Responsibilities of a Facilitator

A facilitator is a person who has a role to enable other people to operate effectively in a group in order to arrive at a mutually satisfactory conclusion.

The job of the facilitator is to make it easy for others to conduct their business. The facilitator is essentially focused on enabling others to provide the best and most relevant contributions to the topic in hand and on ensuring an appropriate outcome. The facilitator ensures that group members use the most effective methods to accomplish tasks efficiently with adequate time to consider ideas and alternatives.

remain neutral on content
draw out participation
ensure balanced participation
encourage dialogue among participants
provide structure and processes for group work
listen actively and ask others to do the same
encourage different points of view
record, organize and summarize input from group members

move group through stages of group decision making and concensus
encourage the group to evaluate its own progress and development
capitalize on differences among group members for the common good
Ensure the group knows what it is trying to achieve and that there is a shared understanding of this *
protect group members and their ideas from attack or from being ignored
emphasize that the group is a reservoir of knowledge, experience and creativity and use facilitation skills to tap this resource

Do you have an idea that you would like added to this list? Please send it to resource @ mentoric.com.

* Thanks to Ann Schwarzenbach of Data and Process Advantage Limited for this suggestion.