Facilitation

Facilitators help keep meetings on track by introducing the agenda items, taking stack to ensure everyone can be heard.

Introducing Agenda Items

• Facilitators read the main items in the agenda Meeting Notes Template and call for participants to speak to the details of the agenda items.

Taking Stack

• Watch for people raising their hands in person and on Jitsi or Pad chat.
• Respond in the chat or aloud with their name saying they're on stack.
• Summarize the stack order periodically.

Direct Responses

Sometimes someone is addressed with a question or comment directly or wants to respond immediately before moving on for some reason.

• Generally they'll raise their hand or interject briefly to say "Direct response?" or "May I direct response?"
• Facilitators can clarify that they'll call on them them to speak out of the normal stack before returning to it.

Facilitate timeliness:

The facilitator tries to help everyone get through all the agenda items within a reasonable time frame before people expire from exhaustion while ensuring that everyone has a chance to be heard. This doesn't mean that everyone can realistically take infinite time to be heard about each item.

• Encourage people to be brief during intros and announcements.
• Ask if people are ready or willing to move on if a topic has gone on longer than seems productive.
• You can usually frame facilitation requests to elicit willingness to get to the point or table things for later rather than to leave people feeling unheard.