours must facilitators have in order to be successful facilitating in a wide variety of environments? To what extent do these vary, if at all, when working online rather than face-to-face? What can we do, individually and together as peers, to develop our own facilitation competence?

Thank you again to IAF Romania for the invitation to lead yesterday’s online session Facilitation Competencies, to Bogdan Grigore in particular for also co-facilitating with me and of course to all those who attended and participated.

Here below you will find the session recording and other outputs.

The session was adapted from the format of the new ICA:UK Online Focused Conversation Series: Taking time to connect, learn and reflect.

The aim of all these sessions is for participants to connect, share and learn with others sharing their interest the topic, while experiencing ICA’s ToP Focused Conversation method. Each 60-minute session in Zoom consists of a facilitated conversation followed by a brief introduction to the method used.

In this session we used break-out groups and JamBoard to get acquainted with the IAF Core Facilitation Competencies and share experience of their application, both online and face-to-face. In plenary we reflected on the extent to which these competencies vary when working online rather than face-to-face, if at all. Participants also reflected on what they could do, individually and together as peers, to develop their own facilitation competence.

For more on ICA’s Technology of Participation and facilitation online, register now for these further upcoming training & learning sessions:

  • Free facilitation webinars – next up “How engaging can your online session be?” and “When is online better than face-to-face?”, both in June
  • Introduction to Facilitation OnlineIntroducing the role of the facilitator and the ToP approach, plus some key tips & tools, 2.5 hours, starting in June & July
  • Facilitating Virtual Events I Online – Learn and practice ways to make online events participatory, engaging and productive – a series of 6-7 x2 hour sessions, online
  • Group Facilitation Methods OnlineIntroducing the foundations of the ToP approach, two powerful techniques for structuring effective conversations and building group consensus – a series of 6 x2 hour sessions in June/July.

See also Brian Stanfield’s ‘Art of Focused Conversation: 100 Ways to Access Group Wisdom in the Workplace and Jo Nelson’s ‘The Art of Focused Conversation for Schools: Over 100 Ways to Guide Clear Thinking and Promote Learning‘.

For details of additional sessions with other ICA:UK lead ToP trainers, and to register for those, please see the ICA:UK Online Focused Conversation Series.



See also about mehow I workwho I work with and recommendations & case studies, and please contact me about how we might work together. Please do not delay before contacting me – the earlier I hear from you, the more chance that I will be able to help and the more helpful I may be able to be.

Register now on Eventbrite also for my regularly scheduled ToP facilitation training courses in London and Brussels, and now also online.

The importance of values in facilitation – #IAFpodcast FS7

#iafpodcast

Welcome to Facilitation Stories, where we discover how facilitators ended up in the profession, and how facilitation methods, principles and techniques are used more widely.

One of the most exciting developments for IAF England & Wales in 2019, in my view, has been the launch of the new IAF E&W podcast Facilitation Stories during International Facilitation Week in October – not only for the insightful stories that are shared, and the personal connections that are made and strengthened, but also as an early indication of what a small, self-organising team of ‘IAF facilitators & friends’ can achieve by collaborating together to pursue a shared interest. I hope we will see more many more such initiatives in 2020, and a wide variety of practical projects.

I am grateful to podcast co-hosts @PilarOrti and @HeleneJewell for the opportunity to join them as a guest for today’s new 30-minute episode, and share a few stories and examples of my own – on the importance of values in facilitation.

Listen now, or see the show notes below first for what to expect – and do check out the previous six episodes and subscribe for the next at Facilitation Stories – or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!


Helene Jewell writes in the FS7 show notes…

Martin Gilbraith is a facilitator, trainer and consultant, and Chair of the IAF England & Wales Board. He started hosting IAF meetups about 5 years ago, and has been facilitating since 1986.

He is an IAF Certified Professional Facilitator (CPF),  an ICA Certified ToP Facilitator (CTF) and an experienced lead trainer and licensed provider of ICA’s ‘ToP’ facilitation training and a Certified Scrum Master (CSM).

Martin talks about the importance of values – both personal and IAF values, which talk about the collective wisdom of the group.

He says that what you believe has an enormous impact on the group.

Martin talks about defining values, how the IAF values resonate with him and his involvement with developing the ICA:UK values.

Values are what is important to people and what drives them, and are important to be able to define what is meaningful and important to them.

He told us about the ethics of taking decisions not to do work that conflicted with his values, mostly around contracting with the client.

We discussed the set up for sessions and how to deal with it if it is not what you want, particularly thinking about hybrid (online & face-to-face) meetings. Sometimes even if the result is not perfect there are reasons why you might want to take a piece of work; in this example where the team was used to working in a distributed way on line and the group is used to the constraints and the client is known to the facilitator.

Client contracts always come with constraints and it is the facilitators responsibility to work within these constraints. Sometimes the parameters are really complex and you just have to do the best you can.

Sometimes things that’s people do unconsciously turn out to be core values.

Martin talked about his involvement in the ICA:UK and how the values were developed. One of the ways this was done was through using the ORID methodology to ask questions to members and stakeholders followed by a consensus building process at a workshop.

Facilitators often facilitate sessions to help organisations come up with their own values.

It’s important to start with real life experiences and something that is important and meaningful to people to help them define their values.

Martin started working with ICA as a volunteer and his first workshop involved creating a personal timeline as a personal reflection tool.

He talked about a book by John and Maureen Jenkins (founder members of IAF) – 9 disciplines of a facilitator – leading groups by transforming yourself. All about understanding your own values. A phrase from Maureen that resonated with Martin “however good a facilitator you are […] your most powerful tool as a facilitator is your own interior condition

Martin explains a bit further what ORID is and how it is his universal principle of facilitator.

He finally shared a quote from Groucho Marx: “These are my principles, and if you don’t like them….well, I have others!

Please let us know your thoughts – email us at podcast@iaf-englandwales.org and go mad on Twitter! @IAFenglandwales, @Fac_stories, #IAFPodcast, #IAFmeetup.


See also about mehow I workwho I work with and recommendations & case studies, and please contact me about how we might work together. Please do not delay before contacting me – the earlier I hear from you, the more chance that I will be able to help and the more helpful I may be able to be.

Register now on Eventbrite for my free facilitation webinars, and for my regularly scheduled ToP facilitation training courses in London and Brussels.

IAF England & Wales – our 2019 report, and your 2020 input please!

Are you involved or interested in connecting, networking & learning with other facilitators and with others with an interest in facilitation in England & Wales?

Please take a few minutes to complete our survey, to help to make IAF England & Wales and our facilitation meetups more valuable to you and to others in the coming year.  Your responses will provide invaluable input to the annual face-to-face planning & team-building meeting of the IAF E&W chapter Board and wider Leadership Team, in Birmingham in January – and it is not too late to join us there if you are keen to get more involved!

For an update on our meetups, Annual Conference and other activities in 2019, please check out the recording of our 2 December online annual meeting, above, and the 2019 Board report slides that we shared then.

IAF E&W members, please do vote in our online chapter Board election, if you haven’t already – the poll closes on Dec 12 (not to be confused with that other poll on Dec 12). Do let us know if you haven’t found your own link to the poll, sent to members by email…

To complete the survey, please click here – thank you for your input!


See also about me, how I work, who I work with and recommendations & case studies, and please contact me about how we might work together. Please do not delay before contacting me – the earlier I hear from you, the more chance that I will be able to help and the more helpful I may be able to be.

Register now on Eventbrite for my free facilitation webinars, and for my regularly scheduled ToP facilitation training courses in London and Brussels.