Annex 2:  A Facilitation Primer

The skills required to run plenary debriefing sessions are generally those of the group facilitator.  Some key points with regard to facilitation skills follow:

Active Listening

Active listening tells your learners that you are paying attention to them and allows you to tune in to their specific issues, challenges and viewpoints.  In doing so, you can adapt and refine your teaching strategy for optimum effect.  There are a few basic guidelines for becoming a better active listener:

• Focus on listening, not speaking
• Avoid interrupting
• Do not feel compelled to fill the silence
• Show interest and be alert to the participant’s intent
• Seek areas of agreement
• Paraphrase
• Summarize and reformulate what you think the person is trying to say
• Withhold judgment until the speaker is finished
• After listening, ask questions to clarify or check understanding

The Art of Asking Better Questions

If your debriefing participants begin to act restless, look bored, or show by non-verbal cues that they do not understand or disagree, you should ask questions to find out what is going on. To do this well, you must know how to formulate and ask questions that help you achieve the learning objectives while keeping the atmosphere positive and upbeat. The way that a question is asked can greatly affect the mood of the session and the information you receive.

Questions can be used to:

• Help determine what the learners already know about a topic, thus allowing you to focus activities on what they need to learn from the debriefing
• Evaluate learner progress and understanding
• Act as a springboard for further discussion and participation
• Attract attention and encourage participation

Types of Questions

The least effective question a facilitator can ask is “Do you understand?” This question - as well as other yes/no questions - will often elicit only a non-productive head nod. An “open-ended” question is used to open a discussion and usually cannot be answered with “yes” or “no”. Asking “open-ended” questions should facilitate an analytical review of the situation by the participant, and foster a non-threatening discussion about the topic. More detailed information is likely to be elicited and the answers might open new directions for the discussion. Open-ended questions generally begin with the words what, where, how, who, and when.  They are very useful in clarifying the speaker’s intent and helping to facilitate a full description of the situation or idea.

One note of caution: Questions that start with the word why may cause the participant to become defensive and may even limit or stop the discussion. The word why is may sometimes be construed as a thinly veiled attack or critique, as it implies that you cannot understand why a person would do or say such a thing.

There are four basic types of questions used by a facilitator in the debriefing setting:

• General—these questions elicit a broad range of potential responses, such as: ‘What are the emergency preparedness aims of your NGO?’
• Specific—these questions focus on an idea with a limited range of responses, such as: “How did the decision to assemble the first assessment mission impact the eventual response?”
• Overhead—these questions are asked of the plenary group, allowing volunteers to respond, such as: ‘Who can tell me what the difference it makes if agency-approved documents – such as sitreps or contingency plan templates or budget formats - are immediately available?”
• Direct—these questions are directed to a specific participant with the intent of eliciting an explicit answer such as: ‘How did you calculate water needs of the affected population?”

General and overhead questions are generally less threatening and therefore better to start a discussion, especially with a group that you may not know well.  Direct and specific questions are best used after participants have become comfortable with group discussion, and after you better understand their level of skill or experience related to the discussion topic.

Questions to avoid

• Unanswerable questions—Be sure that the questions you ask can actually be answered by the group or by some member of the group.
• Closed-ended questions—These refer to questions that elicit answers of simple assent or dissent.  Unless followed by open-ended questions (who, what, when, where, how, why), a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer leads nowhere.
• Vague, indefinite, or ambiguous questions—To get satisfactory answers you must ask good questions. Sometimes you may need to rephrase your question or break it down into sub-questions if not immediately understood. Above all, avoid trying to trap a participant into an incorrect or misleading answer.
• Witness box interrogation—You may have to ask a participant several questions in the interest of clarification; the dynamic, however, should never be that of a courtroom cross-examination where the person answering feels threatened.

Giving Feedback to Participants’ Answers:

A key facilitation skill is the ability to give appropriate and timely feedback.  Participants learn better when they receive confirmation of the specific things they are doing right and constructive feedback on the exact things they need to improve or change.  When providing feedback remember to:

• give feedback with the aim of helping—not judging
• be specific and give concrete examples—avoid generalising
• balance constructive criticism with recognition of what is being done right
• continually provide positive reinforcement and encouragement
• acknowledge and build on the trainee’s strengths

Paraphrasing and Summarizing

In general, people will strive to improve if they have a sense that they are competent and successful during the process. While you will need to point out what specific things they can improve and give specific suggestions for doing so, it is also very important to remain positive and encouraging throughout.

Although relatively simple, paraphrasing participants’ comments and posting them to a flipchart or projected screen can be one of the major tasks that a good facilitator can do. It is often overlooked or seen as redundant, and may be left out of the mix of activities in the debriefing discussion. In the right situations, however, paraphrasing and recording key points has several important uses:

• It clarifies
• It lets participants know they have been heard, and allows them to check that they have been understood correctly
• It facilitates summarizing and drawing of conclusions after an active discussion
• It leaves a record – that may be used later in the session, or in later sessions

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is simply restating what another person has said in your own words. The best way to paraphrase is to listen carefully to what the other person is saying. Actively restrain yourself from converting his/her words to your own opinions. One way to do this is to get the speaker to help you; for example, you might prompt a speaker to be more concise by saying “can you tell me that again in five (or ten or 20…) words or less.”

Use paraphrasing to check your understanding of what the other person says or means. Writing it to the flipchart allows the speaker to agree on your interpretation or to ask for a restatement on your part. Practice paraphrasing with your colleagues and in meetings so you develop the habit of doing it.  Use initial phrases such as:

• “In other words…”
• “I gather that…”

•  “Let me see if I understand you correctly…”

Summarizing

Summarizing pulls important ideas, facts or data together to establish a basis for further discussion and/or review progress. When you are summarizing, you must listen carefully in order to organize the information systematically. It is useful for emphasizing key simulation concerns or lessons and getting a sense of closure to discussions.  Phrases that indicate the summarizing process include:

• “Let’s review…, your main concerns were…”
• “These seem to be the key ideas you have expressed…”
• “What have we said today? We discussed…”