Struggling with the facilitation aspect of your role as a project manager?
Galen Low is joined by Alice Jakins—Founder & Owner of Getting Digital Done—to talk about the reasons why being a good facilitator is one of the most important superhero skills you can hone as a project manager in 2023, and what you can do to get better at it.
Struggling with the facilitation aspect of your role as a project manager?
Galen Low is joined by Alice Jakins—Founder & Owner of Getting Digital Done—to talk about the reasons why being a good facilitator is one of the most important superhero skills you can hone as a project manager in 2023, and what you can do to get better at it.
Here you are again leading yet another hybrid brainstorming session for your project. Unsurprisingly, it feels as much like herding cats as it did the last ten times. At the moment, you're awkwardly attempting to conduct the session from the safety of your living room office. Meanwhile, a cluster of attendees who managed to find a physical meeting room are excitedly putting stickies on a whiteboard that none of the remote attendees can decipher via the webcam. Add to that the fact that it sounds like everyone is a million miles away, except for Seth the mouth-breather who decided to sit as close as possible to the microphone. Meanwhile, you're constantly getting pinged by remote participants about why there are so many cursors flying around on the Miro board. And that would be a great question if they weren't actually supposed to be in the Mural board, which is a completely different tool. You find yourself at the end of your rope, thinking to yourself "Why is facilitation my problem at all, and how can I get it off my plate? I'm a project manager, dammit, not a magician!" If you've been struggling with the facilitation aspect of your role as a project manager, keep listening. We're going to be dissecting the reasons why being a good facilitator is actually one of the most important superhero skills you can hone as a project manager in 2023, and also what you can do to get better at it. Hey folks, thanks for tuning in. My name is Galen Low with The Digital Project Manager. We are a community of digital professionals on a mission to help each other get skilled, get confident, and get connected so that we can amplify the value of project management in a digital world. If you wanna hear more about that, head on over to thedigitalprojectmanager.com. Okay. Today we are going to be surfacing the raw and unfiltered truth about facilitation and project management. We're going to explore why it matters more than ever, how to avoid the most common mistakes project managers make when it comes to facilitation, and when project managers should just take a step back and maybe not try to be the facilitator. With me today is Alice Jakins, a passionate process design consultant, an expert digital facilitator, and also the owner of Getting Digital Done — a digital consulting practice based in Cape Town, South Africa. Alice, thank you so much for being on the show with us today!
Alice Jakins:Thank you, Galen! Awesome to be here.
Galen Low:Now, for our listeners, Alice and I, we've been chatting for probably over a year about things like facilitation, things like project management, things like process design. And we were like, "Heck, why don't we just record a podcast because all of our conversations end up getting us to really interesting places, really interesting insights." And I thought facilitation is probably a great place to dig in. But before we dive in, I just thought maybe our listeners can learn just a little bit more about you, Alice. From what I know of you, you're someone who has just a really wide range of experience. Everything from business process design, to optimization, to digital transformation, to operations, to project management, to teaching and coaching, and of course, facilitation. I was wondering, could you tell our listeners about some of the projects from your past that really kind of got your blood pumping and how they exposed you to all of these different branches of a digital organization?
Alice Jakins:Sure. Yeah, I think that's a fascinating thing is it's kind of like an ecosystem of all these different moving parts, isn't it? You know, especially when it comes to process. It's not just about the process, you know, it's about all the things that surround it — people, the platforms, the purpose, you know. So yeah, all those moving parts, they're quite interconnected. So I think, yeah, if I, you know, to give you an idea of which projects got my blood pumping, they've all been quite diverse, but I think, you know, one project that definitely stands out is it was a team restructure for a data company. And I think as soon as people hear that word restructure, you know, they go into panic mode. It's like, am I going to have a job? What does this mean for me? Quite scary. So it was quite important for that project to take the right approach, you know, to how this company was going to actually fulfill on this restructure. And the approach there was definitely, you know, bite-sized chunks. So what we ended up doing was we actually took the ideal team and we trialed it with a live project inside of that organization. So you know, none of these people had actually worked together in a team before. And yeah, it was really just about making it clear to everybody, you know, why the company wanted to do it, getting their insights and input around, you know, how could we make it a success? What ways of working could we implement to actually get the work over the line? You know, what were the kind of rituals that were going to work for them? We practice those rituals and, you know, they kind of became the ambassadors for other people inside that organization saying, we want to have similar teams because we can see how well it works. So yeah, that was a good example, I think, touched on quite a few different areas.
Galen Low:I like that sort of localized experiment approach and the kind of creative/collaborative approach. I think you're absolutely right. And even probably for some of our listeners too, they're like, okay, yeah, restructuring project, like how is that digital? How can that be sort of agile or nimble? We're so used to having restructuring done to us that we forget that there's a way to do it where it is a sort of creative exercise where we can kind of craft these new processes together in, you know, a little bit of a whatever I'm thinking the word like Petri dish, right? You've got your little experiment running and you get to be fast and you get to be creative and you get to work with new people.
Alice Jakins:And you get to have fun. Yeah.
Galen Low:Exactly. It's fun and like, and, and not weighed down by the past necessarily, or you can just look forward and design a different organization. And if I'm picking up what you're putting down as well, like, a project that might be called a restructure, in a way, it is this sort of web of everything that's connected. So in other words, tools. In other words, process design. In other words, sort of digital solutioning, like really thinking about how to modernize a business. And then, to your point earlier, really centering around the people and the purpose, which is, you know, people don't restructure for fun, generally. So, it's just like orienting around that goal. I was wondering, maybe you could talk to us a bit about how some of your experience has just culminated into your consulting practice, which is called Getting Digital Done, which I love, by the way, cool name. So do you think you can just tell us a little bit about your company and just the kind of impact that you and your team have on businesses in your area in South Africa, but also around the world?
Alice Jakins:Sure. I'm Miss Jakins. I mean, that's me, and it's actually not just me. I actually collaborate with another business, The Bill Murray. And The Bill Murray is on the process consulting side. And then, you know, The Bill Murray and myself with my background in project management, we obviously work with businesses on the process consulting side. So yeah, as a collective, you know, we're all about making processes fun, keeping them simple and keeping them people-focused, like we mentioned before. And we like to work collaboratively with businesses, I think that's so important. You know, we're not the kind of consultants that come in and tell people how things should be running. We know that they have a team. We know that they have existing processes. We know that they have existing ways of working. It's just working together with them to make improvements. And yeah, it's important that the businesses that we work with, they actually own the outcomes, you know, cause we want to leave them in space where they're confident to carry on owning those outputs and owning those things that have been implemented. So it's all about creating better work experiences and I think some of the examples of better work experience could be things like, you know, less but more meaningful engaging meetings in the business. It could be something like more directed team with clearer goals in place. It could be around having clarity on certain processes and practices and who owns certain parts of those. Could even be like more confidence to do one's job, you know, because that's been made clearer. Could be a more directed team with better decision making unfolding, more effective collaboration. Cause I mean, you can have a situation, can't you, where you've got all the collaboration happening in the world, but then decisions aren't getting made because it's not clear, you know, who would actually make a final call on something. Sure, you need, uh, you know, uh, diverse opinions and collaboration, but at the end of the day, someone needs to make a decision with that data. So, that's just some of the work that we do.
Galen Low:I like that approach. The other name I love is The Bill Murray, which I will post a link in the show notes because I was like, wow, Alice works with Bill Murray? Different Bill Murray. Bill, she's great. I really, uh, appreciate that company name. It really got me interested. That definitely worked. And I guess, would you say that like your approach is similar to what you were saying on the restructure where it's, you know, it doesn't have to be wholesale change. It's kind of like, it sounds to me like sometimes little optimizations, little iterations in different areas of the business, like even coaching and mentoring, not necessarily restructuring every play in the handbook.
Alice Jakins:Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, it all depends on, you know, the needs of the business, which we help them kind of surface, you know, and help them prioritize and look for, you know, what are the incremental wins and let's make sure that those are happening and being felt, you know, and yeah. So that's how we like to work with businesses, very collaboratively.
Galen Low:I love that. I love that. That's probably a good segue for us to dive in. Collaboration sometimes entails facilitation and you and I, we've jammed a lot on facilitation. I know it's something you feel really passionately about. And I was just wondering where that came from. I never really asked you this, but how did you become interested in facilitation? What made it something that you felt, like strongly enough about to want to master it and also teach it?
Alice Jakins:Okay. Awesome. Yeah. Uh, if I'm honest with you, Galen, I don't know that I will ever master facilitation because it really is a skill that you can keep developing. I kind of fell into it, you know, doing it because I needed to when I was working on projects. So, yeah, I think just through experience really, where I was experiencing not so great experiences on the ground with projects getting written. So, things like being invited to a meeting, but having no idea why I was there, you know, why I was invited even. Or you know, just sort of being part of a, part of a team, but sensing that, you know, there's just lack of energy or no vibe. That's not a cool experience to be part of that project. What else? Wishing I could code so that I could actually understand what the developers are saying, you know? So all of these things kind of drove a need to go, no, like we need to have a better experience on the ground when we're running this project and it needs to be through different experiences of ourselves working together as, as a team. And we need to be doing this better and I think that kind of sparked the interest that I had to drive better meetings, to drive better facilitation, to make sure better conversations were unfolding, people did feel more directed, it was a better vibe, all of those things.
Galen Low:I like those two words. I like the word experience and I like the word vibe just because those are things that not everyone's thinking about from a project perspective, is like, you know, the sort of user experience, so to speak of the people on the project team trying to get work done. It's the like tone, it's the culture and a lot of people think of facilitation and they kind of, you know, they're like, Oh yeah, when somebody stands in front of a group of people and controls everything because they want to drive towards their outcome. And of course, project managers need to do this because they're control freak. But actually it's a lot more about creating an experience that cultivates some of the collaboration that needs to happen. I mean, the worst thing is being in a meeting where you're like, I'm not sure what I'm doing here. Also, I'm not sure what the goal is, and therefore I'm not sure if by the end of this meeting, we're going to feel like gratified in the sense that we accomplished something, or if it was just a complete waste of time. And then you, you know, magnify that. Something you mentioned earlier, right? It's maybe having fewer, but more effective meetings as part of a process optimization. And part of that is, is this, right? Because if people are all stuck in really bad meetings that have zero direction and the vibe is not there and people don't feel energized then it's not moving the ball forward at all.
Alice Jakins:No, and it can be really draining, you know. Often, you know, there was that whole sort of phrase that was coined about Zoom fatigue and it's just being in back to back meetings the entire day and people feeling drained. And there's a reason why they're feeling drained is because those meetings aren't engaging. It's got nothing to do with the platform. It's actually got everything to do with the structure of the meeting, you know. And it not being engaging enough and driving participation and letting people be heard or, you know, actions unfolding. I think people would then feel differently at the end of the day. They wouldn't be feeling so drained.
Galen Low:No, entirely, entirely. And it was something that like, it was interesting. It's probably different for you and I, because we probably did a lot of remote facilitation or hybrid facilitation in the past before the pandemic. But do you feel like some of that has gotten better? Like, we had Zoom fatigue, people were having really bad meetings. Did we get better at it by the end? Or are we still trying to find our way through? And maybe even you find a lot of your clients are actively trying to reduce like sort of Zoom style meetings because they just never nailed it.
Alice Jakins:I think people are still struggling with this. I think that there's, there's a really desperate need for good facilitation. I'm still seeing, you know, poorly bad, uh, poorly run meetings happening out there. So I think that there's a lot of opportunity to make this work better for people, so yeah, I don't think that it's improved that much, if I'm honest.
Galen Low:That's entirely fair. And you know what, like, I think the learning aspect is such an interesting thing because I don't know if everyone's approaching it as this is something that could be better, that I should learn to do better, or that I feel equipped to do well, because we kind of just got, you know, everyone got plopped into it. They're like, guess what? You're going to need to do your regular meeting that you do in person, but you're going to do it online, or anytime you would have walked by someone's desk, like, we're going to do it on Zoom. And they're like, okay, well, it's automatically going to be bad. It got me thinking about sort of my first facilitation experience, but I thought maybe I'd put you on the spot, do a bit of story time. Maybe you could walk us through just that first session that you had to facilitate and, you know, how equipped you felt, like, was it planned? Did it just happen? Did you feel like you had the skills to pull it off at the time? And afterwards, was there a thing where you're like, okay, this could be better. I can improve at this.
Alice Jakins:Sure. Okay. Well, I think thinking back, the first session that I facilitated was actually a standup, so with a team of developers. But, you know, in terms of planning a session, well, yes. But I actually gnawed it together with them. So yeah, I mean, you know, I think Scrum has been around for many years now. And I had quite an interest in the whole Scrum methodology and understanding agile ways of working and, you know, all the different practices that could unfold. And I just felt at the time that, you know, the developers, they weren't openly sharing knowledge amongst each other or openly understanding what each person on the team was working on, you know, to kind of show their support or add value. And as a collective, you know, we were working across multiple projects, so it would have really helped if that knowledge was more freely shared and if the support was more felt amongst the team members. So yeah, I think back then I kind of positioned it as, you know, here's a purpose of why I want to do standups. I think that it's going to, you know, get a knowledge sharing. I think it's going to drive better support amongst the team. I think that we're going to get better work that's produced because we're able to do this, you know, more freely and faster this way. And how does everyone feel about us doing standups? And, yeah, they all wanted to give it a shot. So that was really helpful, you know, getting there by in, from the get go, you know. Back then, I mean, this was like 10 years ago, we didn't have these virtual collaboration boards that you have nowadays. So this was literally as hunting down, you know, one of those whiteboards, hunting down sticky notes from the stationery, begging them, you know, can we have a couple of sticky notes creating this board that was going to work for us? And so it unfolded and it was a success and we just got better at it, you know, with every one that we had. So you were looking for an example, weren't you? The first presentation at it. There you go.
Galen Low:And I love this notion of collaboratively prepping. And I think not everybody, when they're given a facilitation role, I think a lot of folks' first instinct is to be like, Okay, it's my responsibility to do this alone, to craft the session, craft the agenda, figure out a structure, like, figure out the goals, figure out the outcomes. Like, it's a thing that I have to hold, and it's the me show, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing in their mind. Whereas actually, you know, in a way your facilitation started before the session, before any standup, before any post it notes had been acquired or maybe stolen. Maybe nicked from the supply closet, but all of that started with a conversation with your team. And I'm just tying it back to something you said earlier where you're like, you know, you wish you could code so that, you know, you could kind of have this information available to you, have this visibility and I think part of that curiosity is what drove that, right? To say that like, okay, well, how do people want to run this? I'm not necessarily the expert at what they're working on, but also how can I help them communicate well so that they can share with one another, but also share with you in, you know, at a level that everyone can kind of understand so that there's that transparency coming through. And then the other thing I love is then just iterating on it, right? Getting better and better at it because you've already opened that dialogue. You've already asked for feedback and input even before the first session, right? And it was like, okay, well, like then everyone has his ownership over it and then they can kind of move the ball forward on it. It's not like a, Oh, that's Alice's thing. Like if she wants to do the next one differently, that's up to her. It's like, didn't get stuck there because you had planned it with them.
Alice Jakins:No, it works really well. And to your point about, you know, feeling like as a facilitator, you've got to create the structure alone and facilitate this incredible session unknown and like absolutely not, that doesn't need to happen, you know. I think what is really helpful is to have something to show the team as a starting point, because you'll quickly realize, you know, what is going to work as part of that structure and what isn't? And you know, by having something that you can have a conversation around is a good starting point as opposed to nothing. So I'd always sort of have that in, you know, keep that top of mind.
Galen Low:And that's like the seed of collaboration anyways, isn't it? Is not giving somebody a finished thing and getting their feedback on it or, you know, climbing it down my throat. It's about, Hey, I started this thing is probably wrong. Like help me make it better. And then that collaboration starts taking place, which fundamentally I think is the goal of facilitation is to create an experience that allows collaboration to happen effectively, coming back to your earlier point, which I think is really neat. In terms of just feeling equipped in general, not even just this, this first go at it, but like, have you ever done like formal facilitation training? Or is a lot of this sort of just learned on the job through experience, through this mindset of wanting to sort of optimize and get better each time?
Alice Jakins:Yeah, it's definitely self taught. I mean, I've always had a very keen interest in, in ways of working and, you know, agile ways of working in particular. I mean, I'd done an online course all about Scrum, but they didn't actually touch on facilitation skills, you know, in terms of how to surface information from a team and the techniques they're in. So it really has been through participating in a lot of meetings, running a lot of meetings, being curious about these platforms and these, you know, collaboration, these amazing virtual wonderlands. I mean, I really call them virtual wonderlands for, for collaboration to unfold, I mean, it's insane what's out there. And yeah, it's just, I've just got a really keen interest in it because I can see the value of, you know, you could have like a regular meeting or you could have a spectacular meeting. Spectacular meeting is where, yeah, you're getting the right things to serve this so that you have like an outcome or you can go away and create something because you just had such a really awesome session.
Galen Low:I think not enough people aspire towards a spectacular meeting. I think the other thing that I found interesting is that not a lot of people think of, you know, their role in creating a spectacular meeting as facilitation. I think sometimes folks are thinking about things like requirements gathering sessions, like the big ones where it's like a room of 30 or 50 people and you do these activities where, you know, everybody writes down their idea and we do some affinity mapping and all this stuff. And yes, that is that, but even the facilitation of a meeting. And I think you raise a really good point, which is that in a lot of the sort of project management training, the actual soft skill of facilitation is kind of implicit, or at least buried in this notion that, oh yeah, it's a framework, we're going to have sprint planning sessions, here's how they run, you're going to have a sprint review, we're going to do daily stand ups, we're going to do a retrospective, but it's not always so obvious how, right, how to do those things to drive an outcome.
Alice Jakins:Exactly, and also, you know, the importance of understanding the team dynamic and, you know, who they are and what they're used to and because, you know, it's, it's that whole thing. It's like you don't want the soul of the project to be buried under the theory. So, you know, you can read all the course material in the world, they're gonna teach you the theory, but the theory might not be appropriate to the team or to what the business is trying to achieve or the, you know, the kind of work that they do. Like, they might not just have one project, they might have 20, you know. I mean, you're not gonna go through 20 projects, you know, what you did yesterday, what you're doing today, what you need to do tomorrow, like, that might not make sense to everybody. So, yeah, I think the important thing is to, is to make sure that the soul of the project is first and foremost, you know, and the purpose of it, why are you doing it? And think of, you know, the team and like what's going work best for the team in terms of decisions that you want to facilitate. And yeah, I think it's good energy.
Galen Low:Also, I love that quote from you, which I will definitely put in the show notes. Don't let the theory bury the soul of the project. I mean, it's a good segue. I know we've been talking a bit about this, but just to put a fine point on it. If any of our listeners are thinking, you know, I'm a project manager, but why do I need to be a facilitator? You know, I think a lot of the folks I know in my network who are project managers, they're like, we're already really busy, right? Like this is extra. I'm trying to make sure everything goes well in terms of the technical side of the project, you know, delivering within my constraints. And now I'm also expected to be, you know, a facilitator, like why is that part of my job? I guess to those folks who are like, yeah, I shouldn't have to think about this. This is extra. What would you say to a project manager like that?
Alice Jakins:It's tricky because you're right. I mean, a project manager does do a lot, you know, but I sort of feel like project facilitation nowadays is part of the job. I mean, if we think about the job of a project manager, it's really to drive the momentum, drive the project momentum and to do this, you need good project facilitation skills. So, I mean, if you think of the project's flow, you know, from the beginning right through to the end, I mean, if you just at that starting point of why are we doing this project, you know, like, what is the purpose of it? How are we going to know that it was successful? What are the success criteria? You know, who's involved in this project and what part do they play? Like that's a really important part of a project and how that would unfold is probably as a project kickstart, you know. And you're getting all the project team players together in a session to remind everyone like why are we here? What is the purpose, you know? What are all the skill sets involved? What are each of our roles? I mean, we've got the common goal of delivering to those success measures for the projects, but like how are we as a collective going to make this happen? What's going to work for us in terms of how we want to work? You know, is this hybrid? Is there a lot of asynchronous work happening? How do we, you know, meet everybody's situations so that we are communicating in the right way? You know, where are we going to communicate? Like all of those things are so, so, so, so important and it's up to the project manager to drive the project through all these different phases, so that was just the beginning stage, you know. Facilitation can now unfold throughout the whole projects in a different shape or form.
Galen Low:Some project managers are not necessarily front and center, you know, maybe in their role in their particular organization and that culture, you know, they're more behind the scenes-ers. And they might be like, well, you know, kickstarts the project, yeah, my account manager or business development or the strategist, because we're talking about goals and we're talking about, you know, destinations where we're heading to our north star, et cetera, et cetera. But you raised a really good point about like, especially someone who's interested in ways of working, like, how are we going to work together? What are we going to deliver? Like, what's the plan and how is this going to all work? I guess is when I hear that, I'm like, in some ways it's a very difficult question for an average account manager or customer success person or business development representative, or, you know, just like the overall strategist or a UX person. You know, in some ways they probably could, but it's really in the realm of project management ways of working, you know, methods and just, you know, collaboration.
Alice Jakins:Yeah, I know. I mean, what you were saying earlier as well about, you know, getting the right people to support you when you're creating the structure. I mean, the same would be here. So maybe you weren't involved in business development in the actual sale of the project, but you know, you then make sure that you speak to the business development person to really understand, you know, the value that's being given to the client in terms of the results that they expect from the projects. And, you know, you would do all of that collaboration ahead of facilitating it, the kickstarts. Yeah, I think to your point, I mean, they may not have that information from the start, but it's up to them to go and get that information.
Galen Low:It's really funny. I was having a conversation with someone, a very seasoned project manager, and they were like, Oh, the most liberating day was when I realized, like, I don't do anything, I don't make decisions. I just make them happen. And when you really break down the semantics of facilitation, I think a lot of people in their head, they're like, it's just control? Facilitate, like, lead. Like, um, you know, do all the things, own it, you know, drive the outcome. Whereas actually, facilitation just like, literally actually means just make sure the things happen, even if you're not doing the thing, even if you're not the expert at what is being talked about. Just like having the wherewithal to create the experience, to create the vibe, to create that momentum, to get to that place, to get to that decision, to get to clarity, even if you're not the person who's like, has all the answers, you're facilitating the discovery of those answers, the surfacing of those answers.
Alice Jakins:Absolutely.
Galen Low:I guess, speaking of which, thinking from my own experience, maybe asking for myself, is there like a very common and very avoidable mistake that you see project managers and other digital professionals that you see people make all the time when it comes to facilitation?
Alice Jakins:You know, one of the common mistakes is probably not actively listening and it speaks to this whole notion of having the best outcomes. So having the best outcomes to the sessions that you are facilitating. So really kind of knowing what those techniques are, one of them could be, you know, if you, if you wanted to get the best outcome of the facilitation session. Could be having a really good set of questions prepared, you know, to allow answers to unfold, to allow a particular conversation to happen. And there are loads of different techniques, but I'd say actively listening could be one of them. Also, when you're listening to an answer that you might have raised with a really good question, is to be in a position where you're able to then ask another question on top of the question. You know, you can be thinking in one sort of direction and something that somebody says could take it into a whole new area. Quite an exciting area. So I just think, yeah, that's really quite important to be able to ask really good, effective questions.
Galen Low:I love that. It's like it builds, you know, for all the preparation that is inherent in trying to be a really good facilitator. Like sticking to the script is sometimes, you know, and only looking at what's next is sometimes the worst thing you can do because there's probably, you know, nuggets of gold that you can continue to uncover if you're paying attention and not being so fixated on like, okay, what happens next in the session? Okay, well, let's quickly move on. Oh, you know, like, okay, well, we only allocated 15 minutes for that. We're at 14 minutes. Like I need to shift on, doesn't really matter what this person is saying. We need to get on with it. Which I think is a very sort of, I mean, I would generalize and say it's a very project manager instinct to be like, okay, keep time, get things delivered. Let's get this meeting delivered on time. Versus, okay, like actually actively listening, paying attention, being curious, driving and building into the outcome.
Alice Jakins:Yeah, it's hard to do, but it's like, yeah, you got to kind of go with the flow. And if you're starting to see something really interesting unfold, you know, let it unfold.
Galen Low:I wondered if we could return to something we were talking about earlier. We're talking about tools and I kind of did touch on this notion of hybrid. And if we were to kind of like open the aperture here and, you know, not just meetings, but actual kind of group sessions, focus groups, co-creation sessions, brainstorms. And obviously that adds some complexity to the role of the facilitator, especially a project manager, when you're running a session that is either digital only, right? Remote only everyone's dialed in on Zoom or meets or Slack or what have you, but also the hybrid ones where it's like, okay, half the people have dialed in, other half the people are in the room. How do you approach that? Can it be solved with tools? What is your sort of best practice in terms of navigating a sort of hybrid session when it comes to facilitation?
Alice Jakins:Yeah, I think it's tricky to manage a situation where you've got some people in a meeting room and other people dialing in from all over, but it can be done. I think one of the key things to do is obviously like test your tech, you know, ahead of the session. So if you're not going to be as a facilitator, you're not going to be in that meeting room with three other people, you know, still make sure that you set up time to actually connect with them. Test it out with them to make sure that it's going to work well, especially if you're having like a focus group session or a workshop, or, you know, that it's going to be longer than 90 minutes. You really need to, to test it out and see that you're not going to have any hiccups. What else is there? I think, you know, the classic thing, I think for, for any meeting, you know, whether it's completely remote or some of it's in the office and some of it's not, it's just the basic stuff of being prepared. So, you know, making sure that people understand what it is you aim to achieve from the session. You don't need to tell them the whole breakdown of the session, but just like what it is you, you're aiming to get out of the session, like that needs to be clear. Making sure that the right people have accepted the meeting. I mean, how often has it happened to people where they go into a session and like three of the key people aren't there? It's a little bit of a, it's not gonna roll so well, is it? So, you know, making sure that people have actually accepted and are gonna be there is a good one. What else is there just in terms of hybrid versus, I mean, the tools that are available to us these days are next level. So breakout rooms are pretty easy to do. You can do them quite effectively on Google Meets, on Microsoft Teams, on Zoom, and you can even do them in Miro now, that's a collaboration online platform. So also I think there I would definitely test. I mean, I've had to do this in the past where, shame, I mean, I've got three other sisters, so they often get, you know, me kind of testing with them, especially in those breakout room scenarios where, you know, maybe it was a platform that I wasn't used to, I would always test it out with it. And so they were like any picks. So yeah, you kind of need your tribe that you can just, you know, call up and say, Hey, I need to do this test. I want to check that everything's going to be working properly. You know, if I send you to that room, you're actually going to go to that room. And then what do you see? And being curious and testing with people ahead of the time is always good. Making sure that if it's a session where there is going to be a lot of participation, that people know that that's going to happen, so making sure that they are being prepared, that they're in an area that is quieter, where they can be heard, you know, is also a good one. So set them up for success, you know, if there's any preparation, make sure that they have it, not like 10 minutes before the session, but maybe a day before so that they actually are able to do that. So when you are coming into the session, it can be so much more powerful because that homework was done beforehands. Now there's a couple of tips.
Galen Low:I wanted to come back to participation because even just speaking for myself and with a hybrid session, I found it very easy to just kind of hide. Sometimes voluntarily, because I was like, I just don't want to get too involved. It's kind of awkward. You know, I'm maybe the one or two remote persons, but also sometimes because I'm just like, it just isn't as clear to me in terms of, you know, what the activity is that everyone's doing. What tips do you have, I guess, for getting people to participate when you sense that they're kind of either voluntarily or involuntarily blending into the background and, you know, letting all of the mouse cursors fly around in Miro and just kind of standing back?
Alice Jakins:No, I think that is the beauty about these online, you know, virtual wonderlands is that, you know, you can still be in an environment where you're in an office space, but you, you have your laptop and you're having conversation. But at least then, you know, you're feeling like you're part of the session when you've got a Miro happening because you're all contributing to the exercise. So, you know, and if, if I'm in a home office, I can still be part of the session as well as the people that are in the meeting room with their laptop, they're also part of the session. But then they're also feeling like an extra part of connectedness because they're having a conversation. So, as a facilitator, I would just make sure, you know, that, like I said, you sort of, you test your technology beforehand and, you know, if it's a case that the person that is sitting at home can't hear, I would always repeat what the other person has said, you know, so, so just sit there and say, what do you think? So, you know, involve them. Make them feel like they're, they're very much part of the session unfolding and that they're not being noticed, like they absolutely do need to be noticed. So you need to pull them into the conversation as much as you can.
Galen Low:I love that sort of democratized experience. I'm like, I would really appreciate that from a facilitator as well. So I'm just going to repeat a question that they know was hard to hear. And sometimes, you know, it may be difficult to know when you're there in person as well, whether or not that person was close enough to the microphone. But yeah, that is the one where I'm like, I didn't hear the thing and now I've lost it. Now I'm like, okay, well, like, I don't really feel like I can participate in the session because I think I missed a trick in there. Whereas if a facilitator was to kind of repeat that back, I think that creates just an even playing field for everybody. Even if they're in person, on their laptops, not using physical sticky notes, that still levels the playing field for everyone. So that the experience, again, coming back to that experience, the experience is unified and allows people to sort of collaborate productively. I thought I'd maybe dig into the opposite side of the coin. We've been talking about facilitation and project management and why project managers, you know, should aspire to be good at facilitation, should really take the reins at facilitation because it's in their best interest for the progression of their projects. But are there times when a project manager should not really try and grab the reins to be a facilitator? Like when are there moments where the project manager should step back and not be the facilitator of that particular session or meeting? Is there such a thing as being too much of a facilitator as a project manager?
Alice Jakins:Yeah, I think when it's outside of your skillset. So if you're working on a project and you've got, you know, a variety of different people all doing their part to make that project a success, there may be somebody that's part of a team. I mean, let's think of like a, a development team. You know, maybe you've got a CTO, you know, who needs to create a system design for this project. Alright? And you as a project manager know that the system design needs to happen. You also know that there are a number of stakeholders and partners involved with this particular client. So, you know, it's not going to work for this person to work in isolation. There needs to be a collaboration. So yeah, I guess as a facilitator, you could sort of, or even as a project manager, you could say to CTO, like, Hey, listen, we need to make sure a system design happens. We also need to make sure that you get all the information you need. I'm really good at creating a nice structure. These are all the stakeholders involved. Let's work together and create something that feels like more energetic and more outcomes based that you walk away with all the information you need, but you then ready to go and get us to the next stage so you can show all the stakeholders what you've done. And then it would be a case that you would design it together, but then the CTO would facilitate either a section of the session or the whole thing. Because they're going to be talking in a language that you as a facilitator may not understand, you know. So I think that's when you should kind of let go, like you should obviously be there as a support and help in the creation and maybe the, the design of a structure together with the CTO, but then let them take the lead and shine in their expert field that they know so well with people in their expert fields that he knows more about, or she knows more about than you would.
Galen Low:I love that notion of co-facilitation and, like, co-prep, but more than that, I like the notion of, like, proliferating the culture of facilitation and, like, cross training in a way, like, and coming back to what you said about, like, finding your first stand up. That it's kind of like, okay, let me just give you something to react to, this is how I would normally approach it, like, let's now take this and figure something out together, where I can do some of the facilitation, you can do some of the facilitation. Or maybe it's just one of us, but in some cases it's going to be better coming from you, you know, CTO, because you know this stuff, it's your initiative, you know, you're more technical, and you will probably service those answers from the participants a lot better than I would as a project manager.
Alice Jakins:Yeah, exactly.
Galen Low:Speaking of sort of proliferating the culture of facilitation and just getting better at it, I think we've kind of identified that facilitation is something that's important for project managers to be able to do. I think we've also serviced the idea that it's not always part of our core training, nor will there always be a just course that you can just throw money at to be like, get good at facilitation and you know, in five days or less. What are your tips? What are your recommendations for a project manager who wants to get better at facilitation?
Alice Jakins:Practice, like really just keep on practicing. You know, if it's something that you really want to get good at, then you've really got that curiosity on your side. So explore, explore what is out there. I mean, there's some incredible templates that are readily available, you know, and those are good starting points for you because it helps you think about a structure and you're always going to probably need to customize it slightly or maybe quite a lot. But it gives you some good ideas and it kind of would speed up the process to allow you to practice facilitating a session, you know, and you do it. And then the next time you do it even better. And the next time you're like amazing edits and yeah, I would just say just go for it, you know, have a look online at some incredible templates, the Miroverse. If you've heard of Miro, they actually have a platform called the Miroverse, which is a really great inspirational website to go to, to just get inspired around some really awesome structures that you could be facilitating - meetings, workshops, focus groups, you know. Go and have a look on there and just get inspired.
Galen Low:I love that. Stay curious, get inspired. And then the thing you said at the outset, actually, which is that you might never master it. It might not be possible to master and be done with facilitation to be as good as you can get. It's about people. It's about purpose. It's about clarity. It's about collaboration. And all of those things are complex and it's something that we can always be getting better at. Alice, thank you so much for your insights today. Thank you for your stories. Thank you for letting me put you on the spot to share a story about facilitation. It's been a real pleasure having you on the show. If folks want to learn more about what you do, where can they go?
Alice Jakins:They can go to alicejakins.com.
So that's https://alicejakins.com.
Galen Low:Awesome. And I'll include that in the show notes as well.
Alice Jakins:Thanks, Galen.
Galen Low:Again, thank you so much.
Alice Jakins:It's been awesome. Thanks a lot.
Galen Low:Alright folks, there you have it. As always, if you'd like to join the conversation with over a thousand like-minded project management champions, come join our collective! Head over to thedigitalprojectmanager.com/membership to learn more. And if you like what you heard today, please subscribe and stay in touch on thedigitalprojectmanager.com. Until next time, thanks for listening.