Our FAST Professional Facilitation (Session Leader) Workshop course prepares workshop leaders to make the most of critical projects and for those pursuing a career in facilitation. The course is intended for those that spend a considerable portion of their time, or for whom the value of workshops and team performance is critically high. The course is intensive, well-rounded, and targeted for today's fast paced, process-driven business change environments.

Expert facilitation is proven to dramatically increase productivity workshops, in meetings, group-settings, and within teams especially where it is important to plan, decide, analyze, and extract high-quality information in a compressed time. Our structured facilitation technique guides individuals and teams to develop clear deliverables, superior problem-solving, and consensus-based decisions.

The FAST technique uses an interactive approach built on twenty years of facilitation training and also practical experience in a wide range of industries, situations, and group types.

FAST was originally developed as an extension and improvement over JAD. FAST embraces JAD/JAR workshops but extends facilitation to a range of project, IT, quality, and corporate planning applications. FAST supports your need for information gathering, team building, decision-making, mediation, planning, and ideation.

COURSE GOAL

Our goal is to prepare you to plan and lead important initiatives in you firm or for your clients. Our FAST graduates apply SMART rules and preparation plans, improve their session leader or facilitation skills, and learn how to build and sequence effective meeting and workshop steps and activities. Our intense, five-day curriculum teaches workshop leaders how to:

• Perform as an effective session leader from "the board room to the boiler room"
• Become a more active listener and effective leader
• Build methodologies and process models that clearly define policies (ie, "Why"), rules (ie, "What"), and procedures (ie, "How")
• Construct activities, each yielding outputs required by subsequent steps
• Create annotated workshop/meeting agendas, assuring your overall process is always under control and transferable
• Expand the range of situations where you provide leadership
• Manage group conflict and "problem people"
• Identify appropriate workshop tools and team-building opportunities
• Heavily improve preparation (of session leaders and participants)
• Plan and estimate workshops and sequential meetings

Read what students have to say about FAST training.

WHAT IS FAST?

FAST is a proprietary product developed as an improvement over IBM's JAD. FAST, from MG Rush / Morgan Madison & Company, is the most comprehensive facilitated interactive technique available. It assures information gathering where consensus replaces aggregating individual interviews. FAST fully integrates communication and group dynamics to derive consensus-based information. FAST is World Class training.

Since 1985 FAST has provided the foundation for successful meetings and workshops worldwide by embracing:

• Project and portfolio management demanding consensus-based prioritization
• Enterprise/initiative planning, project definitions, and team charters
• Strategic mapping through life-cycle to execute your strategy
• Business process and IT projects (eg, SOA, Requirements Gathering, Objects, UML, Use-Cases, SIPOC, etc.)
• Planning, analysis, design, and change management using any methodology
• Business architecture, alignment, and decision-support models

FAST improves the governance and ownership of information and decision-making with proven results:

• 400% reduction of total enterprise resources compared to interviews
• Enhanced communication between all parties involved
• Fewer mistakes and changes down the road
• More complete, consensus-based information
• Clear and traceable assumptions, preferences, and decisions

The essence of FAST is our:

• Extensive reference manual that covers all aspects of facilitated workshops including: history, facilitator skills, group dynamics, workshop agendas, workshop preparation, project planning, and visual aids.
  
• Five-day FAST Session Leader Workshop to train facilitators--- frequently called "THE boot camp" for facilitators, producing some of the finest facilitators in the world.
  
• Availability of continuing professional development through our Advanced Facilitator Workshops that enables experienced facilitators to expand their abilities and continue to grow as facilitators.
  
• Commitment to continual updates to our content and improvements to our technique through our alumni-only online resources and advanced classes
• Continual fine-tuning and improvement of our technique through our own (and alumni) in-field application of FAST as regular, practical facilitators - We practice what we preach!

MATERIALS

COURSE OUTLINE - 5 DAY CURRICULUM

DAY 1

Orientation

• Welcome/introductions: purpose, scope, goals, and expectations
• Using the reference materials and handouts
• Helping groups to make more informed decisions
• Overview of technique including methods, phases, and roles

Facilitation Skills

• Leadership: clarity and consensus
• Facilitation skills
• Frequently used tools, tips, and intervention techniques

DAY 2

Facilitation Skills (continued)

• Power brainstorming process: diverge, analyze, and converge steps
• Trivium: logic (WHY), rhetoric (WHAT), and grammar (HOW)
• Managing group conflict
• Extracting high quality information
• Cognitive biases
• Facilitating decisions and prioritization

DAY 3 & 4

Methodological Skills

• Agenda concepts: codifying and sequencing the right questions
• Planning-type meetings and workshops: how to prepare, build, launch, and control
• Facilitating ownership and implementation: ("Guardian of Change") activities
• Analysis meetings and workshops: how to prepare, build, launch, and control
• Design meetings and workshops: how to prepare, build, launch, and control

Applied Facilitation

• Various "How to" scenarios and student-led simulations

Meeting and Workshop Skills

• Preparation and participant interviews and handouts
• Estimating and coordinating multiple, serial, and virtual meetings
• Documentation process: if it is not documented, it did not happen
• Workshop logistics: preventing distractions and helping groups stay focused
• Risk analysis: measuring and managing risk with project team and executive sponsors

DAY 5

Student Skills and Immersion

• Individual case studies
• Personalized counseling & critique
• Continuous and sustainable improvement

SCHEDULE

Private classes may be customized for your own group or situation. Minimum private group size is four; maximum is fifteen. Private classes provide the best opportunity for us to tailor the curriculum for your company's needs.

Public classes are typically held monthly.

Class dates are subject to change. Please check our Schedule page for the most current sites and dates.

SEE COURSE SCHEDULE

REGISTER NOW

(Ask about other dates. Occasionally, a private class client may permit non-competing persons to participate in their on-site classes. Private, on-site classes occur throughout the U.S. and World.)

Participants also receive our copyrighted reference manual plus session leader templates and workshop tools for alumni use and distribution. (See who else has chosen FAST.) Numerous private companies and governmental bodies have each sent dozens of participants through our core curriculum. Contact us today for details, arrangements, or for other questions.

COST

The cost per student is US$2,750.

Fee includes training, materials, snacks, beverages, and lunch. We limit public class size to provide each student with opportunities to practice and enable personal attention from the instructor. Transportation, meals outside of class, entertainment, and lodging are the responsibility of the student.

Please inquire for private class pricing and available dates (for on-site, corporate needs). The on-site fee covers training, materials, and instructor travel. Ideally, on-site classes should contain six to twelve students.

If you would like to attend a specific class, plan to send someone(s), or are waiting on final approvals or confirmation, go ahead and call or write today to reserve a seat. Classes fill up quickly and are limited in size. If the class you select is full, we will notify you and place you on a waiting list if you choose.

PREREQUISITES

Students receive the most benefit from the course if they have:

• Good organizational skills
• Some understanding of business problems
• Familiarity with business analysis
• Moderate comfort working in front of a group

WHO PREFERS FAST?

Here are some of the companies that prefer FAST. See our Clientele section for a more extensive list of organizations that prefer FAST.

YOUR NEXT STEP

To reserve a space, arrange for a private class, or inquire about this and other courses, please call Kevin Booth at 630-954-5883 or ; or contact Terrence Metz at 630-954-5882 or , or register on-line.