Facilitation is a very necessary skill for information management professionals, since they are called upon regularly to lead requirements discovery sessions, work on projects with different groups of people, and manage the development of common understanding of complex data and processes.

This presentation provides an overview of facilitation techniques needed for conducting workshops and business meetings. It highlights facilitation concepts, psychological interactions and communication style differences, techniques for a successful facilitator, creating agendas and scripts for facilitating, techniques for handling difficult groups and common interpersonal problems.

The attendee will gain an understanding of the importance of the concepts of group dynamics and how proper facilitation can improve them, the critical success factors of facilitation in the context of information management, offer some suggestions for avoiding common problems, and deliver a successful meeting with appropriate documentation. Attendees will practice many of the techniques presented in the workshop to increase their experience with facilitation.

Benefits To Your Company

Trained facilitators lead to more productive and accurate requirements gathering sessions and other critical meetings. Facilitated meetings result in:

• Increased productivity of group and individuals in the group
• Enabling group motivation, commitment and confidence
• Creating a better climate for radical change
• Optimized group dynamics

Who Should Attend

• Data Architects
• Enterprise Architects
• Data Administrators
• Business Analysts
• Project Managers
• IT Professionals

Learning Objectives

The objectives of the seminar are to:

• Learn and develop:
  1. Active listening skills
  2. Building agendas for project planning and decision making sessions
  3. Consensus building and facilitation techniques for group dynamics
• Provide practical group and individual exercises for facilitating requirements, modeling and other information management activities
• Supply sample agendas, scripts and templates describing how to capture the various deliverables used in information management efforts
• Simulate actual facilitation sessions to demonstrate proper techniques and to describe facilitation and information management concepts

What Makes This Certified Course Unique

This ICCP-certified course provides participants with practical, in-depth understanding of the role, purpose, and skills required for facilitation. Through case studies and team interaction attendees will attain the real-world skills necessary to act as a professional facilitator for their organization. Hands-on workshops throughout the course will reinforce the learning experience and provide the attendees with concrete results that can be used in their organizations.

Seminar Outline

1. Introduction
2. Project Management for facilitated sessions
   1. Overview of workshop process
   2. Preparing for the facilitated workshop
   3. Key characteristics and techniques for a successful workshop
   4. Post workshop activities
   5. Workshop roles/responsibilities
3. Communication Techniques
4. Facilitation
   1. Key components of a facilitated session
   2. Facilitation skills
   3. Managing conflict and group dynamics
   4. Exercise - Active Listening Skills
   5. Common interpersonal problems and techniques for addressing them
   6. Techniques for facilitating difficult groups
   7. Presentation skills
   8. Techniques for creative thinking
5. Building an agenda
6. Facilitation Exercise – each student facilitates a short workshop session and is provided with feedback
7. Exercise - Creative Thinking and Troubleshooting
8. Organizational Planning
   1. Principles and terminology
   2. Agendas, scripts and facilitation techniques
9. Project Planning and Problem Solving
   1. Principles and terminology in project planning and agenda creation
   2. Facilitation techniques for solving session problems
   3. Scoping the session(s)
10. Exercise - Building a workshop approach
11. Case Study Exercise - Agenda Building and Facilitation Experience - Each student prepares and creates an agenda and facilitates a session. The student is given a written evaluation from the instructor and receives additional comments from the rest of the workshop participants.
12. Workshop Conclusion

To learn more about how EWSolutions can provide our World-Class Training for your company or to request a quote, please feel free to contact David Marco, our Director of Education at DMarco@EWSolutions.com or call him at 630.920.0005 ext. 103.