Feedback for Facilitators

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                         EXERCISE ELEVEN
                    Feedback for Facilitators

PURPOSES

     þ    To provide feedback to meeting facilitators
     þ    To increase a group's awareness of useful facilitator
          behaviors.


INSTRUCTIONS

1. When planning the agenda of a regular business meeting, allow
20 minutes at the beginning and at least 30 minutes at the end to
carry out this exercise.

2. Identify one meeting facilitator or, for the sake of
comparison of styles, two or three.  Divide the agenda into
roughly equal parts so the facilitators will know when to switch.

3. At the beginning of the meeting:

     a.   State the purposes of the activity and the schedule of
          facilitators.
     b.   Explain that those who aren't facilitating will receive
          a checklist to rate facilitator behavior.
     c.   Pass out the Facilitator's Role Sheet to everyone.
          Discuss briefly each of the points on the sheet.
     d.   Pass out the Facilitator Observation Sheet to everyone
          but the facilitators.  Instruct the observers to keep
          track of the facilitators' behavior by placing a tally
          mark on the sheet each time they observe one of the
          behaviors listed.

4. During the meeting, if there is more than one facilitator,
make sure the facilitators switch as agreed so each gets a
roughly equal turn.

5. When the 30-minute discussion period is scheduled to start,
stop the official meeting and use the observation sheet as a
basis for discussion.  (If discussion doesn't begin
spontaneously, have someone read through each of the facilitator
behaviors listed on the role sheet and ask for similarities and
differences among the facilitators.)

6. Invite the facilitator(s) to give their own impressions and to
ask questions of the observers.  The facilitators may be
interested in identifying facilitator behaviors they would like
to practice or develop. 
                
7. Invite the facilitators and observers to suggest steps the
group as a whole should take to support the development of
facilitator skills.

VARIATIONS

     In a large group, have the facilitators and a few others sit
     in the center and carry on a meeting while the other members
     sit in a circle around them and use the score sheets. 
     Shorten the meeting and then carry on the discussion with
     everyone.

     In a training session with members from various groups,
     create a fictional organization with a fictional agenda. 
     Carry out the exercise as written.

ADAPTED FROM: Working Together: A Manual for Helping Groups Work
More Effectively, Robert C. Biagi, University of Massachusetts,
Citizen Involvement Training Project, 1978.

Comments to: crs@uvm.edu
Reviewed as of 4/20/98