ICML training courses > Communication and interpersonal skills > Facilitating meetings and workshops
A facilitator helps a group arrive at their objectives by managing the process and skilfully directing communication flow.
This facilitation skills training program will give participants the techniques, tools and confidence required to make meetings, workshops and group sessions successful. They will learn how to engage group members to take responsibility and keep discussions on track. As a skilled facilitator they will be able to create the right atmosphere and group dynamics to achieve the desired outcomes.
This workshop facilitation training course is designed for any facilitator wanting to achieve tangible outcomes from their meetings and group sessions.
Note, for facilitating training workshops, please check out our Train the Trainer programs.
In this facilitating workshops course, participants will learn how to:
We deliver our training programs either through:
Delivering workshop facilitation skills training as an in-house program is economical and effective.
By tailoring the training experience, we boost your return on investment:
We also coach individuals – a fast and effective way to build facilitation skills.
Ask us how we can tailor the program to suit your needs:
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Fantastic! Really helpful and useful techniques. Justine is very engaging and I would recommend the course to others – very helpful. The course was straight forward with helpful strategies I’m able to use in developing my skills of staff management. I am feeling much more confident after completing this session.
Some of the best training I have ever attended. Justine gave me a fresh perspective and skills that I can use every day at work!
I’m an experienced facilitator, but no formal training in this skill set. I found the session useful in expanding my tool kit.
Ian was a fabulous facilitator who engaged the group and encouraged meaningful discussion adding to the overall value of the training.
Maggie was very professional and engaging especially in remote format.
Paddy was fantastic. He has a lot of knowledge, experience and skills. I would recommend this course and facilitator to others.
Do you have a workshop coming up you need to facilitate and want to ask us some advice? Is there a burning question about facilitating you’ve always wanted to ask? Do it here. One of our trainers will answer on the page and you’ll receive a notification of our response by email. For questions about facilitation skills training you can also use our chat function on the page.
Dominique
Posted at 14:40h, 29 JuneHi, could you please advise what the ideal number of participants is for this workshop?
ICML
Posted at 09:50h, 01 JulyHi Dominique
Thanks for this question. It is a pertinent one. The short answer: 6-8 with a maximum of 12.
The long answer: in most of our workshops we usually say the optimum is around 12 participants with 15 participants still allowing for good group interaction and discussion. However, in workshops such as presentation skills and facilitation skills courses the optimum group size is smaller: usually the optimum is six to eight participants.
We do deliver facilitation skills training workshops to larger groups. However, the larger the group, the less time each participant has to practise the facilitation skills. In facilitation skills training the skills and confidence are built up through practise and receiving feedback and coaching and then trying again. You don’t learn to facilitate by hearing from someone how you should do things.
Imagine a group of 20 participants. If we allow each participant to practise a small facilitation segment of 5 minutes and spend just a few minutes on coaching and providing feedback, together with the change over time between participants, we will need 10 minutes per person. With 20 people that is 200 minutes, which is 3 hours and 20 minutes. This would mean each participant is observing others for half a day while practising for 5 minutes. I trust everyone can see that is not an effective learning environment.
There are alternatives to managing larger groups in facilitation skills training programs, for example:
– include a second facilitator (makes it less economical)
– include a facilitator from the client (you will need an internal training or HR specialist to spend the day)
– have participants practise with each other in small groups. This means that the highly skilled facilitator is not able to observe each participants and provide their valuable feedback and coaching
– split the program into multiple shorter sessions and have participants practise to each other between sessions.
The conclusion therefore is that the ideal number of participants with one facilitator is 6 to 8 and better not more than 12, unless we can use a different training model. It’s always best to discuss your situation with one of our learning solutions consultants. Just give us a call, start a chat or leave us a message.