This article summarizes the key points from the Harvard PON Special Reports I distributed earlier this year on facilitation... read on for some tips about facilitation!

• Facilitation is the process of managing multiparty, multi-issue negotiations both inside and outside an organization, often with the goal of heading off conflict or solving specific problems.
• Facilitation can be viewed as a bundle of meeting-management skills that anyone can employ, such as coordinating the flow of conversation, ensuring that participants observe time limits, cooling tempers when talks get overheated, and periodically summarizing the essence of working agreements.
• Facilitation is different from mediation. Mediators are usually brought in when a negotiation has already reached a standoff or communication is entirely blocked.
• Facilitators, by contrast, tend to be used at the outset of a problem-solving negotiation, before the parties have reached an impasse.
• The typical tasks an external hired facilitator may take on include:
• Working with the group to structure an agenda
• Setting and enforcing consensus-building ground rules (ie. the meeting rules)
• Capturing in writing a fair and accurate summary of negotiated outcomes
• Overcoming resistance in the group