Facilitate Proceedings » Business Collaboration

Are meetings still relevant?

Nancy Settle-Murphy — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 21:06:20 +0000

In a webinar earlier this year sponsored by NewWOW (New Ways of Working), David Coleman posed a provocative question: “In the world of enterprise social collaboration, has the social construct of “meetings” become anachronistic? In other words, are meetings obsolete?”

I’ve had a few weeks to ruminate his question. My initial reply: Of course! To have a real conversation, people really have to be talking together, at the same time, in pretty much the same way. Otherwise, we’re just pushing out (or pulling in) a bunch of potentially disconnected thoughts that often cross paths somewhere in the clouds. That’s not the stuff authentic conversations are made of, IMHO.

Select virtual meeting technology to support the group process, not the other way around

Julia Young — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 20:22:11 +0000

Remember that old piece of advice: Don’t put the cart before the horse? The Number One Challenge that facilitators and trainers have with virtual meetings and webinars is: How to keep participants engaged? I suggest that this is directly related to the Number One Trap that we fall into when moving from face-to-face to virtual events: starting with a piece of technology and then trying to make engagement happen. While technology can accelerate great communication, meeting effectiveness and virtual teamwork, it cannot create it. Rather we need to 1) start with our meeting or learning objectives, 2) understand the different types of interaction we are seeking to create during different parts of our agenda or process and then 3) select technology to support the desired interaction.

In our workshops and webinars about leading virtual teams and getting great results from virtual meetings, we use the following schematic to discuss how to select virtual meeting technology to match the type of interaction we need.

First Things First: Create Collaborative Client Relationships

Susan Peryam — Thu, 13 May 2010 16:20:59 +0000

What approaches should you use to develop a collaborative relationship with a client?

The first of the six Foundational Facilitator Competencies developed by the International Association of Facilitators is Create Collaborative Client Relationships which is focused on understanding the client’s needs so that the facilitator can design a session to achieve the desired outcomes.

Blended Facilitation: Have Your Cake (And Eat It Too)

Danuta McCall — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:27:13 +0000

Several blogs and news portals have picked up on a Forbes Insight Study conducted in June ‘09 that found 84% of the 760 business execs surveyed preferred face-to-face meetings over virtual contact, even though the economic downturn had obliged many of them to reduce travel and adopt technology solutions for virtual meetings. Executives identified the following benefits from face-to-face meetings: building stronger, more meaningful relationships (85%), the ability to “read” another person (77%), and greater social interaction (75%). 80% felt that face-to-face interaction with co-workers is necessary for effective teamwork and complex decision making.

As I read, I frequently felt like chiming in with “yes, AND….” (as a consultant, I rarely if ever say “yes, but…”). In my opinion, the paradigm of either/or – virtual or face to face – is a limiting context in which to evaluate business collaboration. Thanks to collaborative technology, it’s simply no longer an all or nothing proposition.

We at Facilitate.com are great proponents of “blended facilitation”.

Develop Your Team’s Cultural Literacy

Nancy Settle-Murphy — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 03:37:35 +0000

A client of mine, a manager of organizational effectiveness for a global services firm, recently posed this question: “Although our corporate HQ is here in the U.S., our company is run by teams of people located all over the world. Perhaps because many have limited experience working regularly with people of other cultures, most of the Americans—who are top performers here in the U.S.—seem to be struggling. I’ve been asked to coach a group of American managers to become more effective global collaborators. Any advice?”

In this post, I’ll share some advice for helping your team develop cultural literacy. Later, I’ll talk about how this translates into good behavior in team communications.

Mob Rule or Collective Intelligence?

Danuta McCall — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:25:31 +0000

One of my favorite blogs asks the question: how do Web 2.0 tools like Digg ultimately affect the core process of management decision-making? Traditional decision-making is typically top-down. What if there were a “digital rebellion” on the part of the employee population, a democratic up swelling of sorts, powered by these ground-swelling web tools? Mike Gotta points out that the collective intelligence within networks of people who are close to the problem might be valuable and on the mark. How do you pay attention to the “voice of the crowd” without inviting chaos?

Choosing the Right Collaboration Platform for Your Project

Danuta McCall — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:22:18 +0000

With the myriad of collaboration solutions in the market today, it’s more important than ever to know what you’re looking for and why. In our experience, work groups will accept new technology if it helps them better complete the tasks for which they are accountable. Simply put, they will adopt if they see the benefit; if they don’t, you’ll encounter resistance at every step.
We recently published a case study illustrating the process used by a Canadian public health consortium that resulted in the thoughtful selection of collaboration tools to support this organization’s objectives.

Hey, Lets Collaborate – Not!

Mark Wilkinson — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:15:18 +0000

Over the last few years my firm has looked at using various technologies to enhance workflow, manage documents, increase collaboration and, quite frankly, make both our job and our client’s job easier. After mixed results trying to get individuals and teams to adopt new tools, we adopted a new philosophy. We stopped worrying about coaching clients on how to expand their collaboration toolkit. Instead, we lead by example. Today we are developing a “best practices” approach to collaboration by first providing a flexible low-cost wiki for every client.

Get More out of Your Client Advisory Boards

Nancy Settle-Murphy — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:14:45 +0000

Whether they’re called client advisory boards, user groups, or customer feedback sessions, most such meetings are held face-to-face, and for good reason. But clients’ overbooked calendars coupled with budget restrictions means that you can’t convene these groups as often as you would like – unless you can find a way to arrange a virtual advisory board meeting that will keep people focused and engaged. Here are some points to remember: