Hybrid Facilitation: A Conversation with Jamie Champagne

Commlab Podcast with Jamie Champagne

Sherna Varayath 1:00
Hello everyone, welcome to the eLearning Champion pod. Today we are back with a brand new episode, and we'll be speaking about something that's been really interesting across organisations in the globe, about hybrid facilitation. Our guest today is Jamie Champagne. Jamie is beyond her passionate BA title and truly embodies business analysis and adding value to those around her everyday. An accomplished speaker, author and trainer, she enjoys sharing with others, ways to improve their analysis skill sets with productive and measurable results when not on a surfboard. Welcome, Jamie.

Jamie Champagne 1:59
Thank you so much. Appreciate being here, Sherna.

Sherna Varayath 2:02
It's a pleasure to have you on board. So let's get right to the first question.Why is hybrid facilitation so important? What is the definition?

Jamie Champagne 2:18
So I love using the word hybrid facilitation. So the first part hybrid, we've come into a world where we have people working both what we'd call remotely, from digital spaces, just like we're connecting here today, and as well as in person. And what we're finding out is we're having to bring those teams together. And so that's when I mentioned like hybrid, a combination of in person and remote participants, however, they're participating from, so phone zoom, teams, just through a collaboration board, et cetera. Now the facilitation part that's on us as learning leaders and more because how do you get them to engage, how do you get them to work with each other, not just towards you or for you. You really are facilitating that event. And so when you talk about that facilitation is meant to make easy. How do you make it easy for all those participants to participate? And again, I'm big on that, calling them even participants, not just attendees.

Sherna Varayath 3:29
Right. Interesting. Not just attendees, that makes sense. So what is the key to running a great hybrid session?

Jamie Champagne 3:39
So key to hybrid session starts with your planning work. So starting back I always tell people just like any meeting we're gonna have, have a goal, real clear goal and not just to get together, have a desired outcome. What are you producing? So just like you say like our normal meetings and things will run, whether it's hybrid or not, have an outcome. What are we producing at the end of this session? If you start with that, that's key to helping a great hybrid session. Now when you talk through though, thinking through an entire hybrid session, it becomes like a challenge and in this wonderful dance, because first ask yourself, are you going to be in person with others or are you facilitating remotely? Can I have two approaches on this because if you're in person, it feels a little easier with in person people, you're right there in the room with them, you can talk to them. So I say your first planning activity is to focus on the virtual participants, those participating digitally. What makes it easy for them to participate? You might have to think about telling the people in person to always face the camera or talk into the microphone, but see you have to think about that. what you're doing, though, is how can I make it easy for my online participants to feel just as engaged as my in person? Now, if you're online, it's easy to have chats with each other right now, and we could see their reaction, real easy.

So then we'll flip the script. How do you make it easy when you’re remote? To make those in person, those few people meeting in a conference room together, how do you make them feel just as included as it is easy to share online? Do you have printed copies for them? Do you have spaces for them to show, and just even that treating everybody equal, I think is part of that planning work. It's easy to kind of feel that someone, oh, they're digital, they can just access everything. Did you make it easy? In person, is it easy to access the digital? Sharing screens? Have someone in person share the screen, so I make a big point if we're going to have a big hybrid session, everyone coming to the in-person group, they all have to be on laptops because that's how everyone else is participating. So you're trying to keep things equal, you know that repeat things. Now there's a whole lot of facilitation work you can do during the session, and we can always talk more about some of these activities, you know for sure, Sherna is call people out by names. That's one of the best things we can do. You know, thanks Sherna for the question. But here's a great facilitation trick. When you ask me a great question, a lot of times Sherna because, I'm the host or the facilitator, you're going to ask me, You'll be like Jamie, you have a question? And what I'll do, though, is I'll go Sherna, great question. Joe, what do you think about that answer? What do you think about that question? See how like immediately try to get it back to the group. You know, I'm here to help you all be successful. And I think that's that mindset walking in, if we can all think about it that way. How are you making it easy for everyone else to learn, to grow, to achieve those outcomes?

It's not about what I know because, I know it right? You and I are great, we're good. It's how do we get everyone else comfortable? No, that's going to walking into it. And with the structure and I've got more that anyone can reach out to me on LinkedIn for is that structure, that planning part how you engage and then don't forget to follow up, because if you did things virtually send it on e-mail, make sure everybody accesses, put it in a shared Google Drive or SharePoint site.

Make sure it goes out to the team, even if they were right there, and one more trick here is be mindful like you said, treat everyone equally. On a virtual meeting, I can stay on longer, even though we ended it. And I'll just stay a few minutes just to see if there's any last minute questions. But those questions need to go to the group. Same thing in person, a lot of times in person, the video will cut off and in person there might be some side conversations. I'll ask people, Can I include this question in our meeting notes or is this something we wanna not talk about here because we have lost our virtual participants? See, that's not fair to them. So when you wrap it up, make sure you're still treating everyone equal, that team and communicating out. So there was a lot real short, I know Shannon. So let me know if you have any questions as we keep going. But you know that that kind of structure, I really think makes you successful when working in hybrid teams.

Sherna Varayath 9:00
Right. And I think that's really important. Like we take everybody together like you mentioned, it's not about just one person, right? It's about everyone, we have to take everyone together as a group. So that makes a lot of sense. So what techniques do you use to help run a great session?

Jamie Champagne 9:13
I'm not the biggest agenda person, but I like that desired outcome, and it's the piece there, when I put the desired outcome out there, that's my goal.

First, invite the people you need to achieve that goal, that outcome, but then only those people you need to achieve that outcome. I know it sounds interesting and especially a lot of groups are like, well, you have to invite everybody. I go, No, you don't have to invite everyone to your session. You can share with them the outcomes. Most of us don't care if me and Sherna, who said what or who came up with the idea. We care about the decision. So let's just send that decision information out to all those CC line in the emails. Here's the people wanted to know, but they don't need to be there. And so that same context, if we get a meeting and someone accepted, you know, we get all the team, we're all on there. We still don't have one person. I can't be successful running a good meeting for the outcome if I don't have the needed people there, I will actually ask a question right at the beginning. I'll be like Sherna, you know, Alekha is not here today. We needed her for this discussion. Should we wait for her? should we go ahead and reschedule? I know that's there, you know? And I asked the team. I still don't make the decision right away. But I do ask the team saying, we wanted Aleka to be here today to help us make this decision. She's not here. Are we worried about moving forward? And I'll just ask that you can save a lot of time by getting the right people in the right room, can really help. Then it's a piece. So if you kind of again, where are you going to put this output, so like go through The who, what, when, where, why. We have our why, why are we meeting? We have our who get there. What are we going to do? So are we going to brainstorm? Prioritise? Are we going to walk through content? Going to do an exercise? kind of give me the what structure, then ask where and how. So where is everyone going to be doing this work? It could be a virtual whiteboard, because we can't do one right in the room or can they use the whiteboard in the room? Those that are in the conference room say, well, the camera cannot look at that. See, this is the where and the how. The where is where do we put the work, how is how does everyone see the same visual. How does everyone hear the same conversations you know and like you're gonna let small groups in in person? Do we have room for small groups online or the virtual participants? You know, that same piece is now You get to set up that technology part, and I and even think about this, it goes both ways. Like I said, remember, if you got to think about your in person participants versus your virtual, depending on how you're facilitating.

So here's an interesting thought. Online we get the zoom link, the team link and we get in and everybody get access.

Does that conference room for the onsite people Does that require a key card or badge access? Is it unlocked? Is it busy? Here's an interesting thing. Does it have plugs for power supply? Does it have outlets? We forget that or my favourite, Wi-Fi. There was no Wi-Fi in the room one time. Oh my goodness. So like you say, it's still trying to make things equal. and again it's not equal, but like treating everyone as valid participants. what does each person need to participate? So they say during that that planning work is so important to make your session go pretty easy.

From the techniques that I try and like, try to do a little less. We feel like we have to own it. You know I can see you're like. Yes. Nope, I'm coming in. I'm gonna do a great session. It's OK, Sherna. To just say, here's the topic. Why don't you all chime in or what? Do you all know about this topic? Why do I have to start off right away and explaining the whole topic? Why I don't say, What does everyone know about it and go around the room? Great way to get everybody to say something right from the beginning. Call everybody out by name. Don't just say conference room. You're up. You know, Joe, Sammy, Fernando, call them out by name in the conference room because you're going to do that online too. Yeah, I think that's a piece. Is once you get into it, if you've got a good plan, step back, and just ask a few good questions to keep people rolling. It could be, is this enough discussion now to make a decision? Is everybody ready? What more would you all need? You know, like just a few good questions to seat it. What do you feel comfortable leaving here to teach others?

Just kind of there and then like you say that wrap up is just to follow up, you'll be real clear always leave time no matter how much people are into session, end it early so you have time for wrap up. I think that's one thing we can be to be good on your time. If you said an hour, at 50 minutes, wrap up the conversation so you give yourself that space. You can always follow up with more, but going over and people like I gotta jump to another meeting and I'm done with the training, they're going to lose it. Get a nice solid ending of what we've done and what's next, cuz. Again, it's about your desired outcomes. if you want people to understand how to use this system, doesn't matter what agenda you followed or not, as long as they're comfortable.

What's the next step? I know there's a lot in there that say it gets to be so much fun once you get into it, and I think that's the part that we need to remember, the session after the planning and before the ending part and follow up really just enjoy that and get them participating with each other as much as possible.

Sherna Varayath 15:40
Right. And I really took the right person in the right room wrapping up on time, wrapping up on time is something we all face and some of the other hybrid facilitation sessions, like everybody really needs that time. Like you said, the follow up can happen. But yes, wrapping up on time is really need the need of the hour. How to best facilitate when you are in person?

Jamie Champagne 16:24
So when you're in person, one of the biggest things again I like is the names because Then you can be real clear on the names and it's like a personal pet peeve for me. But when someone asks a question, don't assume everyone heard it. Just restate it and you can do it totally like you say. Sherna, did I hear correctly you had a question about what to do in person, is that correct? So just I can say it that way. Like I'm validating, make sure I heard it correct. But now I'm restating it and also even though you're in person, we forget like online, we know things are recording.

In person, if you have the microphones that are in between people, you want to make sure anything that comes from your audio is very clearly set. So that's one great thing to do is always repeat questions, especially in person because I want it right into the microphone. I want it recorded, that way the transcripts have it. So restate questions. And like I just mentioned, deflect it to another participant, cause especially you're in person, the virtual participants will feel like they're coming towards you, remember, they're coming to the group, and if someone doesn't chime in right away, they're all kind of look at you and you're like, oh, good question. You know, Sardina, what thoughts do you have on that, Roger, and just turn that right over. Cause again, I want them talking as much as possible. On there and then it's being mindful of what is happening both in person and online. So in person you're looking for a sidebar conversations. If that happens, encourage it to be shared to the group cuz online can't do that. my biggest thing I actually watching is like for scribbles or someone wants to get up on the whiteboard and Draw Something out real quick. Here's what I'm thinking, pausing and say, hold on, let me get the camera real quick. So everyone online can see that, which again now like planning purposes, do you have a second camera? By the way, ask your security, can your smartphone be a second camera? That's an easy way. Normally I can try to get like more visuals, or I'll even just pause and say hold on everyone, I'll go take a picture and upload it to the teams chat, because I want them seeing what's happening in person. Yes. So that's the part is the watch for is sit there when you're in person, if I was online, did I hear it? Did I see it? How can I interact with it in fact? And so even in person, I make you bring your laptops. Everyone else is online.

Why do you get to just sit there? No, be online and that's again where I say like, where is the work happening?I'll do a Google doc or you know, a file on OneDrive. Share that out with the group and I'll say all right, great idea. Sherna, can you add that into our document?

And again, even just like that, see one more facilitator trick. No matter what you're doing, when someone has a great idea or says something, you don't be a note taker. Ask them. The more they do, the more they're bought into what you are trying to achieve.

So even just like that, I'll be like, great idea. Sherna, can you put that in our Google doc? So now Sherna is owning it, ownership is great. Those are some of my favourite ways to really call out. Like you say, when you're in person and other people are not.

Sherna Varayath 20:11
That's a really cool facilitation trick. So, Jamie, how to best facilitate when you're participating remotely?

Jamie Champagne 20:26
Oh, perfect. Flip in the script now here. So the piece on there again, I'm gonna repeat the questions and be really clear on calling out the conversation. It's hard because you want to be respectful to someone talking if you hear something though coming from, especially the in person participants, I will just kind of pause and say hold on one second, I apologise. Was there a question from the in person? So I try to be nice and not call out. Hey, there was some discussion I didn't hear. Hold on, was there a comment or question? We want to chime in from, you know, and again not to say in person, I'll say from Joe or Selma. You won't be like someone did. Was there something you wanted to add to that last comment want to be clear. And again I'm always using their names. These are people you know call them out as people. They're never groups. Everyone means no one a lot of times because, you say everyone's doing a good job, like, well, everyone's gonna work on this afterwards.

No. That's why we like you say like good project managers. You know, you can task assigned to people, call people out by name, be very individual on there. And what again what you can do is instead of restating what someone might have said online, same thing, get the in person participants someone there to say, Is this what you agree with, or can you restate you know your thoughts on this topic, or how you might go about this just for clarity. Getting the second opinion, it helps make sure everybody really is hearing the same thing. So I I like to do that a lot of times is ask could be like you know that's a great perspective. Sherna. Aleka, what is that the same approach you use? And she could be like, Yep. And we just keep moving or. Well, I think about it, you know, but now I've got her participating, and that stops me from having to say, All right, Sherna, I did. Is this exactly what you said or meant? Again, one more time. Try to do less as a facilitator. It's one of those weird things that during the session, we want to do everything to make it run right. You're actually doing a whole lot less.

The planning part, plan to be virtual. So what are your options here? Like we haven't talked about this like if you share materials, This is why I loved collaboration tools because I can keep sending links. Here's the link even if you didn't print it out. If you have print out for in person, how is it online? Did you tell them ahead of time you might want to print it out, bring this with you. Is digital OK? You know, maybe Digital's totally fine.

but do you have those ready? So like for when you're remote, you'll really make sure everything's ready to resend, reshare, but that's where even again my in person participants, when I'm remote. That's one of the big things is I want them online with us, so now we're almost turning them from in person participants to virtual, acting just like the rest of the team. You know, it's OK that you don't have to turn their laptop cameras on, use the conference room camera.

But work in that same space we are, use the same meeting chat that we are. That can really help. Again, like I say, we're just bringing everyone together. And the more that people come in together, the more they feel they can work together on the outcomes.

Sherna Varayath 23:54
Right, right. Interesting. What considerations are there to getting the teams to participate asynchronously?

Jamie Champagne 24:22
Asynchronously, that just means we're not gonna all participate at the same time. And that can be a lot of times we see that with hybrid because not everyone's on at the same time, we have time zones and we leave the open chat, they watch the recordings. It's a wonderful world. We can live in to be so productive, maybe too productive, too many opportunities. So again, go back and I'm always a big person, desired outcome. What needs to be produced and in what way may all these people participate to produce that outcome?

And so sometimes it could be as simple as review and approve. So how will they review it? And how will they approve it? That's so far asynchronous is all right. You can attend meeting where we're going to discuss it. How do you get part of that discussion? Well, maybe the recording. And then how do you submit your approval? So there's a thought that for asynchronous, if some of us met, not everyone was live, we leave the meeting knowing not today, but two days from now, we need to be in agreement on our decision forward. So like you know, I again like how you said leave that time at the end of the meeting or leaving time acknowledge we're gonna have some people who weren't here live who are gonna have to participate. Well, I call it asynchronous, so not at the same time, they're gonna participate on their time and so leave that knowledge there. OK, they will. So how will we get their approval? And so maybe again, this is where I like everyone's equal. If you're letting someone 2 days from now vote yes or no, why not let the entire group vote yes or no from now? So sure, some of us discussed it, recorded it. We put our notes. All that goes to everybody. Everybody on Friday vote to confirm.

And then again, what are your next steps? Always be clear if our vote is confirmed, I'll move it forward and you know, submit to approval or the, you know financing group. If it's not approved, we will meet next Tuesday to address any questions, but then even like that, OK, where are those questions gonna go for people who maybe can't meet next Tuesday? Is there a space for them to ask questions and to get answers? So that might be my meeting agenda for Tuesday. Everyone submit questions. Those who can attend Tuesday. We're gonna talk through these. You know, and then I can even ask 'cause if I have those questions ahead of time, Is there anyone else we want to invite to Tuesday's meeting who can help answer the question? So like you say, Sherna, if you couldn't make Tuesday, but you had a question about the trainers for that training session. Well, I don't know that answer and the people in our group didn't, but I'll invite you know, Alekha for coming in to Tuesday's meeting because she can help answer that question. But again, all my questions go in that a shared space. All the answers go in a shared space. And then Yep, that next step. So that big deal and I challenge especially like a lot of like project managers and people trying set up and you know, they're ones responsibly responsible for like especially like delivery of training programmes and more. As much as you can make your content publicly available within your organisation.

But putting permissions and hiding on your computer, it just makes hard to manage. And that, especially when it's work stuff, if it's not like about, salaries or private, very strategic decisions at the board level, why not put it in the shared space? Your computer drive isn't the best spot for people to access. Put it out there, 'cause. otherwise, again, I don't want the ownership. It's their material. They're the ones going to be using it.

Yes, absolutely. Right. Like how much if you pause or not, how much of your work right now is helping others be successful? So what is their content? where does that it go that they can access? So thinking again, this is that mindset can really help us when, you know, not everyone might be there same time.

Those are some of my favourite tricks and I think we're realising how much we do so much. And it's like to help everyone else be successful. That's the definition of a facilitator. That's exactly what it is.

Sherna Varayath 29:10
Yeah, yes, absolutely. I like how you said that the the primary goal is to make sure facilitation is pretty easy, right? That really makes the most difference.

Jamie Champagne 29:29
Yes, yes. And like you said, it might make the planning work more work and follow up more work, but the actual facilitation is supposed to be very easy. Get them doing as much as possible and then being your participants. And once you kind of switch that mindset going. Ah, my work is just before and after. That's where I think you could start being a really successful facilitator.

Your sessions run really well because people enjoy it because they're participating.

They weren't being talked to and just sat on a boring meeting and can't hear half stuff, they were having to do all of it, they were engaged.

And people I think really appreciate it. 'cause, you're really valuing their time. You're coming in with a plan, a structure to make it so they can be successful. And when we approach that, that's how we get really good change and impacts.

Sherna Varayath 30:13
Yes. There's a real big difference when participants feel involved in the meeting throughout and I think that's where good facilitation comes in.

Jamie Champagne 30:37
Absolutely, absolutely. Like you say, it feels good to them. They don't know you're being a good facilitator. They may not even have a clue what that means, but they feel good. They feel accomplished. They feel part of the team, they feel really valued for what they're contributing, and that's what you want. That's what you really want.

Sherna Varayath 30:41
Feels good, yes. OK. Jamie, I really love some of the points that you shared. Desired outcome is my key take away from this.

Jamie Champagne 31:31
Yes, in a desired outcome that can go for any meeting or session we run. And I think that like even I was creating a facilitator's guide for one of my workshops and where it's a workshop. So people are coming in and they're going to work, and it was like what do I want them comfortable knowing when they leave here.

And to put that right on the top of my Word document, but every time I have a question like should I add this in like you know, should we do this activity and I'm it's just me right here 'cause I'm planning. I go back to that desired outcome and go. Does that help them achieve this? And if it does, it's included. I'm like, Yep, better put it in there. That'll be good for them. Right. But if it's like, oh, I'm not sure that it really goes back like it's a good activity, people might like. You'd probably love it. But I'm like, but it's not to that goal. That's our desired outcome.

You know, today I want to feel the time and like, you know, these are like longer programmes where you're like, oh, I got three days to do it. It's like, but if it's not. towards that goal, it's good, it's not in scope, it's not valued at this time, and I think that's where we start seeing it can help us because you have great ideas, and we probably over analyze our own work. Be really focused. Be very clear on what you are and are not going to talk about. and that can be a great thing even to level Set. Opening your session with your goal, but oh, there's one more trick. Oh, I always love this one too.

And you know, especially if you've got people calling in and participating in all different formats, right?

And someone will say, oh, when are you going to show us how to do this? And that was not part of your plan. So what you do if you have a very clear desired outcome, then I just go back to that. Well, that's a very good question. Today we were focused on only achieving this. What I'll do is I'll either set up, like you say, we can set up some more time or put that in the feedback that we should add more space for that, you know. But I'll go back to the goal. Our goal for today was to achieve this. Start with that first before you respond of oh, that's not part of today's session. Just go back. Our goal was to be comfortable in this space here. That sounds a little bit outside, I'll add it. So now again my planning, where do I add those questions that are out of scope for follow up? Here's where it goes and I do the same all the time on meetings cause like just even a meeting a quick meet team meeting.

And someone goes, Oh well, we're at it. Can we talk about this? If it's a meeting you scheduled, instead of saying like no, or letting them talk about a subject and derail your whole meeting, I will do the same thing and say Sherna, great question. I set up today's meeting to talk about this. Would you like me to put that topic on hold and I'll reschedule our meeting for another time to talk about that and we can talk about your new topic because it might be important.

Or do we want to table your topic for end of meeting if we have time and let's finish our first goal of today, our desired outcome was to achieve this. And to be perfectly honest, a lot of times when I ask that in front of the group, the group is like Oh no, no, just go back, let's finish why we came here and if we have time, we'll talk about it.

But if I don't have that anchor, now you can sway anywhere else.

Sherna Varayath 35:16
Right, right. What would be one facilitation trick that you love to share with all other facilitators?

Jamie Champagne 35:34
Oh, let's see. Favourite facilitation trick. Probably one of my favourites. It's gotten so powerful is don't share your screen, make somebody else share their screen, because it's their stuff, right? And I will say, if you've been very quiet in my meeting and not participating, even if you totally agree, so like you're just quiet because you agree?

I'll ask that person to please share their screen just so that we can walk through and let them help us type or just point out or navigate because it gets them involved. Now you know how if they are involved or not. And so if they weren't they’re instantly involved, it keeps them focused. And again, this is where it's really powerful. Even when I've done that. I love watching other people chime in now.

And you know, Aleka will come in and say, Sherna, no, no, no over there. You need to go over there. See that menu, that's what we want to look at. I let them. Chiming in, but see now they're instantly talking to Sherna, no longer me because she's the one sharing her screen. But see if I share my screen. Everyone starts talking to Jamie versus I want everyone talking to each other and I'm just in the background. So that power there and especially like we're talking hybrid here. Get the in person. You know, Joe, Why don't you share your screen to the team and talk about what you're showing here?

It's a great way. Again, get them in. Get them equal. Now that in person participant needs to show their screen just like an online person would show their screen.

Yep, I love that. That one's probably just get on so much value over the years.

Sherna Varayath 37:21
Yes, it makes sense. Yes, it's very valuable. And like you said, it's powerful.

Jamie Champagne 37:27
And especially think about if you're teaching like we have so much technology and how many of us are trying to help people better use the technology.

Me showing you will not let help you remember as much as you doing it. And so remember facilitators, remember it's about make it easy for them. So I've been on the call like left, left. Left. No no no other left. Oh OK go back. Like it's so hard for you because you can't do it. You would do it in 10th of the time but remember,

What's the goal? They need to know it. They need to be comfortable. Just 'cause you're comfortable. It's not about you. It's all about them.

Sherna Varayath 38:04
Yes, well, those are some really good tricks, really cool tricks and suggestions that you shared, Jamie. Thank you so much for sharing your amazing insights. It's been a pleasure to have you here on the eLearning champion pod.

Jamie Champagne 38:32
Oh, awesome. Sherna, this has been so great. And this can be just a starting point that we're on LinkedIn and more to continue this conversations love asking the questions, getting great questions to me is that people are always welcome to reach out for more. Since I know it's a short time and a lot of content here that they can always reach out on LinkedIn for me for more as well.

Sherna Varayath 38:57
Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much, Jamie for your time. Have a lovely day ahead. OK, I think we are good. Jamie. Thank you so much. I personally learned a lot from the insights that you shared.

Jamie Champagne 39:20
You. I'm glad it was helpful. I think this is fun.