How can you divide responsibilities when co-facilitating a large group?

Algo que pratico e tem funcionado é combinar previamente quem conduzirá cada etapa do evento que estamos facilitando e deixar acordado o nível de autonomia de cada um para tomar decisões durante a sessão de Facilitação. Ter um líder facilita decisões mais polêmicas e reduz o custo de coordenação.

Dividing responsibilities effectively when co-facilitating a large group involves clear communication, understanding each facilitator’s strengths, and pre-planning. Here are some strategies: 1. Pre-Planning Meeting: Before the session, meet to outline the agenda and decide who will lead each part. This helps in identifying each facilitator’s strengths and interests. 2. Define Roles: Clearly define what each facilitator is responsible for. This might include who leads discussions, who handles logistics, or who manages timekeeping. 3. Regular Check-ins: Schedule brief check-ins before, during, and after the session to ensure everything is on track and adjust roles if needed.

Have a conversation with your co-facilitator before facilitating the group together. Ask each other questions such as: 1. Shall we have a lead facilitator, with co-facilitator on the side? Or shall we equally co-facilitate back and forth? 2. What are our agreed upon objectives? 3. If it's a large group, decide in advance on key questions. 4. Ask how would you like me to jump in as co-facilitator if we're not using a back and forth approach to facilitation? 5. After facilitating together use a simple plus/delta model to debrief your co-facilitation. What went well? What could we do differently next time?

Energy, Context, and Content. Knowing what level of energy you need to create in the room is vital. As a minimum, I recommend the facilitators practice mindfulness and anchoring exercises to feel present and connected to the participants. Which leads to context: understanding what's present for participants is vital, because this enables them to contextualise the subject matter accordingly.

This is a key essential for training. What it does is enhance proper coordination and collaboration among facilitators. This helps to minimise conflicts as much as possible which also aids the smooth running of the training.

Also, play it out 🎭 at least a day before the workshop - don’t just stop at a crisp agenda. A dry run is a must to any well orchestrated workshop, especially when co-facilitating. 💁🏼♀️🙋🏽♂️ This little extra step helps you work out the kinks, double check timing, feel out length of activities, and practice how you’ll transition between each other for what and when. ✨PRO TIP✨ Don’t forget to plan the unhappy path, and who covers what when things get bumpy.

When deciding what content each facilitator will be responsible for presenting, keep in mind the strengths, experience, and content expertise of each facilitator. Discuss the best flow for handing off the session to one another, and practice the transition(s) during a dry run. One trick I have learned is to put a small, discreet symbol in the corner of the slides as a reminder of who is presenting that slide. For example, all slides with a small green circle in the upper right corner are facilitated by one person, and all slides without a circle are facilitated by the other.

Keeping the agenda visible will enable the audience to see where they are on the journey. We often use metaphors such as hiking through mountains to help the attendees visualise the big picture and their experience in time.

With an understanding of both the agenda AND the audience (and how they might respond to any given agenda item), co-facilitation responsibilities can be better assigned based on expectations about the levels of effort required to drive discussion versus back-of-room engagement or other workshop support tasks as well as unique facilitator strengths. I understand functions that I thrive in and functions where I’ve seen others blow me out of the water, and always try to play to the collective strengths of the facilitation team.

Being present and tuned into the participants' states of minds and physiological is key. In a way, the facilitators need to be able to be on the "dancefloor with the participants" and "on the balcony to call out observations", and these are some of the most enjoyable aspects of facilitation.

Checking in with each other in the moment is important. Regular eye contact and reading non-verbal communication is absolutely key to a successful, and seamless, co-facilitation. It certainly helps to be self-aware if you haven't co-facilitated together before, to communicate your intent and preferences with these aspects.

Communicate using a plus/delta method before, during (e.g., breaks, participant breakouts), or after a session. What went well? What can be improved? How are participants receiving us? Any changes? These questions focus on the delivery more than just personality while allowing for some pivots. You will find the relationship grow and participants will witness a great experience.

Having good rapport with the co-facilitator can enhance the experience for participants and foster more engagement. Make time to build the trust and collaboration in advance.

Mes expériences en co-animation - Préparer le découpage à l'avance avec les autres animateurs en positionnant chacun sur ces points forts - échanger sur les contenus, les déroulés - le jour J, se présenter aux apprenants comme les animateurs de l'ensemble de la session - observer, écouter les apprenants mais aussi son co-animateur pour rebondir sur son intervention et créé, pour les apprenants, un sentiment de complicité entre les animateurs.

Good communication skills are essential for facilitating training, especially non-verbal communication skills. It also helps with stepping in to assist your co-facilitator when necessary especially when they have both understood and perfected their facilitation styles,

Pre-brief some likely scenarios with your co-facilitators. If time, technology, participant disruptions, illness, or the venue itself interrupt your plan, you’ll know what to do. If the venue had trouble delivering lunch or coffee breaks ready on time, plan which module you can add if there is a delay in the break. If a troublesome projector or sound system or internet connection or power failure interrupts proceedings, facilitators should know how to carry on without that technology, and co-facilitators spring into action to help. If one of the facilitators falls ill, the others should be comfortable enough with the agenda and the material to substitute in a pinch. I’ve used all these techniques in the past to adapt.

If you're able to do a dry run in front of a trusted colleague, do that, and ask them for feedback. Though you may have feedback for your co-facilitator, it can be easier for them to receive it from someone else and it can preserve your relationship.

Communication is key to any co-facilitation. From experience, I do not only know my part of the presentation or sharing, I know the part of my co-facilitator as well. Give you a simple example, if I am the one who is sharing the screen, I would know when to go to the next slide. There is no "next slide please", during the session. I would know beforehand what is being said in the session, I would ask a question on behalf of the audience in case there are not enough responses.

In addition, understand and recognize the strengths and weaknesses of each facilitator. This can help navigate situations that may be difficult for one facilitator but not the other. I also like the opportunity to ask each other questions to keep things moving. Facilitators can positively play off of one another.

Knowing each other's strengths when facilitating is important. When a group has an emergent need, knowing who is more natural to lead an emergent process is really important for both the facilitator's, and the group's, confidence.

Every day should end with workshop participants providing feedback, anonymously if possible. There are numerous feedback tools but one of my favourites is Mentimeter. Meeting right afterwards to process participant feedback (and your facilitator interpretation of it) can be exhausting, especially for introverted facilitators who have likely depleted their energy reserves throughout the day. But a quick end-of-the-day meeting can help catch what needs to be improved for the next day or the next workshop. If you have time at the start of the next day, briefly review the main feedback with your participants AND explain what the facilitator team have done to adjust. This grows trust and retains the engagement of your participants.

Knowing the strengths and preferences of your co-facilitator can help you before and during your session. Awareness of these aspects before considering roles or the agenda allows you to maximize structures and formats aligned with you and your co-facilitator. During the session, knowing these things allows you to lean on one another during tricky or unexpected moments.

Be very intentional about when you pass the mic back and forth. Unless it's a panel interview, constantly shifting back and forth continually breaks the context and makes for a disjointed experience. Find clean breaks in the content or before/after an activity to transition. As basic as it sounds, don't say "thank you" every time. Do a typical transition of the topic and keep the momentum rolling.

In addition, reviews, meeting debriefs and providing feedback are all essential for the monitoring and evaluation, and analysis of the training. This will help to know the areas of improvement for the facilitators and overall training.

It’s all about preparation. Creating an agenda and making an agreement on who does what and when, well in advance. If you are designing and facilitating a workshop, give yourself at least a month, if it’s facilitating a group through simple activities, still give yourselves enough time to schedule 2 dry runs. The first is where you will find opportunities to improve and gaps to fill, the second should be pretty smooth with everyone having had a chance to think about what they will be doing and saying. Also, know each other’s parts incase one person has to be out, better yet, get someone in early enough to prepare and plan with you as a stand-in.