Last reviewed: 8 February 2022

Facilitation guide

Introduction to facilitating

This is a practical guide to help you to facilitate group sessions and conversations. It’s based on advice from experts across Co-op and industry.

Getting started with facilitation

We did some research and learned that lots of people find facilitating daunting, but you can learn facilitation skills with practice.

Learning about facilitating can also help you to understand your responsibility as a participant and make the most of working with your team.

Preparing well and trying new things is important for facilitators of all experience levels.

The facilitator’s role

Facilitators help people in sessions to get the most out of their time together and:

  • make sure that everyone can contribute
  • communicate the purpose and goals of the session
  • give clear, visible instructions
  • ask questions that constructively challenge assumptions and reasoning for decisions
  • keep everything running smoothly and manage anything that comes up

As a facilitator, you do not lead the discussion in one direction or make decisions for the group.

You also need to make sure that the session suits people with different personalities and ways of learning. Thinking about how people respond and reflect on elements of your session helps everyone.

Facilitator’s also make sure that everyone has time to complete tasks. You might also need a co-facilitator.

The co-facilitator’s role

Co-facilitators can work with you to plan and deliver a session or just help out on the day of the session.

Co-facilitators can help to do things like:

  • summarise and visualise discussions by grouping ideas and themes
  • set the timer and give prompts on timing
  • monitor the chat function for questions
  • be available if anyone is stuck
  • point things out that the facilitator has missed

This kind of support helps the facilitator to focus on the overall flow of the session.

The participant’s role

Participants need to:

  • give as much input as they feel comfortable to do that day
  • actively listen to each other
  • give other people the chance to speak
  • respect each other’s views and understand that everyone is doing their best
  • give activities their full attention

The facilitator needs to make participants aware of their role in making the session work from the start. Our inclusive meeting guidelines give examples of techniques you could use.

Next section of the facilitation guide

Go to deciding whether a session is the right choice.

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