From ICommons wiki

[edit] Facilitation

Tasks

1. Draw up facilitation guidelines and terms of reference for the team
2. Find and hire someone to be the lead facilitation resource. In terms of objectivity, perhaps this person should come from outside the CC community.
   1. Perhaps seek suggestions from the community
3. Reach out to Barcamp Japan to see if they can provide other facilitators
   1. Fumi was at BarCamp Japan and perhaps can help with this
4. Determine how many other facilitators are required and find them
5. Seek a curator for the more formal Commons 101 track
6. Once facilitator is hired, fill out the rest of the facilitator guidelines
7. Ensure that facilitators meet for two days before the conference starts for team-building

Facilitation in business, organizational development (OD) and in consensus decision-making refers to the process of designing and running a successful meeting.

Facilitation concerns itself with all the tasks needed to run a productive and impartial meeting. Facilitation serves the needs of any group who are meeting with a common purpose, whether it be making a decision, solving a problem, or simply exchanging ideas and information. It does not lead the group, nor does it try to distract or to entertain. (Source: Wikipedia)

Facilitation is a core issue We need very clear guidelines about how to facilitate because we have people who are great at their subjects, but not experienced facilitators.

Good facilitation is neutral. The facilitators needn't be subject matter experts. They need to ensure that multiple view-points are represented.

We will have more flexible interactive formats

Tackling language issues through facilitation Simultaneous translation. Practically, what does the facilitator/facilitators need to do We need Japanese/English main sessions. People who are basically proficient in Japanese/English can go with a volunteer translator to help them around the occassional word that they need help with. Generally Japanese People prefer less interaction, they want more input and content.

What does a facilitation support team look like

• Make sure you have some Japanese representative members on each team
• Identify people who have run BarCamp in Japan as possible facilitators

We should still have theme based facilitators like last year. Then another person who works with all the facilitators and keeps them on track, hears issues, and arranges meetings every morning and evening with them.

Guide for facilitators:

• http://facilitation.aspirationtech.org/index.php/Facilitation:Facilitator_Guidelines
• Be sensitive to the language issues - they should be trouble-shooters
• Should help shy people get involved
• Be controllers of the programmable spaces
• Help people network and meet new people
• Meet every day.
• Promote interactivity

There is a logistical element to being a facilitator:

• Find rooms for the unconferences
• Ensure that there are timetables, equipment and anything else necessary for a good session

[Unconference Track at iSummit]

Propose a facilitation and unconference track to build capacity into the community for future meetings and summits

Facilitators should have a team-building element for them. They need to get together for the two or so days prior to the summit.

Cultural Diversity of Facilitators

Process for finding facilitators:

• Core leader: someone we know and trust that we appoint, ideally someone who's good in Japanese and English
• Next bilingual people with experience facilitating experience in Japan and with unconferences.
• A call for people who want more facilitation experience within the community
• Next Subject Matter Experts from within the community to join tracks which will be helped along by the facilitators

We should find someone on the Japanese side to help us do outreach to that community for facilitators too.