Tag Archives: ToP training

“Very practical and applicable in a range of contexts” – ToP facilitation training

“How can we have more purposeful & productive conversations, develop creative solutions and build group consensus?”

These are among the questions addressed by Group Facilitation Methods, the most popular course of ICA’s Technology of Participation ‘ToP’ facilitation training.

Are you looking for facilitation training or learning opportunities?

Read on for what recent participants have to say about their experience of ToP training, and check out my online and in-person ToP facilitation training courses, free facilitation coaching and occasional free facilitation webinars.

For public training courses, please register with ICA:UK or another ICA worldwide. To arrange in-house training for your group, please contact me.

Participants on my most recent ToP training in October last year rated the course on average 4.8 out 5, and shared comments including:

  • A very interesting course, very practical and applicable in a range of contexts – there was also a useful reference book which I can continue to refer to for a refresher as needed
  • Martin is a very good trainer, with a feel for pace and content based on the group he is dealing with. The training was relevant and well delivered.
  • Very relevant content, excellent delivery. Pace was good. Trainer was very good
  • The training focused on practical facilitation frameworks and skills and how to apply these in real situations – I found this a good way to learn
  • Martin was a brilliant trainer, gave practical tips, was very engaging: I learned a lot
  • The event was well paced and very informative – it gave me confidence that I could facilitate an event – success!
  • Excellent delivery by the trainer – I learnt from his facilitation skills
  • I found the content really useful and the delivery was excellent
  • The pace, content, relevance and delivery were all excellent

That was in-person Focused Conversation training, comprising day one of the 2-day Group Facilitation Methods course – both available also online.

On an earlier 2.5-hour Introduction to Facilitation Online session, Louise Reeve, Policy and Communications Business Partner at Newcastle City Council, wrote:

“Some training to recommend from Martin Gilbraith! I attended his Introduction to Facilitation Online course. Whatever your experience level, you should find something in this training which can make your online sessions just that bit better and more enjoyable”

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.

Join me for ToP facilitation training in 2020, now also online!

I am excited to share details of my updated public schedule of training and learning opportunities for 2020, including now more than ever online – and of course, due to COVID-19, somewhat less face-to-face.

Read on for details and dates for:

  • Free facilitation webinars – next up “Taking your event online: what could possibly go wrong?” in May and “How engaging can your online session be?” in June
  • Introduction to Facilitation Online – Introducing the role of the facilitator and the ToP approach, plus some key tips & tools, 2.5 hours, starting in June & July
  • Group Facilitation Methods Online – Introducing 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
  • 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

Register now on Eventbrite for these and remaining 2020 courses in London and Brussels, and please share these details with friends, colleagues and networks who might be interested.

IAF members enjoy a special 10% discount – see Exclusive Offers for IAF Members. Additional online sessions will be published here and on Eventbrite as the year unfolds.

Group Facilitation Methods Online

6 x2 hours, 3-5pm UK time Mon 22 June – Thu 2 July

I shall be joined for this course by Jo Nelson of ICA Associates Inc. as guest trainer. Jo is the main designer of Group Facilitation Methods Online and co-author of Getting to the Bottom of ToP – exploring the foundations of ICA’s Technology of Participation. She is a founding member of the International Association of Facilitators and was inducted in 2014 into the IAF Hall of Fame.

IAF endorsed training

Preparing for CPF certification? Group Facilitation Methods is one of three courses that comprise the ICA Associates ToP Facilitation Essentials Program that has been endorsed by the International Association of Facilitators for those preparing to become an IAF Certified Professional Facilitator (CPF).

The course introduces the foundations of the ToP facilitation approach, two powerful techniques for structuring effective conversations and building group consensus.

The Focused Conversation method provides a structured, four-level process for effective communication which ensures that everyone in a group has the opportunity to participate.

The Consensus Workshop method is a five stage process that enables a facilitator to draw out and weave together everybody’s wisdom into a clear and practical consensus.

Note that this course does not teach online facilitation – it uses online technology to teach the same Group Facilitation Methods that are taught in the face-to-face course (regularly scheduled in London & Brussels), so that you can use them either online or face to face.

This course is strictly limited to no more than 12 participants, and five are already pre-booked – register now on Eventbrite to ensure your place!

Promoting Inclusion in Online Facilitation

Introduction to Facilitation Online

Thursday, 4 June 14:30-17:00 UK time

Wednesday, 8 July, 10:30-13:00 UK time

Tuesday, 8 September 2020, 10.30-13.00 UK time

Introducing the role of the facilitator and the ToP approach, plus some key tips & tools (2.5 hours)

This online training session draws on elements of standard ICA:UK ‘ToP’ courses including Introduction to Group Facilitation, Meetings That Work and Group Facilitation Methods, adapted to an online learning environment and to application in online facilitation.

You will experience some key facilitation tools and methods in the context of an online session, including Zoom, Mentimeter and Jamboard and the ToP (ORID) Focused Conversation method. You will explore three dimensions of the role of the facilitator in online meetings and workshops, in relation to your own experience and challenges. You will be able to identify opportunities for your own further learning, and gain confidence to apply key insights in your own practice.

I shall be joined for this session by fellow ICA:UK ToP trainer Órla Cronin, designer and lead trainer of the ICA:UK introductory Virtual Facilitation Training.

Each session is limited to no more than 25 participants – register now on Eventbrite to ensure your place!

Free Facilitation Webinars

These free facilitation webinars offer an opportunity to learn more about facilitation, and ICA’s Technology of Participation (ToP) in particular, in a free, one-hour, interactive online session that offers an experience of virtual facilitation as well. These two upcoming sessions in May & June are scheduled in partnership with ICA:UK and its new Online Focused Conversation Series: Taking time to connect, learn and reflect.

free-facilitation-webinar-taking-your-event-online

Taking your event online: what could possibly go wrong?
Tuesday, 5 May, 11:00-12:00 UK time

Your long-planned meeting, workshop or event, or that of your client, can no longer be held face-to-face. So it is decided to hold it online instead. What could possibly go wrong? What are some tips & tools that can help you – not to just make the best of it, but to make it the best? More inclusive, engaging and productive than ever before?

How engaging can your online event be

How engaging can your online session be?
Wednesday, 10 June, 12:00-13:00 UK time

Our meetings, workshops and events, our world, are increasingly moving online – now more than ever! So as leaders and facilitators we must be prepared to move with them.

Virtual sessions can have advantages over face-to-face, but disadvantages too – not least, shorter attention spans and greater potential for distractions. How can we keep people engaged and focused when meeting online?

These sessions are limited only by the Zoom room capacity of 100 participants. Join us to connect, share & learn – register now on Eventbrite!

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

Facilitating positive transformation: Reviewing the past to prepare for the future at #IAFIndia17

IAF India conference 2017Thank you to everyone who participated in my plenary session at this year’s IAF India conference in Chennai today – Facilitation: the key to positive transformation, #IAFIndia17.

In the session, Facilitating positive transformation: Reviewing the past to prepare for the future, I demonstrated a participatory approach for a group to review the past, to prepare for the future, by applying the ToP (Technology of Participation) Historical Scan method to reflect together on the unfolding history of participation and facilitation in India and beyond. I also shared some insights into the theory behind the method, and examples of the method in action. Participants had a brief opportunity to reflect on how they might apply the method.

Here I am sharing links to some resources and case studies that I mentioned during the session, and some that I didn’t, plus (below) some some tweets from the session.

ToP Historical Scan method

Examples of the method in action

  • etf20Adapt • Invent • Evolve: reviewing the past to prepare for the future at the IABC EMENA 2017 conference in London, #EuroComm17 – blog post
  • Celebrating 20 years with the European Training Foundation in Turin – #ETF20 – case study
  • Transformational Strategy: from trepidation to ‘unlocked’ with IDMC in Geneva – case study
  • Staff Away Day with George House Trust in Manchester – case study
  • Clinical Leadership Evaluation and Development with Manchester Primary Care Trust – case study

Facilitation history

  • How has facilitation developed over time, and where might it be heading? A six-month collaborative process to develop our collective story of facilitation, as IAF celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2014 – blog post, plus #FacHistory on twitter and  storify
  • Reviewing the past to prepare for the future: #FacHistory at the IAF EMENA 2014 conference in Copenhagen, #IAFEMENA14 – blog post
  • Reflections on the history of professional process facilitation, an article by Richard Chapman published by IAF Europe & AMED in 2011 – pdf
  • The past, present & future of the facilitation profession: Reviewing the past to prepare for the future at the IAF Europe 2007 conference in Edinburgh – (pdf)

ToP facilitation training & sticky walls

  • Join me for ToP facilitation training in Brussels & London (2018 dates to be scheduled soon) – blog
  • Join ICA India or other ICAs worldwide for ToP facilitation training near you
  • Sticky walls are available from ICA:UK and other ICAs, and in India from BangOn Facilitation.

For more on my work, and what others have to say about it, please see how I work, who I work with and recommendations & case studies – or view my profile and connect with me on LinkedIn.

You can connect with me also by joining my free facilitation webinars online, and IAF England & Wales’ free facilitation meetups in London and elsewhere.

Responding to changing situations and needs with ToP Consensus Workshop – #FacWeek

This is the 6th and last of a series of six weekly posts to mark International Facilitation Week 2017, starting today! Drafted as I enjoyed a welcome opportunity to pause and reflect this summer, the posts share a series of examples of how I have applied, customised and adapted the ToP Consensus Workshop method in my practice over the past year. 

How will you celebrate and promote the power of facilitation this week? Please share online with the #FacWeek hashtag, or in a comment below…

Example 6 – IABC UK, London

In May I facilitated a 2-hour evening strategy workshop with the UK Board of the International Association of Business Communicators. For more on my work with IABC, and my session at the recent IABC Europe MENA conference, see Facilitating transformation: reviewing the past to prepare for the future at #EuroComm17.

New IABC UK President Mike Pounsford is a keen ToP facilitator himself, and an IAF Certified Professional Facilitator. He had approached me to apply the Consensus Workshop method with the new Board of nine so that he could participate fully.  For an example of his own application of the method see Facilitation and Communication to lead ‘The Big Conversation’: Digital Transformation.

We quickly agreed that a ‘textbook’ Consensus Workshop process could help to meet the group’s needs well. These were articulated in terms of Rational & Experiential Aims as ‘to outline our strategic focus for IABC UK for the next 24 months, and what roles we will each play to help to deliver it‘ and ‘to build shared clarity, commitment and enthusiasm for the way forward together‘. The workshop Focus Question was to be ‘What practical projects & initiatives could help to deliver IABC’s mission & strategy in the UK in 2017-18?’.

The workshop was preceded by an opening conversation and a short presentation from Mike on the vision, purpose and philosophy of IABC as a whole, as parameters for IABC UK’s own strategy.

According to the textbook approach, Board members brainstormed their responses to the Focus Question individually, with the parameters in mind. They wrote ideas on half-sheets in pairs, which they shared on the sticky wall and clarified as necessary before pairing and clustering. The ‘adaptation in the moment’ came in finalising the Clustering stage of the workshop prior to Naming the clusters. It made no sense to the group to discern and name clusters unique to IABC UK’s 2017-18 strategy – what made sense was to map the brainstorm ideas to the three components of IABC’s global Purpose: ‘to advance the profession, to create connection and to develop strategic communicators’ .

So that is what we did. That allowed time then for members to self-select into three teams to to articulate the UK’s new strategic focus for each of the three areas, and to propose collective commitments.

I reflected to Mike, ‘I suppose we could have presented as a parameter that these [advance, connect and develop] would be the UK’s strategic focus, and we could have asked instead about collective commitments aligned with them. That might have saved a moment of doubt & confusion, but as you say perhaps at the expense of a sense of openness, possibility & engagement. A bit of challenge can be a valuable opportunity for a group to find its own way!’

Mike PounsfordMike replied: “I thought it was great, thank you for your help and for your agility in responding to the group’s needs. Most importantly we achieved consensus on a focus for our work for the next two years, which is to enhance the strategic communication capabilities of our members”.

Finally, in case you’re still wondering…

  • no group is too small for the ToP Consensus Workshop method – page 52 of the ICA:UK Group Facilitation Methods course workbook includes procedures for using the method on your own as an individual.
  • the method can work online as well as face-to-face, although like all online facilitation it will be different than when done face-to-face – see for example the Spilter ToP Consensus platform, specially developed to provide full digital support for the method, and see below a youtube video of an online ToP Consensus Workshop of ICA Ukraine using LinoIt with Google Hangout.
  • if you have nowhere to put a sticky wall, take advice from US ToP trainer Barbara MacKay of Northstar Facilitators, also in a youtube video below.

Start again from example 1…

For more on my work, and what others have to say about it, please see how I work, who I work with and recommendations & case studies – or view my profile and connect with me on LinkedIn.

You can connect with me also by joining my free facilitation webinars online, and IAF England & Wales’ free facilitation meetups in London and elsewhere.

Responding to changing situations and needs with ToP Consensus Workshop – #FacWeek -1

This is the 5th of a series of six weekly posts to mark International Facilitation Week 2017, starting just 1 week from today. Drafted as I enjoyed a welcome opportunity to pause and reflect this summer, the posts share a series of examples of how I have applied, customised and adapted the ToP Consensus Workshop method in my practice over the past year. 

How will you celebrate and promote the power of facilitation this year? Please share online with the #FacWeek hashtag, or in a comment below…

Example 5 – Eurochild, Brussels

A good example of both customised design and adaptation in the moment was the General Assembly in Brussels in April of Eurochild, ‘a network of organisations and individuals working in and across Europe to promote the rights and well-being of children and young people‘. This involved around 100 individual members and member representatives plus Board members and Secretariat staff over two days.

One morning of the GA was designed as an opportunity to engage members in a year-long process to develop a new strategy for the network as a whole for 2019-21. The event had been preceded by an online survey of members, and was followed by a Participatory Strategic Planning retreat with Board, staff and a few key member representatives to develop the basis of the new strategy – for more in-depth consultation this autumn, with a view to final adoption at the next GA in April 2018. The Focus Question for the planning process as a whole was ‘How could Eurochild best mobilise and add value to the work of its members from 2019-21, to promote the rights & well-being of children & young people in Europe?‘

The design of the half-day member consultation began with an opening conversation and brief contextual presentations, followed by a 90 minute Consensus Workshop and then a series of ‘World Café’ style table conversations – to brainstorm and capture ideas for the Practical Vision, Current Reality and Strategic Directions stages of the Participatory Strategic Planning process respectively.

Participants sat at 13 pre-assigned tables of 8, each hosted by a Board or staff member. The workshop process was ‘super-sized’ as with ICUU, with whole-A4 sheets for writing ideas and all table hosts coming to the sticky wall at once to share ideas in turn and cluster quickly in columns under symbols as they did so. Cluster titles were drafted at tables and accepted without lengthy discussion or revision.

Also as with ICUU, it had been clear in the design process that a deep level of consensus would not be possible with such a large group in such a short time. It was also clear that such a consensus would not be necessary for this workshop, just one consultative element in a much longer and more elaborate process of consensus building over the course of a year.

The adaptation in the moment came in the Naming stage of the workshop. The Focus Question was ‘What would make us happy that the strategic planning process has been a success? (in terms of the new strategy & membership model themselves, in terms of member engagement in the process, and otherwise)’. The intent had been that the resulting ‘indicators of success’ would serve as guidelines and a means of accountability for the process of strategy development and member engagement over the year, and that substantive content for the new strategy would be contributed during the following World Cafe session.

What happened was that many of the ideas contributed in the workshop were in fact answers to the Practical Vision question ‘What do we want to see in place by 2021 as a result of delivering our new strategy? (how will Eurochild be different, and what difference will Eurochild have made?)‘. It made no sense to address the Vision question again separately, and it seemed to make more sense to accept that the group was ready to work on its Vision right away rather than to spend time first trying to name indicators of success. So what we did was to cluster the mix of ideas into 11 columns representing 11 vision elements, with just the original symbol to identify each. Then participants self-selected into 11 table groups to name the vision element on a flip chart, and also articulate relative to that element any indicators of success, current reality and practical projects and initiatives.

Jana Hainsworth, Secretary General at Eurochild, wrote in September:

“Great that we had structure, but also great that we could think on our feet to adjust the planning according to what we were hearing from members. All in all we got a huge amount of raw material for development of the strategic plan. The methodology clearly helped.”

Read on for example 6…

For more on my work, and what others have to say about it, please see how I work, who I work with and recommendations & case studies – or view my profile and connect with me on LinkedIn.

You can connect with me also by joining my free facilitation webinars online, and IAF England & Wales’ free facilitation meetups in London and elsewhere.