A facilitator’s job is to deliver “the package”
You know the drill: a transporter’s job is to deliver “the package” safely and timely to the desired destination and to protect it (in between), sometimes from itself even. Facilitation is very much like this.
You have an end-client (who may or may not be in the same room as the resource group) and you have the resource group – “the package” – that needs to be taken fast through all kind of bumpy roads:
- Fast – as an usual process of ideation should take place during the course of 2 days (or, at least, one afternoon and one morning, with a night in between for incubation) but you are “given” only 6 hours to do the job
- The bumpy roads come in all forms and shapes: the preconceptions on the category, the perceived limitations on self-capacity of generating even more (innovative) ideas and, also, the problematic in itself.
Facilitation means protecting “the package”
This is highly important. The group:
- should grow to believe in itself,
- should stay on track (diversions like mobile phones, communicator, last minute e mails or even good old time jokes appear even for the most willing and committed group) and
- should learn to fly – usually above the common barriers of organizational culture (“this is how we do things here”), of the headquarters’ latest procedures and/ or legal regulations.
The good news is that the facilitator needs not to be as handsome as Jason Statham, nor does he/she charge as much.
The silver lining (real quotes follow):
- For the facilitator: “this (note: the Romanian workshop) was better than in… (our country)”. In that other country, the process was not facilitated by an external resource but by the end client himself.
- For the group and the end client: “we really did not expect to come up with other new ideas but we thought we should give it a try, although we were rather pessimistic about the output. And look at us! WE have managed to come up with at least 50 (if not even more) ideas that we now need to evaluate & prioritize!”
Yes, we can. Mapping our future together.
MAPPERS’ team is highly experienced in facilitating ideation sessions (having more than 18 years of practice) and is also accredited for Creative Problem Solving (CPS) process.
Areas of expertise: automotive, banking, organisational culture, internal process/ product flow.
Main objectives reached: new product and service development, sales approach for specific targets, solutions for overcoming barriers in various categories, brand positioning, etc.
Resources: http://gamestorming.com/
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