In today's rapidly evolving tech landscape, hybrid facilitation is key to fostering collaboration and innovation. This article explores how hybrid facilitation aligns with business goals, maximizes tech investments, and benefits the entire organization.

What is hybrid facilitation?

Hybrid facilitation is about how we enable hybrid teams, where there are people online while some people are physically present in the same space (i.e., conference room). This can be any combination of in-person and digital attendance together for a mutual goal. The facilitation focuses on those roles that enable these hybrid environments to be successful. Roles like business analysts and project managers and those leading teams.  Often, these roles are more challenged in hybrid environments as they have little to no authority over the people participating, yet all the responsibility to deliver on the organization’s strategy is on their shoulders. Their job is to literally make it as easy as possible for all the participants to focus on participating and achieving the session’s goals. But as challenging as this can sound, not to mention adding on the complexities of time zones, languages, culture, and technology, including hybrid environments in your strategic planning can enable productivity, efficiency, and most importantly, effectiveness.

How can hybrid facilitation align with our business goals?

Hybrid facilitation bridges the gap between in-person and remote teams, ensuring everyone is aligned with business objectives. This approach fosters collaboration and ensures that team efforts are directed toward achieving common goals. It is less about aligning with business goals as it is about enabling the business goals to be realized. And this is often where the facilitation is key. Facilitators keep people focused, on target, engaged and even probe with great questions to get everyone talking and diving into the topic at hand. As the name sounds, their job is to literally make it easy for the business to be conducted. Think of it not so much the format to facilitate a meeting with remote participants and think more about assisting in the exploration of a problem or opportunity by the people who know the most or need to be involved. This is simply a smart way to operate and not a “standard” or “business model” to follow. It is the enablement of success and why you want this advantage in your company.

What are the key benefits of hybrid facilitation?

Now hybrid facilitation increases productivity and team collaboration, leading to innovative solutions from diverse perspectives. It also enhances communication and ensures all team members are engaged, regardless of location. Decisions need to be made, ideas need to be generated, and challenges need to be solved. There is no luxury time of waiting for subject matter experts to be available. And think about that – you are seeking to get the experts together to input on a challenge or opportunity. That is your goal. Your goal is not to have the perfect meeting or fill their calendars. Focus on the business outcome and think of hybrid facilitated meetings as the fastest way to get SMEs together. Not only that, but you can also positively impact culture. When you have hybrid events, you are welcoming participants to participate in the manner that works best for them. Some people really do work better remote while others feed off of the energy of live discussions with others. The hybrid approach welcomes all. Are your meetings welcoming?

How can hybrid facilitation maximize our tech investments?

Now hybrid environments do not require a huge investment in technology. In fact, the easiest starting point is to leverage what you already have. But that means you need to know what technology is already in place and what the capabilities are of each investment. The trick is not to try to create a virtual conference room. Rather, the focus is on enabling the work. Think of that decision that needs to be made. What has to happen to get to that decision? There is discussion that has to happen, so that means good audio for all participants, regardless in-person or virtually. There might be materials to review, so that means visually presenting the materials, so a simple screen share. And records of what decisions were made and what went into that decision might be required. Then perhaps an artificial intelligence (AI) notetaker might be great to add. But it takes you knowing if you have screen sharing software, VoIP equipment, and what the policy is on AI applications. Enabling these technologies means you are enabling the teams to achieve the goals. Hybrid facilitation ensures that technology tools are used effectively, fostering a collaborative environment. This helps teams make the most of their tools, ensuring a strong return on investment and smarter future technology decisions when you align them back to what needs to be achieved.

So the question is to think about how hybrid facilitated events fit in your strategy. And keep that in mind – hybrid FACILITATION – it’s not just about remote meetings. It’s about bringing people together to get wildly productive. When you emphasize effective facilitation in your hybrid environments, teams go from boring status meetings to engaged working sessions with actionable outcomes. Now wouldn’t that be nice no matter how the teams get together?