(Re)imagining facilitation for online events

Questions in this section • Planning facilitation for online events • What to prepare and share beforehand? • How to design a session? | Preparation, checklist, templates and examples • How to manage time effectively? • Defining consent, privacy and confidentiality protocols • The responsibility and artistry of facilitating intersectional and inclusive conversations • How to mindfully engage the body in online events?

Planning facilitation for online events

Holding people and space(s) online can be challenging for many facilitators despite the years of experience already doing it in physical events. There are some similarities, but still many more specificities that cannot be applied in the translation between the two. The space(s), setting, participation and general flow during and after the online event are specific for the digital realm. As part of your preparation for facilitating your online event, the key point to have in mind is how you will co-create and support the experience of being together in the shared space that is digital and real. Imagining that experience has many factors that should be taken into consideration, such as:

Example: Our Member convening in 2020 was to be hosted in Cuetzalan, Mexico. With the pandemic, however, we were only able to meet remotely, from our homes, offices and communities. So in the spirit of looking ahead and reimagining our world, we explored this beautiful Mexican town virtually by naming the meeting spaces inspired by the topology of Cuetzalan.

What to prepare (and share) beforehand?

How to design and plan your session(s)?

During the last years we have collected templates for interactive remote exercises, icebreakers and energizers, and we have various repositories of others activities and facilitation tips. Here we would like to share with you our example of session(s) design outline, checklist and our template that we are using - hoping these can be helpful.

Session(s) design outline

Session(s) design checklist and preparation template

Title [Think of the title that unlocks imagination, that is creative, inspiring and welcoming]

Purpose [What is the session about and where do we intend to land]. A session is a stepping stone in the overall arc of the meeting. Make sure you have clear the overall arc of the event you are contributing and co-creating. Identify one up to three goals your session aim to address. The Purpose has two kinds of statements: 1) What do we want to achieve? and 2) Where do we hope to land? You can develop a tailored specific purpose for your session.

People and Roles – Online facilitation is characterized by fragmentation of spaces which asks for dedicated people to look after so that participants can experience the spaces with easiness. Define your team and agree on back channels or ways to address and respond to glitches or provide support to participants.

Based on our experience we have identified the roles below. They can be played by different people or some of them can play multiple roles. We always make sure our team feels comfortable with playing more roles. Wider facilitation team is made of:

Exercises and Materials - These are activities that unfold the arc of your session and that support achieving the purpose. They can be various and inspired by different methodologies. The most used ones are icebreakers, energizers, brainstorming, role-play, facilitated discussions, etc. Activities can be done all together in plenary, in small groups or individually.

Preparation – This is the detailed description of each item on the agenda. It indicates the duration of each item, who is doing what, which materials will be used (from crayons and papers for drawing, doing collages, to links and specific online tools that will be used and tech support that might be necessary. We hope our template below will support you in your preparation as part of the checklist. The preparation is shared whenever is possible with the documentation team.

Agenda – The agenda is a short description of the various items that are part of the session. It includes time duration of each item, breaks. An item can include more than one activity, there is not a fixed amount of items that compose an agenda. It can be shared with participants before the session or at its opening. An agenda usually includes: title of the activity, duration, and additionally you can add the name of who is leading different activities.

Preparation template

Time

Activity

 Exercise/methodology

Duration

Who

Materials

 

Opening

 

 

 

 

 

Activity 1

 

 

 

 

 

Activity 2

 

 

 

 

 

Break

 

 

 

 

 

Activity ...

 

 

 

 

 

Closing

 

 

 

 

 

APC examples from practice: Welcoming, opening and closing

Welcome your participants: Share the tips for attending the session

Opening. Set the framework of your session: guidelines, narrative, tone and grounding

Closing and celebration

Invite your participants to share impressions and what they are leaving with. This can be useful for your reflection and evaluation process. Closing is also important and remind what are the main agreements or follow up steps if any. Dedicate some time to play music, sing, read poetry and celebrate the collective energy that was shared. There was a lot of hard work done, a lot of time and dedication invested for knowledge and insights exchange. Make sure you celebrate the powerful connection that was established - and these are just some of the reasons for joy!  

Consent, privacy and confidentiality

Announcing consent, privacy and confidentiality protocols and any form of documentation, provides participants with a choice and also a reminder of the nature of the event. The golden rule is to communicate in advance and always ask for consent.

The considerations below matter regardless if the event is labeled as public or closed for a limited number of participants.

If any materials will be used, agree on and sign the protocol for consent, safety and attribution:

What about people’s contacts?

Gathering contacts does not have to be a challenge on online events and you can use this as an opportunity to engage with new people. Make sure you either have a registration form or a link where people can share their information if they want to know more about your work, subscribe to your newsletter, etc.

If your participants give their consent for internal sharing of their information (such as name, email, social networks links, links to websites, etc.) you might want to consider making a book of participants and include that information. You can prepare and design this in advance and share it will all participants. Based on our experience of our Member meeting in 2020, this can facilitate connection between people and socialising, especially if you will be also having designated channels of communication or dedicated space(s) for informal interaction.

Effective time management during your event

Time is a very valuable resource in every event, but it is particularly so in online events, when attention poses more challenges and it can be easily drawn elsewhere. A good facilitation / moderation process is key to ensure that each speaker sticks to the time frame, that questions or issues by participants are addressed in a timely manner and that the conversation is dynamic, participatory and easily followed. 

Facilitators should always give more time than they think is needed for activities and exercises, taking into account the time it takes to mute/unmute, move to breakout rooms, tech problems, languages diversity, etc. Make sure everyone involved in the event assigns time for it like they would for an offline event (no interruptions, no other tasks at the same time). Also, you should remind your participants which sessions are optional.

Be aware that “online” means that people will be sitting in front of a screen. One hour and a half may be ideal for some online meetings, but absolute rules can’t be made on this, as capacity to be engaged differs from one person to another. We all have different pace of participation which depends on our technology and digital literacy, language, accessibility, internet connectivity, public speaking skills, etc. Consider adjusting the pace of your session to your participants’ needs and contexts. This is especially relevant if the language(s) used during the event are not shared by all participants.

Be mindful and allocate time for all participants. Gently remind and offer different spaces and ways of participation for those who haven’t shared anything yet and be respectful of their participation pace. Create a list when there are more participants raising their hand. Consider having a shared document for additional questions and reflections. This can be particularly useful if the discussion gets heated and there are important issues being raised while approaching the end of the session.

The responsibility and artistry of facilitating intersectional and inclusive conversations

Intersectionality is a way of understanding and analyzing complexity in the world, in people, and in human experiences. The events and conditions of social and political life and the self can seldom be understood as shaped by one factor. They are shaped by many factors in diverse and mutually influencing ways. When it comes to social inequality, people’s lives and the organization of power in a given society are better understood as being shaped not by a single axis of social division, be it race or gender or class, but by many axes that work together and influence each other. Intersectionality as an analytic tool gives people better access to the complexity of the world and of themselves. (Collins & Bilge, 2016, pg. 2).”

Throughout the years of our work, we’ve come to see facilitation spaces as caring containers where every expression of self is encouraged to the extent and pace of every person. Group participation which is framed by feminist principles is contained and held, while safety and care are firmly maintained and balanced throughout the interaction and conversations. We are also responsible for making the space welcoming, accessible and meaningful to all participants.

Bear in mind that the points we are sharing here are not finite, as we have been reflecting and working for the past period on developing our guidelines on facilitation that are based in our values and experience. The points and content shared here are drawn from our lessons of facilitating our online events and convenings and are drawn from our notes, modules, templates, reflections, and our bucket reading list as a source of inspiration. Building this work remains a collective work-in-progress for us.

Your position as a facilitator

There is a high level of responsibility and power that come hand in hand with being a facilitator. Your position is never neutral. The main part of your role is being responsible for keeping the conversation participatory, dynamic, inclusive, balanced and safe at all times -  while being aware of power dynamics within the group. This is not an easy task, as obviously, you will not be able to perceive all parameters on the spectrum of privileges and disadvantages for each and every one of your participants within the group.

However, you will be facilitating the group process by bearing in mind that the levels on the spectrum of privilege and oppression are different for each and every one of the participants, including yourself. Your baseline for this process is primarily to safeguard the space with all the power and the responsibility you have as a facilitator. That means that your intervention serves to maintain the boundaries that protect people’s sense of autonomy, self-expression and integrity at any point of the conversation.

Your position as a facilitator is by no means devoid of your own lived experience. Self-reflect beforehand and think about your multiple identities, advantages and disadvantages that come with them, your overall background, as well as your limitations or weak spots. If you’ve never facilitated a session and this will be your first one, it’s always good to be honest if you assess that the content shared will not be too demanding or if you feel you have the support of your fellow co-facilitator. All these points might have to be transparently addressed and acknowledged throughout the process. This is an important segment and depending on how you handle it - it can obstruct or support your facilitation process.

From our experience, it’s best to have two facilitators as your dynamic of exchange can be supportive and encouraging to those who participate less. It also contributes to more equal workload distribution, meaning that one person doesn’t have to carry the entire weight on their shoulders. Having one facilitator in general creates an impression of a “central guide”, “a leader” and can feel intimidating for some people.

Finally, try to release yourself and your group of perfection. Be willing to make mistakes, take responsibility for them and don’t hesitate to correct them throughout the process.

Facilitating inclusive and intersectional conversations

Let people know you “see” them and manage energy. Have regular check-ins about the level of energy in the room, how people are feeling. Be mindful that some content can provoke feelings of anxiety, guilt, aggression, sadness and/or remind of past/current trauma.

 

Language is a tool of reinforcing power. Use inclusive language and examples supportive of people of diverse identities, gender expressions, bodies, experiences, etc.

Read through our FTX module Intersectionality that emphasises using a both/and framing instead of either/or, that you can use for your guide in facilitating difficult conversations:

Footnotes

[1] APC. Intersectionality | FTX Platform. FTX Platform. https://en.ftx.apc.org/books/intersectionality

[2] APC.  Intersectionality and Sexuality | FTX Platform. FTX Platform.  https://en.ftx.apc.org/books/intersectionality/page/intersectionality-and-sexuality

Mindfully engaging the body in online events

How can we be both in our bodies and in the space during an online event? This question was raised during “How did you transform your physical event into a digital event?” workshop held at our Closer than Ever 2020 Member convening. Though the workshop focused on online events that were designed to compensate for the restriction of physical events, it also brought up a discussion on engagement in the digital space. Here are some of the tips and considerations for mindfully engaging the body during your event that might be useful: