Last updated on Jun 27, 2024

How do you adapt your innovation facilitation for different groups?

Innovation facilitation is the art of guiding a group of people through a creative process to generate novel and useful solutions to a problem or challenge. As a facilitator, you need to be flexible and adaptable to the needs, preferences, and dynamics of different groups. How do you adjust your facilitation style, methods, and tools to suit various contexts and situations? Here are some tips to help you.

1 Know your audience

Before you design and deliver your innovation facilitation session, you need to understand who you are working with. What are their goals, motivations, expectations, and backgrounds? What are their strengths, weaknesses, and learning styles? How familiar are they with the topic and the innovation process? How diverse and inclusive is the group? How do they communicate and collaborate? These questions will help you tailor your facilitation approach to match the group's characteristics and needs.

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Nick Turner

Driving Organisational Innovation: Empowering Teams, Strengthening Leadership, and Creating Solutions.
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Know when to introduce another voice or perspective to enhance the conversation or session. For example if your group is particularly task or result focused, consider introducing a people element.

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Nicoletta Boldrini

Futures & Foresight Practitioner (Futures Studies, Strategic Foresight, Futures Literacy) | Certified Maieutic Facilitator & LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methods | Journalist & Popularizer (Emerging Techs) | LinkedIn Top Voice
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There are effective tools and methodologies for understanding people's behavioural styles that can help facilitators to create heterogeneous teams so that there are different voices, views, ideas and perspectives to nurture collective intelligence

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2 Choose appropriate methods

Depending on the group's size, composition, and stage of the innovation process, you may need to use different methods and techniques to facilitate their creativity and collaboration. For example, you may use brainstorming, mind mapping, or affinity diagrams to generate ideas; prototyping, testing, or feedback loops to refine ideas; or voting, ranking, or dotmocracy to select ideas. You may also use different formats, such as individual, pair, or small group work; plenary, breakout, or hybrid sessions; or synchronous, asynchronous, or blended modes. You should select the methods that best suit the group's objectives, preferences, and constraints.

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Nicoletta Boldrini

Futures & Foresight Practitioner (Futures Studies, Strategic Foresight, Futures Literacy) | Certified Maieutic Facilitator & LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methods | Journalist & Popularizer (Emerging Techs) | LinkedIn Top Voice
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It is methods and techniques that must adapt to the objectives, not the other way around. Those who facilitate know that the initial phase of clearly defining objectives is a fundamental step

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🔑 Katrina Paz

Director of Clinical Programming 📊 People Manager of Coders, Programmers and Technical Professionals | Technical Consultant and Mentor Data Management and Programming | Disability, Accessibility & Inclusion Advocate
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The method of running a session depends on the objectives of the meeting. If you are in a decision making meeting, consider having a quorum present with the ultimate decision maker present. If you are in a brainstorming meeting, consider breaking a bigger group into smaller teams. If you are sharing information during your meeting, consider sharing the same information to the whole group but in a various ways (state it first verbally then show a picture or graphic). Bottom line: Define your objective and match this to your method.

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3 Use engaging tools

Tools are the resources and materials that you use to support your innovation facilitation methods. They can include physical or digital tools, such as flipcharts, sticky notes, pens, whiteboards, cameras, laptops, software, apps, or platforms. They can also include conceptual or visual tools, such as templates, models, frameworks, diagrams, or images. You should use tools that are relevant, accessible, and easy to use for the group. You should also use tools that are engaging, interactive, and fun for the group. Tools can help you stimulate the group's curiosity, imagination, and participation.

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Pedram Parasmand

Program Design Coach | Geeking out blending learning design with entrepreneurship to scale impact
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I'm a shiny object person and will experiment with new tools and methods. More often than not, simplicity is best. A well-crafted prompt and clear instructions are what drive engagement.

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4 Adapt to feedback

Feedback is the information and input that you receive from the group during and after the innovation facilitation session. It can include verbal or non-verbal feedback, such as comments, questions, suggestions, opinions, emotions, gestures, or expressions. It can also include quantitative or qualitative feedback, such as ratings, scores, surveys, or interviews. You should use feedback to monitor and evaluate the group's progress, satisfaction, and outcomes. You should also use feedback to adjust and improve your facilitation style, methods, and tools. Feedback can help you respond to the group's needs, challenges, and opportunities.

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5 Develop your skills

As an innovation facilitator, you need to constantly develop your own skills and competencies. You need to be knowledgeable, confident, and competent in the topic and the innovation process. You need to be creative, flexible, and adaptable in your facilitation style, methods, and tools. You need to be empathetic, respectful, and inclusive in your interaction with the group. You need to be curious, reflective, and open to learning from your own and others' experiences. You should seek opportunities to learn from other facilitators, experts, mentors, or peers. You should also seek feedback from the group and yourself.

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🔑 Katrina Paz

Director of Clinical Programming 📊 People Manager of Coders, Programmers and Technical Professionals | Technical Consultant and Mentor Data Management and Programming | Disability, Accessibility & Inclusion Advocate
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Here are some skills that are valuable in facilitating meetings: 1. At least cursory knowledge of the topic at hand 2. Participation management (engaging folks who tend to be quiet, respectfully halting folks who sometimes speak "too much") 3. Time management 4. Listening 5. Synthesis of complex ideas 6. Asking questions

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6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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How do you adapt your innovation facilitation for different groups?

1

2

3

4

5

6

1 Know your audience

2 Choose appropriate methods

3 Use engaging tools

4 Adapt to feedback

5 Develop your skills

6 Here’s what else to consider

Facilitation

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How do you adapt your innovation facilitation for different groups?

1

2

3

4

5

6

1 Know your audience

2 Choose appropriate methods

3 Use engaging tools

4 Adapt to feedback

5 Develop your skills

6 Here’s what else to consider

Facilitation

Rate this article

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