Wikipedia defines facilitation as “any activity which makes easy the tasks of others.”
Expert facilitation
In organisational settings, this involves the designing and running of collaborative processes and meetings, often involving members of the community or other stakeholders. These meetings sometimes involve contentious or ‘sensitive’ issues and our task is to ensure that all points of view are tabled, heard and responded to. To say that we are experienced is an understatement – as at the end of March 2020 Jen had facilitated (and mostly designed) a whopping 1332 face-to-face or online workshops/training sessions involving a large range of sectors of government, industry and community.
Kismet Forward delivers effective workshop facilitation by:
- Designing workshops that have high levels of energy, creativity and participation.
- Continually improving a facilitation style that is responsive to the needs of all participants.
- Understanding the environment in which your organisation operates.
- Focusing on solutions and a way forward, rather than dwelling on problems.
- Ensuring that workshop participants leave feeling that their time was productively and enjoyably spent.
- Writing succinct workshop reports that accurately and independently reflect what took place.
We also like Wikipedia’s description of ecological facilitation, which is about how one organism profits from the presence of another.
Your organisation can indeed profit by incorporating the Kismet Forward approach to working with your communities and stakeholders.
Kismet Forward facilitates online or face-to-face sessions across many themes, including:
- Issues relating to the environment, planning and human services, including situations involving outrage
- Strategic and business planning
- Program and project logic
- Workforce planning, change management and organisational development
- Team building and team development
- Integration and collaboration
- Conference facilitation
What our clients say
Kismet Forward (Jen Lilburn) was engaged by EPA to facilitate community consultation with companies in the Brooklyn Industrial Precinct, as well as State and Local government representatives in late 2008 for over 10 years. The community very much appreciates the very professional and independent manner in which Kismet Forward has conducted community engagement meetings. Jen’s calm and professional approach to our meetings, which have sometimes been difficult, and her work outside the meetings, has been welcomed by all
Bruce
President of Yarraville On The Nose Community GroupThe team at Kismet Forward are fantastic to work with and respond pro-actively to client needs. Jen and her team were able to provide facilitation expertise that helped us to deliver an extremely successful facilitation event. Such success is measured by the quality of discussion, accurate recording of information and the use of innovative facilitation techniques that enable all participants to become empowered throughout the process. Great work, Kismet Forward.
