Trainer: Gary Rush, IAF CPF | M

"Why learn Facilitation skills? Because they are a set of behavioral skills that through engaging, empowering, and collaborating, enhance job performance.  These are the ultimate "soft" skills."

Why?  These are the most important skills to develop in the 21^st century.  Because:  A collaborative revolution is coming, and you need to be prepared with the needed critical skills for success.  The ability to bring people together and accomplish good work is a skill set that is easily transferrable from one role or business to another.  Anyone who deals with people benefits from group facilitation skills – properly facilitated, groups develop better ideas that benefit the greater whole.  How?  I provide you with specific facilitation tools to ensure collaborative useful solutions.  See Facilitation Skills in Business and in Life.

This 1-day highly interactive class teaches you not only “how to”; it also teaches you to understand the “why” so that you gain engagement, support, and commitment.  This class covers a set of group facilitation skills and tools along with a Problem-Solving Process.  This provides a basis for other techniques such as Six Sigma.  This class develops Servant Leaders.

"This class is ideal for all people."

This class is available publicly (virtual via Zoom), and in-house anywhere in the world. Please contact us for additional information, pricing, and scheduling.

Class Abstract

Duration

One (1) Day

Abstract

This class covers a set of group facilitation skills and tools along with the selected process.  It:

• Gives you effective facilitation ('soft') skills.
• Provides specific tools to encourage participation and achieve consensus.
• Develops effective Active Listening skills.
• Provides a method for creating a structured agenda.

Objectives

FoCuSeD™ 'Soft' Skills for Meeting Facilitation is designed so that students will be able to:

• Create a basic structured agenda.
• Identify specific tools/exercises to successfully deal with others to gain engagement, support, and commitment.
• Actively Listen.
• Develop essential people skills, e.g., managing conflict, observation, etc.
• Facilitate a problem-solving meeting.

Materials

Each student receives:

• PDF Version of FoCuSeD™ 'Soft' Skills for Meeting Facilitation by Gary Rush, IAF CPF | Master
• Feedback from instructor.
• Class Certificate of Completion.

Trainer: Gary Rush, IAF CPF | M

"The Agile Manifesto may have been written initially for software, but its application to Strategic Planning works and it changes Strategic Planning from an event into a process. So, why not apply Agile concepts to Strategic Planning? I believe that planning should be a process not an event." See Applying Agile Concepts to Strategic Planning

This 2-day highly interactive class teaches you not only “how to”; it also teaches you to understand the “why” so that you can implement Agile Strategic Planning. This class covers how Strategic Planning fits within the organization or business and what it does overall – the who, what, why, where, and how. It describes "how to" define the appropriate processes that an organization or business requires and "how to" tie their processes back to its Strategic Plan – Process Modeling. This class is ideal for all people.   Check out Gary's related article - "Swift Strategic Planning"

This class is available on-site anywhere in the world. Please contact us for additional information, pricing, and scheduling.

Class eBook

FoCuSeD™ Agile Strategic Planning by Gary Rush, IAF CPF | M - is required for this class and may be purchased from Apple iTunes, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble. See "Our Books" page for purchasing information...

Class Abstract

Duration

Two (2) Days

Abstract

This class covers how Agile Strategic Planning fits within the organization or business and what it does overall – the who, what, why, where, and how. It describes "how to" define the appropriate processes that an organization or business requires and "how to" tie their processes back to its Strategic Plan – Process Modeling. Topics include:

• What are Strategic Planning and Process Modeling?
• How do they support the organization or business?
• How do we make the process Agile?
• What is the most effective way to do SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) analysis for current situations?
• How do you define the appropriate processes to support your Mission?

Objectives

FoCuSeD™ Agile Strategic Planning is designed so that the students will be able to:

• Structure and conduct effective Agile Strategic Planning and Process Modeling Work Sessions.
• Identify planning issues and know how to address them.
• Describe the overall business process and where Strategic Plans and Process Models fit.
• Know how to effectively execute SWOT analysis.
• Apply what was learned to your Agile Strategic Plan.

Materials

Each student receives:

• Class Certificate of Completion

Trainer: Gary Rush, IAF CPF | M

"A Business Analyst, one who facilitates requirements elicitation, is more successful if he or she is able to guide the group through a facilitation process to accomplish their task than one who uses individual interviews. It has been proven that requirements elicitation can be done in 1/4th the amount of time – that’s a 4-to-1 improvement in productivity that comes with an even greater increase in quality and develops a collaborative relationship between the client and BA that helps ensure the success of the project." read Why, What, When, Who, How, and Where?

Methods, such as Agile, Waterfall, Lean, Six Sigma, Scrum, and others, rely on harvesting the collective knowledge and wisdom of an organization while driving innovation and new thinking. These methods also require the practitioner to follow rigorous approaches to ensure quality outcomes. The drawbacks:

• The wrong people participate.
• Practitioners don't prepare properly.
• Practitioners use the wrong or inappropriate tools.
• Problems are poorly defined and scoped so practitioners solve the wrong problems.
• Groups are not able to reach consensus.

How do you harvest the knowledge of the organization and avoid the drawbacks? Through effective structured facilitation. Let me teach you "how to" harvest the collective knowledge and wisdom of an organization, drive innovation, and avoid the drawbacks.

"The FoCuSeD™ Business Analyst class devotes equal time to Soft Skills and Process Skills providing balanced, holistic learning and practice 40% of class time."

This 3-day highly interactive class teaches you not only "how to"; it also teaches you to understand the “why” to facilitate effective and engaging requirements elicitation and shows you how facilitation fits within your role - see The Facilitative Business Analyst. FoCuSeD™ Business Analyst covers effective facilitation skills and appropriate tools necessary in business analysis using any method. It builds your skills and develops Collaborative Leaders.

"This class is ideal for all Business Analysts including those pursuing a Business Analyst career."

FoCuSeD™ Business Analyst Alumni

This class is available on-site anywhere in the world. Please contact us for additional information, pricing, and scheduling.

Class Abstract

Duration

Three (3) Days

Abstract

This class covers effective facilitation skills and appropriate tools necessary in business analysis using any method.

• What is facilitated Business Analysis?
• How does facilitation fit with your role and methodology?
• How do you deal with people – the good, the bad, and the ugly?
• How do you design a structured process that supports your methodology?
• How do you build an effective Annotated Agenda?

Objectives

FoCuSeD™ Business Analyst is designed so that the students will be able to:

• Perform as effective FoCuSeD™ Business Analysts immediately upon completion.
• Demonstrate an understanding of FoCuSeD™, its components and processes.
• Know "how to" incorporate facilitation skills and tools to enhance their job skills.
• Conduct a variety of facilitated sessions that support any method.
• Use effective FoCuSeD™ facilitation skills in requirements elicitation.

Materials

Each student receives:

• PDF version of the FoCuSeD™ Business Analyst by Gary Rush, IAF CPF | M
  
• Class Certificate of Completion

Trainer: Gary Rush, IAF CPF

"Anyone can be successful if they are able to guide their group through a facilitated process to accomplish their task."

This 4-day highly interactive class teaches you not only "how to"; it also teaches you to understand the “why” so that you can perform effectively. FoCuSeD™ guides you, enabling you to plan the emotional group cycle along with the workshop/meeting process enabling communication to create collaborative useful solutions – one without the other is fruitless. This class covers People Skills, basic Process Design, Strategic Planning, Problem Solving, etc. It covers effective Facilitator skills and tools necessary to facilitate business situations from Strategic Planning, to Six Sigma and CMMI, to Problem-Solving. It helps build your skills and confidence - it develops Collaborative Leaders.

This facilitation training is ideal for anyone who will facilitate planning and a variety of business situations.

Until FoCuSeD™, facilitation techniques have been either about process or people skills. FoCuSeD™ contains a unique concept for developing structured agendas with an understanding of the two parallel developments occurring, "the workshop/meeting process and the emotional group cycle", that must be holistically planned to achieve collaborative useful solutions - the ultimate structured facilitation technique. It is not sufficient to select an agenda and then insert exercises in different steps and hope that it works. See It's time to get FoCuSeD™ .

FoCuSeD™ provides guidance as well as specific tested structured agendas to enable consistency in any type of workshop/meeting. FoCuSeD™ is an approach to information gathering where group workshops/meetings replace individual interviews. FoCuSeD™ fully integrates methodologies with communication and group dynamics to derive consensus-based information.

"The FoCuSeD™ Facilitator Academy class devotes 50% of class time to People Skills and 50% of class time to Process Skills providing balanced, holistic learning."

We believe that the process to build agendas and deal with people is the same whether you are dealing with business, technical, or any type of subject. We believe that theory is needed and teach it to provide a background. We teach specific "how to"; we provide detailed People and Process tools and, as an IAF CPF Assessor, Gary covers the IAF Core Facilitator Competencies and what students need to learn to achieve them. To be a successful Facilitator you learn by doing. In our class students practice 40% of the class time and receive comprehensive assessments of sessions facilitated by the student.

This class is available on-site anywhere in the world. Please contact us for additional information, pricing, and scheduling.

FoCuSeD™ Business Facilitator Guide

FoCuSeD™ Business Facilitator Guide by Gary Rush, IAF CPF. A comprehensive reference manual in which Gary shares his step-by-step process so that students can replicate his practices.

Some Key Features are:

• Comprehensive Facilitator tools.
• Cookbook Processes fully described using an Annotated Agenda format.
• Our unique FoCuSeD™ Holistic Parallel Process Development - this critical process enables the Facilitator to seamlessly integrate the workshop/meeting process to build a product parallel to the emotional group cycle.

Class Abstract

Duration

Four (4) Days

Abstract

This class covers People Skills, basic Process Design, Strategic Planning, Problem Solving, etc. It covers effective Facilitator Skills and tools necessary to facilitate business situations from Strategic Planning, to Six Sigma and CMMI, to Problem-Solving.

• What is Facilitation? What’s the history? When is it used?
• What do Facilitators do? How does this fit with your job?
• How do you deal with people – the good, the bad, and the ugly?
• Where do diversity, inclusivity, and thinking/learning styles fit?
• How do you design a Holistic Process?
• How do you build an effective Annotated Agenda?
• How do you structure facilitated workshops/meetings for a variety of business situations?

Objectives

FoCuSeD™ Business Facilitator is designed so that the students will be able to:

• Perform as effective FoCuSeD™ Facilitators immediately upon completion.
• Demonstrate an understanding of FoCuSeD™, its components and processes.
• Know "how to" incorporate their new skills and tools to enhance their job skills.
• Facilitate a variety of workshops/meetings.
• Demonstrate a level of proficiency in basic facilitation skills.
• Use effective FoCuSeD™ Facilitator skills in business and in life.
• Understand the IAF Core Facilitator Competencies and what they need to learn to achieve them. See IAF Certified™ Professional Facilitator | The Process

Materials

Each student receives:

• PDF version of the FoCuSeD™Business Facilitator Guide by Gary Rush, IAF CPF | Master
  
• Class handouts with agenda and exercises.
• Confidential Assessment
• A Class Certificate of Completion