On this page we describe the work that has been done in the different working groups. Each group consists of members from different partner organizations. For those who are interested to read more we have attached some working material that was produced in the group. You are also welcome to contact us!
1. Facilitation
Background
In facilitation a neutral party – a facilitator – focuses on the process of a meeting and serves as a moderator of discussion. The facilitator helps the group make decisions, solve problems and develop and implement plans within the structure of a meeting. An efficient meetings' facilitator ensures impressive levels of attendance, full participation, and solid support of decisions made in all meetings. The key idea is separating content and process.
Our goal in this group:
Products and services developed
Competences gained:
Working in a group gave the participants more confidence working with people from different cultures. Also it gave a depository of tools for solving ad hoc situations that sometimes arise in meetings and workshops – a kind of remedy when everything starts to go wrong. These are some of the competences that a great facilitator must have in order to function in all kinds of situations.
Sharing of results:
We are regularly organizing free demo sessions for individuals interested in the process and tools of facilitation. Please contact us if you are interested in taking part of the open demo sessions, or check our network's websites www.grapepeople.fi.
2. Virtual facilitation
Background:
When we started our cooperation in 2009 virtual meetings were becoming more important in organizations. Our clients started to use web conference systems like "webex", "microsoft live meetings" and others. Frustrations and problems that we knew from our facilitation trainings, like: "our meetings are boring, often not very effective nor participative" we heard now even more often.
Most people perceived this form of meetings as unavoidable, but very challenging and frustrating. Under the circumstances- during the height of the economic crisis many teams had their travel budget cut, but had to continue working with their colleagues abroad, so there was no choice, but to meet virtually.
This is how we got the idea to use our expertise in meeting facilitation and to explore this new topic together in this international learning partnership.
Our goal in this group:
Its a common tendency to see new environments through the limiting glasses of past experiences and. It seems easier at first to simply stick to our old ways of working and perceive the things that don´t work this way as obstacles.
In our working group we made it our goal to try out a fresh look, to focus on the advantages of virtual collaboration: What are the new possibilities of this environment? What is different here and how can we use the potential of virtual meetings?
We wanted to create a virtual training that would help our clients to establish new working processes that take advantage of the new possibilities of this environment.
Products and services developed:
"Effective virtual meetings training"
is a four session training program that lets you discover the best virtual meeting practices through a hands-on approach. The program concentrates on typical meeting situations and with the help of simple facilitation methods transforms them into collaborative and energetic virtual team meetings.
Each training session builds on the previous one and prepares you for the next one. Already after the first session you understand the essential building blocks of a collaborative status meeting and after the last session you will have gained the necessary competences to organise and facilitate good virtual meetings.
Competences gained
- Setting up effective everyday meetings and workshops on virtual platforms
- Best practices for technical challenges
- Getting your group ready, focused and goal-oriented in cyberspace
- Achieving virtual dialogue on and off-line with your co-workers and customers
- Separating the roles of the participants to gain clarity
- Understanding the different types of meetings to get results
- Gaining trust in a virtual environment
- Reviewing and maintaining progress virtually
- Making virtual decisions and action plans
We are happy to share our findings in a free Demo.
Our first training took place with an international pilot group in Sep 2009. Since then many groups have taken part in our trainings and demos.
You can get a taste of what our virtual trainings are like by participating in our free Demos. The session will cover the best virtual meeting practices and teach the simple use of facilitation tools to make meetings more effective.
Please contact :
Juliane.neumann@grapepeople.de
Tel.: +49 1772015227
Material: download or preview.
3. Coaching and facilitation
Background:
Our goal in this group:
Products and services developed
Sharing of results:
After numerous internal trainings and coaching sessions, our first open group training took place with an international group in April 2011. We aim to continue organizing free demos that will teach the simple use of coaching and facilitation tools to make group work more effective.
You can get a taste of what our coaching trainings are like by looking at the materials below:
4. Art methods in facilitation
Products and services developed & Competences gained:
During our investigations we have learned and shared new methods and learned to use old methods in new way. One good example from cross-learning is from Prague in January 2011, where we mixed with another Leonardo project Learning with Phototherapy, where theapists and organisational developers Ulla Halkola and Tarja Koffert cam from Turku, Finland to share their knowledge in how to use photography in therapy work. This shared learning experience helped us to apply methods from different areas and think outside the box.
Wheel of Life: what are the most important things in your life?
Sharing of results:
1. Facilitation
In facilitation a neutral party – a facilitator – focuses on the process of a meeting and serves as a moderator of discussion. The facilitator helps the group make decisions, solve problems and develop and implement plans within the structure of a meeting. An efficient meetings' facilitator ensures impressive levels of attendance, full participation, and solid support of decisions made in all meetings. The key idea is separating content and process.
Facilitating meetings is an American concept born with a psychologist Kurt Lewin in the 1950's. In the 1970's facilitation became a solid part of business practices in California. The past years the practise of facilitation has become increasingly popular also in Europe.
When this group started in 2009 the idea on using a facilitator in meetings was still fairly young. Facilitation tools are fast developing into more elaborated practises and methods that fit different European working cultures.
This group was established to share practices and tools and to provide a common framework around the idea of using facilitation in workshops and meetings.
In addition the aim was to run workshops for the European public testing and implementing the shared methods. Also we wanted to create a print-ready handbook of the methods we have co-created tested and implemented in the partner countries.
During the time this group was in action we developed new tools for training processes. The key vehicle for learning was having interactive sessions with our clients. In our basic Facilitation Training process our key focus was on sharing and trying out tools in separate thematic workshops. We also focused on sharing participator's experiences and the challenges that the group leaders faced when being in the role of a facilitator. During the process we managed to come up with ideas also for applying some of the shared tools in Innovation Training and other creativity sessions.
Finally we compiled what we had learned into a handbook "Effective Meetings". It includes the shared principles of facilitation to help group leaders with international clients in handling some of the tasks that a facilitator is facing in many workshops.
We learned that facilitation is a powerful tool that enables the group to work better and gain more in shorter time. Sharing experiences, tools and tackled difficult group situations in a form of an organised workshop gives more time and projection possibilities than a short mentoring from a busy colleague.
Working in a group gave the participants more confidence working with people from different cultures. Also it gave a depository of tools for solving ad hoc situations that sometimes arise in meetings and workshops – a kind of remedy when everything starts to go wrong. These are some of the competences that a great facilitator must have in order to function in all kinds of situations.
We are regularly organizing free demo sessions for individuals interested in the process and tools of facilitation. Please contact us if you are interested in taking part of the open demo sessions, or check our network's websites www.grapepeople.fi.
2. Virtual facilitation
When we started our cooperation in 2009 virtual meetings were becoming more important in organizations. Our clients started to use web conference systems like "webex", "microsoft live meetings" and others. Frustrations and problems that we knew from our facilitation trainings, like: "our meetings are boring, often not very effective nor participative" we heard now even more often.
Most people perceived this form of meetings as unavoidable, but very challenging and frustrating. Under the circumstances- during the height of the economic crisis many teams had their travel budget cut, but had to continue working with their colleagues abroad, so there was no choice, but to meet virtually.
This is how we got the idea to use our expertise in meeting facilitation and to explore this new topic together in this international learning partnership.
Its a common tendency to see new environments through the limiting glasses of past experiences and. It seems easier at first to simply stick to our old ways of working and perceive the things that don´t work this way as obstacles.
In our working group we made it our goal to try out a fresh look, to focus on the advantages of virtual collaboration: What are the new possibilities of this environment? What is different here and how can we use the potential of virtual meetings?
We wanted to create a virtual training that would help our clients to establish new working processes that take advantage of the new possibilities of this environment.
"Effective virtual meetings training"
is a four session training program that lets you discover the best virtual meeting practices through a hands-on approach. The program concentrates on typical meeting situations and with the help of simple facilitation methods transforms them into collaborative and energetic virtual team meetings.
Each training session builds on the previous one and prepares you for the next one. Already after the first session you understand the essential building blocks of a collaborative status meeting and after the last session you will have gained the necessary competences to organise and facilitate good virtual meetings.
Competences gained
- Setting up effective everyday meetings and workshops on virtual platforms
- Best practices for technical challenges
- Getting your group ready, focused and goal-oriented in cyberspace
- Achieving virtual dialogue on and off-line with your co-workers and customers
- Separating the roles of the participants to gain clarity
- Understanding the different types of meetings to get results
- Gaining trust in a virtual environment
- Reviewing and maintaining progress virtually
- Making virtual decisions and action plans
Our first training took place with an international pilot group in Sep 2009. Since then many groups have taken part in our trainings and demos.
You can get a taste of what our virtual trainings are like by participating in our free Demos. The session will cover the best virtual meeting practices and teach the simple use of facilitation tools to make meetings more effective.
Please contact :
Juliane.neumann@grapepeople.de
Tel.: +49 1772015227
Material: download or preview.
3. Coaching and facilitation
Coaching is based on supporting others through the process of achieving a specific personal or professional result. It can be performed with individuals and groups, in person, over the phone and online.
The structure and methodologies of coaching are numerous but are predominantly facilitative in style. The original coaching approach was pioneered by Timothy Gallwey who successfully applied the principles to developing sports abilities and so changed the way that new skills can be learned.
Various varieties of coaching exist, such as sports coaching, life coaching, family coaching and executive coaching. The basic skills of coaching can be developed in managers in order to improve their management and leadership capabilities. Coaching skills can also be applied within team meetings and are then akin to the more traditional skills of group facilitation.
The goal of our group was to take the principles of both coaching and facilitation and merge them together to create an approach that would build on the strengths of both.
This group was established to share practices and tools and to provide a common framework around the idea of linking the principles of coaching and facilitation in workshops and meetings.
In addition the aim was to create a workshop that would allow us to share our methods with others in an interactive way. Our process was co-created and tested in the partner countries, as we wanted others to learn how to coach and apply the principles in real situations not only by learning the theory but by also experiencing and then recreating the process.
Products and services developed
During the time this group was in action we developed a new process for training coaching skills. The key vehicle for learning was having our project members participate in individual coaching sessions so that they could gain firsthand experience of the process. This was then developed further by sharing our experiences and only then by teaching the participants coaching skills and creating opportunities to try them out in practice with our clients. Each of our ideas for trying out coaching techniques was tested and the participants gave exhaustive feedback to the coach in order to fine tune their skills. We then focused on consolidating our experiences into a workshop that would give an overview of simple techniques, as well as our own experience, and so teach others how to apply coaching principles as part of the facilitative process.
We learned that coaching is a powerful motivational tool that not only enables the individual to focus on their own goals and work better but that the principles that work in individual coaching can also be effectively applied to groups. During the coaching process each participant experienced being in the coachee role and so learned a lot about themselves, their motivation, their values and their goals.
As the participants learned more and developed into the roles of coaches, the participants learned the value of active listening. They also realized how difficult it is to actively listen to another without interpreting what they say through their own perspective. Another part of learning to listen was also learning to accept the goals and paths to goals that others choose without giving advice, i.e. staying in the coaching position. The coaching principles and competencies that the participants learned are not only being applied to all kinds of situations in their day to day work and social interactions but also to facilitate specific projects and group work
After numerous internal trainings and coaching sessions, our first open group training took place with an international group in April 2011. We aim to continue organizing free demos that will teach the simple use of coaching and facilitation tools to make group work more effective.
You can get a taste of what our coaching trainings are like by looking at the materials below:
4. Art methods in facilitation
Background:
Facilitation through Art methods can be used in variety of team development processes. We can create scenarios from paper and clay or finalize the team vision on t-shirts or we can use theater methods to make an analysis of the current state. Facilitation through art can be used in team development processes to learn to trust and understand your team members, to deal with change and emotions, to improve holistic well-being and above all for creativity and innovation.
Grape Arte is about developing organisations and teams through visual culture, art and design. Within Grape Arte is a team of unique experts who have an interesting combination of skills, knowledge and experience in the visual arts and theater and in business, pedagogy and facilitation.
Our way of working is based on methods derived from our art and theater training. We work with our hands, the whole body and voice, using intuition and creating deeper understanding.
Our goal is to discuss and share thoughts on the topic of using art as the base of facilitation. We investigate what other organisations and individual professionals are doing in this regards in Europe.
The members of Arte team have their special focus:
Piritta (fine art)
- Arja (dance &choreography)
- Kari (music)
- Riina (music and fine art)
- Netta (photography)
- Juliane (ceramics, graphic recording and martial arts)
- Holger and Stephan (engaging spaces)
- Arja (dance &choreography)
- Kari (music)
- Riina (music and fine art)
- Netta (photography)
- Juliane (ceramics, graphic recording and martial arts)
- Holger and Stephan (engaging spaces)
Art based methods in facilitation are fairly new approach to Organisational develpment. The whole area is not yet very networked, but we are working on making the whole area known. So far we have investigated and found results from:
· Germany (workshops at Berlin Change days)
· Denmark (a art based mehtods workshpp at ArtLab, Köpenhagen)
· Sweden (creative conversations in EU European Year of Mobility with organisation TILLT, Göteborg)
· Italy (Lucca Mental Health Institution)
· Slovenia (some individual facilitators and health practitioners and The International Appreciative Inquiry conference in Bled (http://www.networkplace.eu/
· United Kingdom IAF conference (http://iaf-europe-conference.
· Finland (Helsinki IAF conference and the founding of SABA (Suomen Art&Business Ammattilaiset ry professionals union)
We were also a part of a collaboration with Aalto University in Helsinki. Engaging spaces was a project where we shared experiences such as what kind of training spaces stimulate creativity and innovation.
We also learned from coaching methods in Berlin in April 2011 and how to apply methods such as Scaling, Wheel of life and Learning Steps in facilitation through art.
then scaling each choice, e.g. how happy you are in your work, (e.g. 5), then what’s the ideal number (10)
-> picking the soft spots and focusing on them
-> combination of wheel of life and scale
-> combination of wheel of life and scale
Learning Steps: include walking (kinetic aspect), you can also walk backwards and ask ”how did you choose this path”
-> stakeholder exercise: who else is affected by/affecting on my action
-> goal setting in the beginning helps to test the motivation
-> open/closed questions give different answers
-> goal setting in the beginning helps to test the motivation
-> open/closed questions give different answers
For the most part we shared tools and developed competences of the whole group. We got a better understanding about how to use art methods more creatively, efficiently, gained competences on the theoretical context, more self-esteem and courage to use new ways and trust that they will work.
