Pride Education Services offers our skills as meeting facilitators. Facilitation plays a crucial role in ensuring that meetings are productive, efficient, and effective. Our primary objective is to guide the meeting process and help the participants achieve their goals through enabling productive communication and collaboration, helping the group make the most of their time and resources during the meeting. Our skills and expertise are valuable in various types of meetings, including strategic planning sessions, team-building workshops, problem-solving discussions, and decision-making gatherings.

Here is a breakdown of what we offer: 

​

• Task Force or Coalition Building:

  • Work with leadership to determine who should be at the proverbial table for specific decision-making and work objectives and how to get them there. 

• Information Gathering:

  • Prior to the meeting, we will faciltate as much information gathering as is helpful, including meeting with stakeholders or offering opportunities for individual input before designing the next steps in the process.

• Setting Objectives:

  • Collaborate with leadership to define clear objectives and an agenda for the meeting. This ensures that everyone is on the same page regarding the meeting's purpose. Depending on the type of meeting, these may be organized with input from all participants. 

• Setting Meeting Norms:

  • ​Bring pre-determined norms for the meeting space, such as time limits for speakers, guidelines for respectful communication, and procedures for decision-making. Occassionally, and depending on context, we will offer space for partipicants to offer additional community norms.

• Time Management:

  • Manage the meeting's time, ensuring that the agenda is followed and that discussions do not overrun. This includes setting time limits for each agenda item and reminding participants when it's time to move on.

• Managing Participation:

  • Encouraging active participation from all attendees, ensuring that everyone has an opportunity to speak and share their insights. They may use various techniques to engage quieter participants and manage dominant speakers. This may also include managing volunteer roles for participants, such as time keeper, notetaker, or other roles as they are available to ensure total buy-in to meeting participation.

• Conflict Transformation: 

  • If conflicts or disagreements arise during the meeting, the facilitator helps manage them constructively. We may use conflict transformation techniques to keep the discussion on track. We also facilitate standalone conflict transformation opportunities for teams.

​​

Our facilitators also provide conflict transformation education and practice to teams, preparing them for the occassions when conflict does arise.

 

• Decision-Making Support:

  • ​Help guide the decision-making process by presenting options, clarifying points of contention, and helping the group reach a consensus or make a decision.

• Fostering Creativity:

  • For meetings focused on creative problem-solving or brainstorming, use techniques to encourage innovative thinking and idea generation.

• Recording and Summarizing:

  • Take notes or help designate a note-taker to capture key points, action items, and decisions made during the meeting. Afterward, provide a summary of the meeting outcomes.

• Managing Diverse Perspectives:

  • Ensure a diverse range of perspectives and viewpoints are considered during discussions. Prevent one-sided or biased discussions and maintain an inclusive environment.

• Adaptability:

  • Stay flexible and adaptable, adjusting the meeting process as needed. If unexpected issues or challenges arise, modify the agenda or approach to address them.

• Follow-Up:

  • After the meeting, help ensure that action items are assigned, deadlines are set, and that the meeting's outcomes are communicated to relevant stakeholders or ensure that there is a process for upcoming deliverables in place.