There are meetings and then there are meetings. Meetings that matter, that make a difference, where people connect and make things happen, productive meetings people enjoy. Those meetings start with a facilitator who understands how to shape the environment and get people engaged.

Effective Communication Skills are Essential Facilitation Tools

You should always be looking for ways to make meetings more productive AND more enjoyable - if they're an inconvenience that just holds you back from doing productive work, your company is an endangered species. Make sure your workshops, conversations, and meetings are something everyone feels excited and invested in.

Collaboration is the beating heart of a healthy company. Facilitated discussions are opportunities for communicating and collaborating. Collaboration is the essence of productive teams and without effective facilitation, there can be no collaboration. Having a facilitator on hand should not be your fallback plan. From regular participatory feedback to Agile 3 amigo conversations, effective facilitation can bring out creativity and improve the outcomes.

Collaboration Improves Personal and Professional Satisfaction

Studies show that individuals who collaborate are more satisfied with their work, deliver better results, and are more creative. Sounds like a win-win, so what is collaboration and how can you improve your facilitation skills to make it happen?

According to Albert Einstein, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them”. We offer guidelines for planning, preparing, conducting, leading, and participating in collaborative meetings and workshops.

Other courses on meeting facilitation focus exclusively on building facilitation and leadership skills. That is no longer enough. Modern software development is a collaborative effort between the business and IT communities. You need to also work on your ability to foster and maintain collaboration to allow all parties to succeed.

This course is based on a combined 70+ years of facilitating productive workshops and meetings. We present how we foster collaboration between the meeting leader and all participants that makes meetings more productive and satisfying.

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Collaboration and Teamwork are Highly Regarded Competencies

Companies today understand how collaboration unlocks the potential of their employees and adds value to their customers. 69% of top employers list effective communication as a required skill. In the world of digital transformation, communication between the business and those who develop and deliver the digital solutions drives collaboration. That is the heart and soul of modern organizations in the 21st century.

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What Do You Get When You Buy This Course?

• Lifetime access to the course including future updates.

• 30-day Moneyback guarantee backed by Udemy if you are not completely satisfied with the learning experience.

• Includes 111-page Student Handout in .pdf format for notetaking

• "Intellimated" video lectures use visual representations to simplify complex concepts and associations.

• Help from the authors answers open questions and provides additional information.

• Confidence in your ability to facilitate collaborative meetings that minimize miscommunication that plagues IT initiatives.

About the Instructor

• Teaches 10 Udemy courses for Agile Business Analysis with over 70,000 students enrolled.

• Champions lean and agile methods to meet communication challenges between business and IT communities.

• Extensive YouTube Channel with over 100 videos for 18K+ subscribers and 1.8M+ views.

• Authored 13 Business Analysis books covering tools and techniques for Agile and traditional software requirements.

• Consultant to a multitude of Fortune 500 companies and governmental agencies.

• Facilitated 100’s of User Story and Requirements Gathering Workshops for multi-million-dollar projects.

• 35+ years’ experience with instructor-led training for tens of thousands of students around the world.

• Coach and mentor for aspiring business analysts.

Intrigued but not convinced? Check out our FREE previews to make sure my instructor style and delivery work for you.

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Why Should You Enroll?

A lack of effective communication skills can be holding you back in your career development. If you feel uncomfortable speaking in front of a group, register for this course to:

• learn how to empower collaboration in productive meetings

• help IT deliver what the business community is requesting

• reduce the amount of time spent in non-productive meetings

• lead challenging workshops for defining evolving business needs

• identify and practice soft skills necessary for effective facilitation and collaboration

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About the Course

Section I: “Introduction to Facilitated Collaborative Conversations”, presents how collaboration drives modern product development approaches like Lean and Agile. We explain why everyone involved in a gathering needs facilitation skills.

Section II: “Communication and Collaboration Are the Cornerstone of Productive Gatherings” introduces 7 variants of meetings, conversations, and workshops with an explanation of the pros and cons of each variant.

Section III: “Planning and Preparing Promotes Productive Meetings” provides concrete techniques that set the stage for successful gatherings. It includes how a well-formed objective drives the agenda, attendees, tools, and techniques of a meeting. We guide you from the decision to schedule a meeting all the way to formulating and distributing effective invitations that increase attendance.

Section IV: “Great Facilitators Practice Both Soft Skills and Technical Skills” delves into recent studies in brain research that will help you recognize and develop the soft skills that are essential to effective facilitation and collaboration. We also present techniques for developing the social skills that improve your ability to lead or contribute in a group setting.

Section V: “Listening and Speaking Are Both Critical for Effectively Communicating in Meetings” focuses on the key soft skill that underpins all human interactions. You will learn techniques for ensuring that your voice is heard in conversations and improve your ability to listen more attentively to other viewpoints.

Section VI: “Dealing with Challenges during Conversations and Workshops” acknowledges that facilitated collaboration does not depend on a perfect world to succeed. We present real-world challenges we have faced and present solutions we know work for solving them.

Section VII: “Closing a Working Meeting and Final Steps” presents what to do at the end of a facilitated session and what to do after the meeting is over. These actions extend the benefits of collaboration beyond a single workshop, meeting, or conversation by initiating a process of change that can spread throughout your organization.

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So, What Are You Waiting For?

Enroll now to move toward becoming the collaborative communications facilitator in your organization.