Organizational Change: What are the different methods, types, or models of facilitation?

I will start with classic/western type facilitation, which is what most people think of as “facilitation” and involves creating very specific and measurable outcomes for the meeting or group process in advance, using different"tools" such as brainstorming, ranking, dot-voting, and writing on chart paper to make it easier for a group to achieve the outcome. This approach relies on clear roles for the meeting, such as facilitator, recorder, participant, decision-maker, observer, and so on. In this model the facilitator might"intervene" in order to keep the process "on track". Some of the sources for this approach include Interaction Associates.  Also in this broad category are CPS (Collaborative Problem Solving), JAD (an old one called Joint Application Design) as well as ToP (Technology of Participation) and many others. Individuals like David Strauss, Michael Doyle and others in San Francisco and Cambridge were critical to development of this process-focused facilitation approach in the early 1970’s.Other modes which do not make the same assumptions about group process(distinct roles, brainstorming and pre-set outcomes) include Open Space, which was developed by Harrison Owen and is explained in his book "Open Space Technology". In the 1980's, Owen brought together a number of ideas for groups from multiple sources including indigenous peoples traditions. Open Space involves a group being "convened" to work on a question, but otherwise no outcomes or specific topics are prepared in advance. The"facilitator" does a lot of work before the session to set things ups o the right people are there and motivated, but then does not do much after helping the group launch the process. This approach has participants taking on many roles at once and self-designing the agenda in the moment, generating their own notes and going with a flow they create on their on as they move to and from sub-groups they create and lead based on their own interest or contribution. The facilitator is both present and not present at once, and does not intervene, “solve problems” or try to influence the group once the process begins. Another methods more on this side of the scale include Future Search, World Cafe and Dialogue.Some facilitation methods are focused on "Graphic Recording" where the facilitator uses special skills to create (often beautiful) drawings and pictures representing the conversation or decisions of a group. These often very large pictures can then be digitized with hot spots to click deeper into the information. Sources of this include The Grove and The Center for Graphic Facilitation.  Again, this approach is often combined with any of the others.Technology-enabled facilitation methods allow for massive group processes, in person or virtual and synchronous or asynchronous. There are 100's of software applications and tools for use in conjunction with more traditional facilitation methods, e.g. brainstorm in a chat-type space, voting by anonymous poll with automatic tally, and so on.There are also many other more esoteric kinds, including Kinetic Facilitation (silent use of materials and objects by a group), Quaker Meeting methods, Roberts Rules of Order and many more.

There are various types of methods and models which can be great for implementation.For our own organizational change we used Frederic Laloux’s, more than inspiring book of “http://www.reinventingorganizations.com/” as the basics. This gave us a really good idea on where to start.We are still in the middle of our change, but the feedbacks so far are really promising. If you are interested in how we are doing it you can read about it http://blog.digitalnatives.hu/post/145202431596/change-to-self-managed-org?utm_source=quora&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=org+change.Also I really want to emphasise that there are no one good method or model. When you initiate change you have the opportunity to create something that suits you the best, even when its holocracy, a flat organization self-management or some mixture of the existing methods.http://blog.digitalnatives.hu/post/124663303041/play-with-that-pyramid?utm_source=quora&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=pyramid