VBM - Vision Based Methodology™

Activity 4: Uncovering the Requirements

Conducting Facilitated Sessions

Within the business, a multitude of competitive interests and concerns exist. Collecting and validating requirements in this diverse environment can be a challenge. Conducting facilitated sessions can assist in:

• Producing consensus based decisions.
• Encouraging a genuine partnership between the business participants and the technical participants.
• Encouraging more focused, results directed discussions.
• Promoting business client ownership of the session results.
• Helping to produce "triggered" thinking.
• Producing faster and more complete coverage of the business area's requirements and issues.
• Resulting in improved communications.

Before conducting the sessions, make certain the following important considerations have been fully addressed:

• Insure top management commitment.
• Use a trained facilitator (or get some training!).
• Identify the key participants.
• Identify the overall session objectives.
• Define the session, as well as the overall phase, deliverables (models, etc.).
• Determine the appropriate session location (on-site vs. off-site).

Understanding the Participant Roles

Facilitator

The facilitator serves as a neutral, impartial session leader who has primary responsibility for organizing, planning, and conducting the actual workshop.

Client Participants

The client participants are ultimately responsible for the content, the quality, and the outcome of the workshop. As the true business process owners, the results obtained within the facilitated setting are dependent on their participation. The session objectives should be structured in order to achieve consensus-based group decisions from these client participants.

Business/Technology Experts

Experts should be added to the participant panel in order to bring a dimension of prior understanding to the discussions. The expert should be involved only to the extent that he or she asks challenging questions, provides well timed insights, confirms group conclusions, and sometimes plays the "devils advocate". Care must be taken the expert clearly understands his or her role, and does not give in to the temptation to dominate the conversation. Experts should remain in the "background" and should only join the discussion when it is consultive in nature.

Spectators

These are clients who wish to monitor the workshop but who will not be participants. Their role is to watch, listen, and analyze. If they wish to inject a thought into the discussion they should do so by relaying the information to a client participant at a break.

Analysts

These are "active listeners" whose responsibility it will be to analyze and model the workshop results. They may or may not be active session participants. They should actively assist the facilitator in gauging the session progress, in suggesting new or enhanced approaches to on the spot situations, and in assessing the quality of the information being obtained.

Project Team Leader

The project manager should be available as a participant to provide decisions to scope questions, to give feedback on potential issues and candidate resolutions, and to handle concerns centered around cost considerations.

Documenter

He or she is responsible for capturing the thoughts, ideas, and issues expressed by the group in a neutral and consistent manner. This individual is the primary note taker for the session.

Preparation is Everything!

Thomas Edison used to remark that "good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with preparation", and these words should carry a special significance for those who strive to make the facilitation process work at its full potential.

Some of the items which should be prepared before the session is conducted are listed below:

• Session Title Slide
• Session Agenda
• Session Rules
• Cartoons, Puzzles, Brain Twisters, etc.
• Baseline Diagrams (Slides)
• Session Survey

Initial Interviews Make a Difference

To a high degree, the success or failure of a facilitated session revolves around the character of the group dynamics which form during the meeting. On one hand, the experience can be very positive and constructive, especially if the group reaches consensus and agreement on a majority of the selected discussion topics. On the other hand, the meeting can end up a disaster if the final result is only bruised feelings, division, and indecisiveness. But how can these later results be avoided? Luckily, the facilitator already has a tremendous amount of control over this, just by the fact he or she is at the front of the room leading the meeting. But this advantage can be strengthened even further be simply meeting with each participant for a short interview, before the sessions actually occur.

A typical interview should last no more than thirty minutes and it should briefly cover these areas:

• Background of the facilitator
• Background of the participant
• Session goals, objectives, and approach
• General questions and answers
• Planned meeting logistics.

Here are some example questions which can be used to help spot areas which may need special attention either before or during the facilitated sessions:

• Do you have any questions about the session objectives?
• Has everything been included to your satisfaction?
• Have you ever been involved with a facilitated session before? What did you like or dislike about the experience?
• What needs to happen for you to consider the sessions a success?
• Do any special subjects, issues, or concerns need to be discussed during the sessions?
• Have all the right participants been selected given the session objectives and the business area under study?

Facilitating the Session

A facilitated session is an interactive meeting with a purpose and a plan. If all of the preparations have been carried out, clear goals and objectives are in place, and a specific session agenda is ready. The mission of the facilitator at this point is to get the group through the agenda to the desired results in as an effective and productive of a manner as possible. The facilitator is truly the leader of the meeting and he or she must exert subtle yet firm control over its course. In addition, the facilitator is charged with getting the group through the entire schedule on time. In contrast to this, the session participants are responsible for the outcome of the meeting and the quality of the final results. The facilitator is only present to be a catalyst, the participants are present to accomplish the stated objectives.

As the session progresses, keep these facilitation effectiveness ideas in mind:

• Review the ground rules, goals, and agenda at the beginning of the session.
• Have the executive sponsor speak at the top of the agenda to set the "tone" for the rest of the meeting.
• Work from a Baseline.
• Take the group through the review process to stimulate controlled and directed discussion.
• Remain Neutral.
• Work to avoid judgmental comments.
• Resist the temptation to give the group the answers, instead direct the discussions in a direction which allows the participants to discover the appropriate answers for themselves.
• Ask questions and actively Listen, Probe, and Acknowledge.
• Summarize and document important points at logical intervals in the discussions.
• Don't create CASE diagrams interactively in the sessions.
• Document issues and requirements as they come up.
• Use different or new terminology to break through the old "paradigms".