Liberating Structures: Ways to Facilitate Group Conversations in Implementation
By Dr. Sobia Khan, Director of Implementation
Have you had to facilitate a group discussion and been perplexed by how to structure and format the activity? We get tons of questions about facilitation, a technical skill that makes up the “how to” of a lot of aspects of implementation.
Much of our work at The Center for Implementation involves working with groups and teams to either build capacity, brainstorm, problem solve, or complete an implementation step. This forces us to think about the diverse ways that we can facilitate these activities, using methods that not only meet the objectives of the activity but also are engaging for the people involved. This was the reason why multiple, completely unrelated people started recommending Liberating Structures to me. After hearing about their positive experiences, I was keen to learn more.
The idea behind Liberating Structures is that you design an activity with enough structure that people have guidance about what to do, but with enough flexibility that it leaves people open to engaging in creative and deep thought. These activities are great to accomplish multiple facilitation goals. We have used them primarily as teaching tools to help guide discussion about the concepts, and also to help structure brainstorming sessions.
Our first experience with Liberating Structures: Designing live sessions for the Embracing Complexity special training series
The first time we consulted Liberating Structures was to figure out a format for our live sessions for the Embracing Complexity special training series we held last year. For our previous courses, live sessions typically took on a Q & A format. We weren’t sure that the Q & A format would fit with this training series, since we knew that people would all be starting off with various base levels of knowledge and that the concepts would be a bit challenging to grasp. We decided to structure the sessions into a problem that everyone could work on collectively, and then build in time for reflection and open discussion. The structure helped to a) get everyone on the same page about the same problem; b) get everyone thinking about the concepts that we were covering; and c) stimulate reflections and questions about people’s personal projects and the training material in general.
We have since used Liberating Structures for our subsequent courses, for workshop sessions, and with partners as we collectively unpack what we are working on. Combining Liberating Structures with virtual collaboration tools such as MURAL and Zoom has really helped people meaningfully engage in online live sessions during the pandemic.
We recommend going to the Liberating Structures website and perusing the different recommended structures. It helps to go in with a general idea of what you would like participants to accomplish as well as what some of your objectives are. Select a few structures and try developing an agenda around these. Then work with your team to figure out which structure will ultimately work the best for your goals. If you want to hear about people’s experiences with Liberating Structures, there are also community of practices to join.
We hope you enjoy this month’s featured resource below!
Liberating Structures
By Dr. Julia E. Moore, Executive Director
The Liberating Structures website presents 33 activities and field stories, which share examples of people’s experiences of using Liberating Structures. To give you a sense of the kinds of Liberating Structure activities available, here are 4 activities that seem easily adaptable to a virtual or in-person format and relevant to our implementation work.
Nine Whys: Make the purpose of your work together clear
The Nine Whys activity can help a group gain clarity around their underlying purpose in working together. Having a shared sense of the purpose and a collective vision or goal is sometimes a challenge in implementation work, particularly when working with people across multiple organizations. This activity can help you unpack your individual and collective purpose.
Heard, Seen, Respected: Practice deeper listening and empathy with colleagues
The Heard, Seen, Respected activity is a great way to set the stage to foster trust among team members. The importance of trust has become a huge theme in implementation as all implementation efforts require people to have trusting relationships to move the work forward. This simple yet powerful activity can set the stage to foster conversations that can serve as the foundation of trust-building.
25/10 Crowd Sourcing: Rapidly generate and sift a group’s most powerful actionable ideas
We often hear that people would like to crowdsource ideas, particularly from those who will be asked to implement the change or who will be affected by the change. The 25/10 Crowd Sourcing activity is a great way to do that. In just 30 minutes, people can brainstorm and rate new ideas.
Agreement-&-Certainty Matrix: Sort challenges into simple, complicated, complex, and chaotic domains
When planning for implementation, we often need to group, categorize, or prioritize things. The Agreement-&-Certainty Matrix can help you do this. In the original version of this activity, people sort challenges into simple, complicated, complex, and chaotic categories. We can envision how this same activity could be adapted for many different types of categories or matrices that are relevant to your change efforts. Plus, after completing the activity, you end up with a great visual representation. If you are completing the activity online, you could use a Mural board or Jamboard.
These articles were featured in our monthly Implementation in Action bulletin! Want to receive our next issue? Subscribe here.