One of the services Terra Infirma offers is facilitation. I'm just about to change the entry on this site for it as it sounds a bit flowery and, well, wimpy. Most people have a picture of do-we-have-to away days and token public consultation. Well it can be used for these, but it is a powerful weapon with applications way beyond that.

Facilitation really means group working using an outside agent to guide the process from problem definition to solution. We're starting to integrate it into our projects where we can as it gives the client ownership of the solution, rather than the traditional consultant's report/dust trap/shelf filler. I've used facilitation in the past to help large rooms of industrialists come up with solutions that have diverted many thousands of tonnes of 'waste' into useful and lucrative uses.

But like many people facilitating, I was winging it, frankly, using common sense, trial and error, and no little charm ;-). So, last week I went on an excellent course run by Resource. The course has confirmed my approach was broadly good, and it has given me a whole new armoury of tools, techniques and skills. These will be available either for stand alone sessions, or as an enhancement to our 'Lean, Mean & Green' and 'Low Carbon Business' programmes. So if you want to create sustainable change (in both senses of the word sustainable) in your organisation, get in touch.

Labels: change management, facilitation

On Tuesday I took the role as facilitator for the Durham Waste Awareness Partnership annual creative day. The Partnership consists of waste officers from Durham District and County Councils. It was felt that previous creative days had started getting repetitive, so they wanted someone to come in and shake it up a bit. Enter Terra Infirma.

I decided to do a bit of backcasting, that is, designing an idealised future and working out how to get there. This contrasts with the normal approach of forecasting where you start from the current situation and try and think of things that will improve it. The advantages of backcasting are:

- it frees the mind to think the unthinkable;
- you don't focus on current barriers;
- it is participative;

and, not least,

- it is good fun.

The process is:

1. Decide the endpoint you want to achieve: in this case, zero residual waste in wheelie bins.

2. Draw up a number of future scenarios which demonstrate this future: in this case we looked at two households, both time poor, but one cash rich and one cash poor. For each we did two scenarios - one where the household consumed roughly the same stuff as today but did things better (like recycling) and one where we could radically change their consumption patterns.

3. Think up clever ideas of how to achieve those scenarios.

The day was a success - we did come up with a (small) number of things that no-one had considered before, plus a huge raft of stuff that some councils were doing and could be applied to members of the Partnership.

If I could go back and change one thing I would have been stricter on following the backcasting process 'rules'. There was a tendency to fall back into the habit of forecasting when we got to stage 3.

Overall, feedback from the attendees was very positive and they really enjoyed the opportunity to think differently - hopefully they can take some of that back to their jobs even when they're back in the world of full e-mail in-boxes, voicemails and intrays.

Labels: backcasting, facilitation, facilitator, waste minimisation