Facilitation as a management discipline to support organizational development processes

Private and public organisations conduct an ever increasing number of Development workshops, and the focus on effective meetings and structured development processes is significant. On the basis of a literature review, this article elucidates the concept of facilitation and demonstrates how facilitation may be employed as a method to support organisational development processes. The article unfolds the concept of facilitation, identifies the processes that merit facilitation and demonstrates how facilitation work may be approached. The first step in the process is acknowledgement of the need for
facilitation and ensuring backing for the work required. Preparation of the processes is a main focus of the literature in the field, and several studies stress the advantages of using a model to structure the preparation and execution of the process. Facilitation per se and serving as a facilitator both require a series of competencies, personal as well as methodological, which are very much centred around group interaction. The final phase of development processes, i.e. implementation/execution, is not a main focus in the literature despite an increased focus on this dimension in, e.g., innovation literature. This article presents a range of reflections related to the implementation phase.