Effective Facilitation for Business Analysts

 1. Facilitation Basics

• What Facilitation Is
• The Role of the Facilitator
• To Facilitate or Not to Facilitate?
• Benefits of Facilitation
• Facilitation in Business Analysis

2. Planning a Facilitated Meeting

• Why Planning is Critical
• Defining the Purpose
• The Facilitated Meeting Planning Worksheet
  • Key Characteristics of Participants
  • Meeting Risks and Responses

3. Facilitation Techniques

• Building an Agenda
• Techniques for Facilitated Meetings
  • Brainstorming
  • Gap Analysis
  • T-Charts (or Force Field Analysis)
  • Model Types
  • Impact/Effort Grid
  • Multi-Voting

4. Conducting a Meeting

• Facilitation Actions
• Facilitation Behaviors

5. Virtual Meetings

• Challenge of Teleconferences and Web-Conferences
• Meeting with Dispersed Participants
• Best Practices for Virtual Meetings

6. More Techniques for Facilitation

• Brainwriting (Anonymous Brainstorming)
• Root Cause Analysis
• Criteria-Based Grid
• How Various Models Can be Used with Groups

7. Managing Conflict

• Understanding Conflict
• Good vs. Bad Conflict
• Resolving Conflict between Participants
• Resolving Conflict between Participant and Facilitator

Exercises:

• Complete a Facilitation Meeting Plan
• Create Meeting Agenda
• Practice Facilitating Multiple Meetings
• Practice Root Cause Analysis
• Complete a Criteria-Based Grid