Complex facilitation

PLEASE NOTE THIS LIST NEEDS SOME STRUCTURING

Complex facilitation is a body of methods and principles that have evolved over the years. The original development took place in Denmark so we could facilitate in English but the conversations would be in Danish so the facilitator could not understand the content.

As a general principle, most complex facilitation is done in a cabaret-style set up with at least three groups of participants who will work in parallel. In keeping with complexity principles, you do not break a problem down into parts and have different groups work on each aspect before they come back together. Down that route lies pattern entrainment and lack of diversity.

Principles

The fundamental principles are enabling constraints in Cynefin terms and are as much focused admonitions not to do certain things. They are as follows:

1. The facilitator should not engage with the content in any way, they are there to manage a process not to be an expert or to demonstrate intentionally or otherwise exercise authority or influence over outcome. Approaches such as the using three facilitators also enforces this. To have a light footprint is a minimum, no footprint is the goal
2. You never spell out a lesson, let alone tell people in advance what the learning objective is, you enable the group to discover things for themselves and that discovery does not have to be articulated per se. That means you never comment on individual behavior or express any opinion as to what it should be. No examples should ever be given unless they are so different that they can not be copied.
3. The general principle of descriptive self-awareness focuses on changing the context so that people discover things for themselves, but not by manipulation, more by contrast. Running the same process in parallel between groups and then using Silent listening to compare and contrast would be one example. Archetype comparison is another.
4. Methods are designed to change interactions, not to change people. They may of course change but that is their affair, not yours!
5. Reporting back biases the group to the first report so we use techniques such as silent listening
6. Avoid ‘ground rules’, explanations, setting agreements of how we will work together etc (these processes belong to traditional processes and trigger patterns in participants' minds)
7. When we ask a question then it would be a non-hypothesis question which in no way indicates what might be a desirable answer
8. Never, ever comment on people's motivations or behaviour, change the interactions instead. A classic case of this is getting groups to nominate people to a 'special' group as a way to get the opinionated bastards to nominate themselves and give other people a chance to speak.
9. Avoid exercises that can be easily gamed such as telling other people something about you that no one else knows and the like - these are too easily manipulated
10. All complex facilitation is about avoiding premature convergence to a solution or solutions, breaking up groups and recombining them (for example in Cynefin four tables) is one way, focusing on techniques such as constraint mapping rather than problem/solution identification is another
11. Techniques such as ritual dissent are effective but it's best to run silent listening first to get people used to the process.
12. In general most complex facilitation produces outcomes based on social construction (which is not social constructivism) within physical or virtual workshops. A pattern of meaning emerges from multiple interactions over time.
13. Parallel processes should generally start with groups maximised for groupthink, then when the silent listening process is engaged, people will see more contrast in the results
14. Power including issues of gender, race and such like will always be an issue to some extent and managing who is in which group is generally the best way to handle this.
15. Discomfort is nearly always a part of the process, but that doesn't mean you should deliberately create it. For example, a lot of people want learning objectives and to know what an output looks like - that breaks most of the above rules, so pointing out upfront why you are doing this and explaining why it is important and explaining inattentional blindness is one way to achieve this.
16. Resist people's demand for examples, this is not meant to be that easy
17. Keep everyone in one room if at all possible, then you can sense the overall pattern of interaction
18. Vector theory of change applies in workshops as well and 'more like these, fewer like those' is one way to avoid premature convergence.
19. Ritual humiliation can be used to modify behaviour

Tricks and tips

• Use the idea of play in more authoritarian environments

Differences and divergences

This section covers other methods and approaches that may overlap with, be compatible with or contradict the principles and practice of Complex Facilitation. Above these specifics a distinction is made between process and complex facilitation. In the former the facilitator has been given a mandate by the group to hold up mirrors and generally provide guidance and direction. This is similar to a therapeutic relationship where the mandate is given in the engagement process. In complex facilitation however such practices are not permitted and no mandate should be assumed.

With Traditional Facilitation

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With Process Facilitation

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With Open Space

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With Radical Transparency

Transparency, like any human quality, is subject to Aristotle's Golden Mean - any human quality is a balance between the quality not present and the quality taken to excess

There is a libertarian myth that tends to underpin absolute transparency. If we have learnt anything over the last few years, it is that the transparency and open nature of social media creates an unbuffered feedback loop which will tend to perversion.

There are significant and growing concerns that total transparency of data is leading to easy manipulation of individuals by social media giants.

Total transparency also stifles innovation, as if everything is visible conservative behaviour is the most likely result.

There are, of course, benefits of transparency. For instance, software companies able to use public data, educational material easy to access, and so on. But it is worth remembering that Wikipedia is managed by enabling constraints - not everything goes, not everything is permitted.

Within a facilitated workshop, while all material should be available at the end, we often prevent sharing during the process to allow for the emergence of novelty.

And what about you?=

What are the patterns and assumptions that we hold about the role of facilitation that is challenged when using complex methods, for example…

• That it is our responsibility to give clear and unambiguous instructions – so that participants ‘get it right and do not fail’
  • There is no right answer. It is about exploration and discovering options and alternatives, not finding the ‘right’ answer
  • if we do we limit exploration options, and for diverse perspectives to surface
  • And we are assuming we KNOW the precise question that SHOULD be asked
• That we are responsible for the experience that participants are having – their level of engagement and enjoyment
  • In the moment, we are responsible for providing the environment and the processes that enable engagement and participation, not the choices people make
  • There may be opportunities and a mandate at a different time and a different process to reflect and review. And provide feedback and skill development
• That the recognition of our contribution to the outcome is important to our identity as a ‘good and competent’ facilitator

Planning for the event

• What is the purpose and intent ???
  • Discovery? Sensemaking? Engagement?
  • Insights? Capturing learning? Decision making? Evaluation?
• What do you know about the cohort you are working with??
  • Do they know each other? Worked together before?
  • Are comfortable with ambiguity? Likely to need more or less structure?
  • Do you need to show the differences in perspective?
• Can the design meet multiple objectives?
  • Is this part of a broader strategy?
  • How much of the source data ( eg from anecdote circles) needs to be captured?
  • Do you need to use different colours for different cohorts for visual ‘self awareness’?
• How does the output from one process contribute to another?

Materials

Rolls of brown paper to coat walls multi coloured hexies spray glue (spray to helo secure hexies) clear sticky tape (to secure material when rolled up a high-quality digital camera or modern smartphone - record everything

Large group facilitation

... is a whole different ball game and needs mentoring

NOT SURE ABOUT THESE WHICH WERE IN THE COURSE

• breaking patterns of expectation
• themes emerge from the content