Agile Facilitation
Who/What is an Agile Facilitator?
An Agile facilitator is a member of the team who promotes the Agile mindset. This individual is typically the "Scrum Master" but can be any team member who adopts these values and either directly or indirectly generates collaboration through the principles outlined in the Agile manifesto.
Facilitator Stances
As a facilitator, it's important to be conscious of your stance. Each individual consciously or unconsciously leans towards a different mindset when facilitating Agile values and practices.
It's valuable to identify which stance you align with as you can make conscious steps towards including aspects of the opposite mindset to ensure a balanced arsenal of techniques and processes to be as adaptive as possible.
Commanding & Passive
When facilitating a meeting, it's possible to adopt either a commanding or passive approach. Each of these stances bring value; however, it's important to find a healthy balance. Below is a breakdown of the benefits and hindrances that can be introduced with too much reliance on either.
Commanding
A commanding facilitator will generally take complete ownership of the direction of conversations, usually provoking others to provide updates, inputs & concerns without allowing the individual extended periods of time to think and generate their own conclusions. A commanding presence is useful to begin conversations, but too much ownership can cause team members to avoid becoming actively engaged in the conversation and instead take an almost completely observational role.
Passive
A passive facilitator will generally let the meeting attendees drive the conversation with little to no interjection from the facilitator. This stance can generate valuable but typically lengthy discussions between team members that may derail from their original question/concern. It's important that the facilitator maintain a presence of leadership to provide course correction when conversations begin to become derailed.
Abstract & Fact-Based
As individuals, when presented with problems to solve, we typically make a decision, consciously or otherwise, to formulate a plan for resolving the problem before us. This can manifest in the form of a fact-based approach in which we collect data and then use that data to develop a calculated response, or conversely, we can look at the issue objectively and attempt to formulate a response quickly that is generally formulated from our initial impressions.
You can find a more detailed breakdown of these approaches and the benefits and hindrances they can introduce with too much reliance on one or the other.
Abstract
An abstract facilitator will generate ideas and strategies with little supporting documentation, this approach can yield abstract and sometimes greatly impactful improvements/techniques. However, it's also susceptible to creating unrealistic and demoralizing goals.
Fact-Based
Taking a fact-based approach, the facilitator will tend to lean heavily on supporting documentation to justify their responses to tasks, issues & ideas. A fact-based approach can be valuable as typically decisions are rationalized, though this mindset can restrict creativity within your team and lead to dated and "good enough" outcomes.
Active & Reflective
As a facilitator, you'll be positioned to shape conversations and interactions with your chosen stance. It's helpful to take a moment to reflect on the objective of the meeting/workshop and those involved. You may choose to adopt an active position and drive the interactions or make time in the interactions for some reflective conclusions. Below is a breakdown of the benefits and hindrances that can be introduced with too much reliance on either.
Active
An active facilitator will generally take charge of interactions, normally shepherding conversations towards a pre-defined objective and has focused on ensuring events adhere to both their topic and timeframe. An active mindset can provide value when the team feels directionless, though it can inhibit their ability to adapt if consistently guided instead of empowered to make to come to their own conclusions. An active mindset will typically manifest in the form of imposing time-sensitive updates in the sprint events or "taking things offline" too hastily.
Reflective
A reflective facilitator will generally take a step back to allow the team to voice their opinions, concerns and updates with little resistance. A reflective approach is valuable when seeking team collaboration and ensuring the team have the ability to adopt Agile practices on their own.
Whilst a reflective mindset can generate a sense of social empowerment, it's possible that in taking a completely reflective approach, the team can begin to lose sight of their objective in the pursuit of addressing issues that are beyond the scope of the current objective or are even not a priority.
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