Facilitation Skills

Perhaps you were intrigued by our facilitation services in our Consulting pages and are wondering whether it’s possible to train some of your people how to do facilitation. Embedding facilitation skills into your organisation will make a world of difference to your productivity and energy levels. You’ll be making higher quality decisions along the way, while having fun in the process.

As an individual, becoming a trained independent facilitator will take your career to the next level … whether you want to design and deliver Joint Application Design/Development (JAD) workshops, improve design making or significantly enhance productivity and performance for your department or team.

Courses are available at foundation level (2 days) or practitioner level (5 days).

How to Book

You may book online immediately for either of these courses here to secure your place, or call us on 01565 759893.

View our payment terms and conditions here. You may also view additional details on each course below.

Facilitation Skills Training (2 Days)

Overview

Our 2-day Facilitation Skills course provides a thorough grounding in the use of facilitation skills and techniques within an organisational or team setting. Delegates will gain sufficient knowledge, understanding and practical experience to design and run high-quality workshops within their own organisation, ensuring they are able to extract and obtain high-quality deliverables within compressed time frames.

Objectives

Upon successful completion of this course, delegates will be able to:

  • Design, prepare and facilitate workshops,
  • Create effective facilitation agendas that meet specific needs,
  • Understand and apply a wide variety of strategies, approaches and techniques to manage workshop participants to achieve defined objectives,
  • Understand and apply a variety of practical strategies to effectively manage group dynamics.
  • Understand and apply a variety of basic techniques to define objectives, gain commitment, obtain consensus and agreement.

Target Audience

The target audience for this course includes Business Analysts, Project Managers, Team Leaders, Change Managers, Change Agents, Senior Managers and anyone who wants to radically improve the quality and effectiveness of meetings within their department or organisation.

Course Content

Course content includes:

  • Introduction to Facilitation and the role of the Facilitator,
  • Workshop Design and Preparation
      – Understanding Stakeholders and Sponsorship
      - Effective Agendas
      - Process Walkthroughs
      - Slides and Flipcharts
      - Pre-Workshop Checklist
  • Workshop Facilitation
      – Effective Workshop Starts
      - Facilitation Skills
      - Managing Group and Group Dynamics
      - Facilitator Toolkits and Basic Techniques
      - Effective Workshop Closure
  • Workshop Follow-Up
      – Workshop Follow-up
      - Next Steps
      - Process Evaluation
      - Reflective Practice
Cost and Location

Attendance on this 2-day course is available at a cost of £520.00 + Vat (inc. all materials, lunch and refreshments).

The course is available at one of our luxurious training premises across the UK …

Booths Hall, Knutsford, Cheshire – An 18th Century manor house set in 220 acres in the heart of the Cheshire countryside – within easy reach of Manchester, Liverpool, Warrington, Preston, Stoke-on-Trent, Stafford, Birmingham, Wrexham and Chester and the counties of Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside Staffordshire, Shropshire, West Midlands and Flintshire. Delegates will be able to enjoy the beautiful parkland, woodland walks along with the extensive sporting facilities available.

Carlton House, Westminster, London – This stylish and comfortable venue has been extensively modernised whilst retaining its period character and boasts high quality, comprehensively equipped training rooms ideally suited for the delivery of the company’s growing range of business and personal development focused training courses. Although situated in a desirable, easily accessed location close to Pall Mall, traffic noise is minimal and delegates can experience a sense of comparative tranquility whilst engaging in their learning.
Course Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for this course.

Facilitation Skills Training – Practitioner (5 Days)

Overview

Our 5-day Practitioner Facilitation Skills course provides in-depth training for anyone wanting to become a trained facilitator. The course is wide-ranging, extensive and challenging and will provide participants with a range of strategies and techniques to design, plan and deliver effective workshops within an organisational or team setting. This course provides much of the material contained within our 2-day course, along with additional content that includes listening skills, managing your own state, using and noticing body language, using language patterns for influence, managing conflict, dealing with difficult personalities, and much more, as well as providing a broader range of tools and techniques.

Objectives

Upon successful completion of this course, delegates will be able to:

  • Design, prepare and facilitate workshops,
  • Create effective facilitation agendas that meet specific needs,
  • Understand and apply a wide variety of strategies, approaches and techniques to manage workshop participants to achieve defined objectives,
  • Learn, refine and demonstrate active listening skills,
  • Use and notice body language to manage space, monitor energy levels, gain high-uqality information,
  • Effectively manage group conflict,
  • Manage difficult personalities,
  • Understand and demonstrate effective use of utilisation and group rapport,,
  • Understand and apply a variety of practical strategies to effectively manage group dynamics.
  • Understand and apply the principles of change, maturity and stretch to achieve significant change,
  • Understand and apply a wide variety of techniques to explore problems, manage energy levels, define objectives, enhance creativity, generate and evaluate ideas, explore and assess potential solutions,gain commitment, obtain consensus and agreement.

Target Audience

The target audience for this course includes Business Analysts, Project Managers, Team Leaders, Change Managers, Change Agents, Senior Managers and anyone who wants to improve the performance of their team or department, radically improve the quality and effectiveness of meetings, and significantly enhance their career progression by becoming a trained facilitator. The course will also benefit existing facilitators wishing to enhance, refine or update their skills.

Course Content

Course content includes:

  • Introduction to Facilitation and the role of the Facilitator,
  • Workshop Design and Preparation
      – Understanding Stakeholders and Sponsorship
      - Stakeholder Analysis
      - Common Stakeholder Issues and What to Do about Them
      - Effective Agendas
      - Process Walkthroughs, Structure and Timings
      - Slides, Flipcharts and Visual Aids
      - Pre-Workshop Checklist
  • Workshop Facilitation
      – Effective and Powerful Workshop Starts
      - Facilitation Skills
      - Active Listening Skills
      - The Importance of Body Language
      - Managing Group and Group Dynamics
      - Managing Conflict
      - Handling Difficult Personalities
      - Defusing Difficult Situations
      - Using language for Influence
      - Techniques to Create and Maintain Group Rapport,
      - Managing Energy Levels
      - Effective Workshop Closure
  • The Facilitation Toolkit
      – Understanding the Principles and Processes of Change
      - Leverage, Tipping Points and Stretch
      - Icebreakers
      - Energisers
      - Techniques for Problem Exploration and Definition
      - Ideas Generation and Classification
      - Ideas Evaluation and Selection
      - Techniques for Voting and Obtaining Consensus
      - Solution Exploration and Assessment
      - Facilitating Organisational Change
  • Workshop Follow-Up
      – Workshop Follow-up
      - Next Steps
      - Process Evaluation
      - Reflective Practice
      - Communities of Practice
      - Networks and Resources
Cost and Location

Attendance on this 5-day course is available at a cost of £980 + Vat (inc. all materials, lunch and refreshments).

The course is available at one of our luxurious training premises across the UK …

Booths Hall, Knutsford, Cheshire – An 18th Century manor house set in 220 acres in the heart of the Cheshire countryside – within easy reach of Manchester, Liverpool, Warrington, Preston, Stoke-on-Trent, Stafford, Birmingham, Wrexham and Chester and the counties of Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside Staffordshire, Shropshire, West Midlands and Flintshire. Delegates will be able to enjoy the beautiful parkland, woodland walks along with the extensive sporting facilities available.

Carlton House, Westminster, London – This stylish and comfortable venue has been extensively modernised whilst retaining its period character and boasts high quality, comprehensively equipped training rooms ideally suited for the delivery of the company’s growing range of business and personal development focused training courses. Although situated in a desirable, easily accessed location close to Pall Mall, traffic noise is minimal and delegates can experience a sense of comparative tranquility whilst engaging in their learning.

Grosvenor House on Glengall Street, Belfast – This is a comfortable and well equipped training venue located in the heart of Belfast. It boasts well-appointed training rooms within a minute’s walk from the Europa Bus and Train Station and less than five minutes from the City Hall. The venue’s excellent location puts it in immediate proximity to major transport links, a variety of hotels catering for all budgets and it is a stone’s throw from some of Belfast’s most famous cultural landmarks such as the Grand Opera House, the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and the famous Crown Liquor Saloon, a perfectly restored Victorian public house operated effectively as a working museum by the National Trust.

Course Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for this course.

What does 'facilitation skills training' refer to?

What does 'facilitation skills training' refer to?

Facilitation skills training refers to empowering individuals with the skills they need to become an effective communicator and negotiator in order to help individuals or groups with decision making processes.

If you think that your business or organisation doesn't need your employees to have facilitation skills training, then take a moment to recall the last few meetings that you've been involved in and ask yourself these questions:

  1. Were they effective?
  2. Did you reach the outcome that you were hoping for? Or even any outcome at all?
  3. Were any goals or aims set out at the start of the meeting?
  4. Most importantly, did you feel - or did you recognise in other participants in the meeting - that things dragged needlessly, got bogged down in conflicts or took up more time and energy than necessary?

Your answers to these questions should highlight how effective and productive your meeting and group sessions are without facilitation skills training. If you start thinking that this is an area where your business or organisation could do with some help, then perhaps you should consider sending one or more suitable candidates along for facilitation skills training. After all, wasting energy, time and resources becomes expensive, frustrating and de-motivating for everyone concerned, not just the boss.

Who should go on facilitation courses?

Facilitation courses are, in the first instance, designed for people who routinely take charge of workshops and meeting or any other environment where decision making is required of a group of people.

Facilitation courses are also useful when other factors aside from decision making are the focus. Strategy meetings, for example, benefit from the presence of a skilled facilitator, as do brainstorming meetings where the emphasis is on creativity and vision.

Those who learn new skills on facilitation courses are better positioned to understand how to bring people together, how to communicate more effectively and how to diffuse complex situations where conflict threatens to get out of control.

Ultimately, every business or organisation benefits from having a person who has attended facilitation courses because they now have, in their direct employ, an individual whose sole purpose is to help people work together more effectively.

The skills gained during facilitation courses are useful in times of greater challenge, because a good facilitator will be neutral and recognise the importance of transparency (generally one of the first things to decline during difficult times in organisations, yet one of the most important) and fair communication when it matters the most.

Why should I enrol on facilitation skills courses with Watt Works?

When you enrol on facilitation skills courses you can rest in the knowledge that you, or the individual you have sent on our facilitation skills courses, will be receiving quality training.

The quality training all our course participants receive on our facilitation skills courses means that they all leave with the skills they need to make their workplaces a more effective, productive, and happy place for everyone. It is always better to proactive rather than reactive, meaning that the qualities developed on facilitation skills courses are just as essential in times of harmony as they are in times of strife. So don't wait for the tough times to hit, contact Watt Works today about our facilitation skills courses.

WANT TO KNOW MORE?

For more information on any of our training services call us on +44 (0) 1565 759 893

All of our training services are designed to provide world-class experiences in learning and development.


We place extra emphasis on ensuring that participants on our courses have a superior learning experience that they are able to fully integrate in their personal and professional lives.


We provide pre-course preparation material, as well as a series of weekly and monthly follow ups and quizzes to ensure you make the most of your time with us.


All our courses are available via our open programme, or can be tailored extensivley to suit the needs of your organisation via in-house delivery.


Book a place on one of our open programme courses today...
More about courses
“"A facilitator is an individual who enables groups and organizations to work more effectively; to collaborate and achieve synergy. She or he is a 'content neutral' party who by not taking sides or expressing or advocating a point of view during the meeting, can advocate for fair, open, and inclusive procedures to accomplish the group's work."”
Michael Doyle

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Watt Works Consulting Ltd Booths Hall, Chelford Road, Knutsford, Cheshire, WA16 8GS, England, United Kingdom T +44 (0)1565 759 893