When less is more – facilitating on the run

I normally subscribe to the same theory about workshop sessions as the British Army SAS does for its clandestine missions: "Proper planning and preparation prevent piss-poor performance". Last week I did a job where we just winged it – but only as a considered decision. And we came out the other end in reasonable shape.

Why would I take a punt like that? The important factors were:

• A client with whom I have been working for a number of years, and with whom I have good chemistry
  
• The previous form of this client in being difficult to pin down ahead of time, with their travel commitments and generally "fluid" way of doing business
  
• Their commitment to intent, if not always to content.
  

I have to say it felt uncomfortable to turn up a blank page of flipchart, and say: "Okay, here's the agenda." The first thing we put down on the page was the finishing time. Then we agreed in very explicit terms on the purpose of the session – particularly important in this context – and co-created the rest of the agenda.

What worked in the session?

• Prior agreement (admittedly only the day before when I finally pinned down the CEO) that we could evolve the whole thing in the workshop itself
  
• A frank chat at the beginning where everyone shared, in turn, "How am I feeling right now?" and "What am I up for today?"
  
• Letting the responses to those questions guide what we were going to create – which didn't quite land where the CEO and I had thought it would, but ended up being just what the team needed to be clear about at this stage of their planning and execution cycle
  
• A much higher degree of check-in with the group, as we went through the process, of how it was working for them; and necessary adjustments of the agenda as a consequence of the check-ins
  
• A very conscious step at the end to see that everyone got to appropriate closure on the issues we traversed.
  

One thing I am not sure really worked: when the CEO said, about the timeframe we ended up facing, "... and David will keep us to time," and I threw a small, but considered, strategic wobbly about everyone need to take personal responsibility about time.

Before taking on facilitation on the run, there are a couple of things I would suggest:

• Be clear with everyone that you are operating in that mode, and engage them explicitly in the co-creation process
  
• At the very least, spend some time ahead of the session reviewing what tools or models you might need to pull out of your kitbag to achieve a result. We ended up using a simple "what do we need to DO, STOP and CHANGE, to get to where we need to be by the relevant date?"
  

At the end of the session, I had a mild whinge about having had less time than originally scheduled for the session. Someone said: "How much better do you think the outcome would have been if we had that extra hour?" After a very brief reflection, I had to admit frankly that we would have had no less effective an outcome if we had spent that extra bit of time.

Sometimes, you really can achieve more with less.