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Are you facilitating a meeting or session? Are you worried about wasting everyone’s time? I’m sure we’ve all been there. You’re in a meeting and you have no idea why you’re there. All you can think about is the work piling up on your desk. Let’s review two key ingredients for a successful session.
Objective
Once we establish the session is necessary, we identify the objective for the session. An objective is the measurable result or outcome we want to achieve. All objectives should be brief, concise, and written as a clear goal. If there is no objective, there should not be a session!
A well-written objective should have the following three components: (1) action, (2) outcome, and (3) qualifier. The action is what the attendees are expected to do or accomplish and is usually one word. The outcome is the result of the action. And the qualifier is anything that sets the boundaries or parameters of the objective. Qualifiers usually start with “on,” “for,” “by,” or “from.”
Let’s try one together. Can you identify the three parts to this objective?
“Generate a list of fundraising activities by the end of next week.”
If you said the action is “generate,” the outcome is “a list of fundraising activities,” and the qualifier is “by the end of next week,” you would be correct!
Purpose
Once we have the objective, we need to think about the purpose of the session. A session can have just one purpose or two to three purposes. It all depends on how much time you have and what you want to accomplish.
In some cases, as in the example above, your purpose may be to get contributions from your session attendees. Once you get those contributions, you might need to organize them into a logical order, which is where our first category or purpose comes into play: generate and organize ideas.
Then, you might need to assess the quality or merit of your list of contributions before you narrow it down. This leads us to our next category: analyze and prioritize ideas. And lastly, once you’ve narrowed down those ideas or solutions, you can then lead the group to make a decision. If your session doesn’t fall into one of these three categories, it’s likely that a session isn’t warranted.
Let’s be smart with our sessions by including an objective and purpose for each one. Without these two key ingredients, it could easily end up being a waste of everyone’s time.
For more tips on this topic, check out our Facilitation Skills workshop. It focuses on how to open the session, employ effective speaking skills, and manage challenging behaviors. Plus, there’s 45 facilitation tools to help accomplish your objective.
What do you do to facilitate successful sessions? Please let us know in the comments.
