Virtual Facilitation and Meetings

Are you a coach, consultant, teacher, trainer, educator, or learning and development professional?
Are you looking to transfer your knowledge and expertise into the virtual world?
Whether you are new to delivering education online, or an experienced and successful virtual facilitator who wants to hone their skills, this book is for you. Here we share the skills and behaviours of world-class facilitators, focusing on core principles that deliver the best results whatever your goal – be it facilitation, training, teaching or running meetings.
This is a guide for coaches, consultants, teachers, trainers, educators and learning and development professionals.
Deliver industry-leading live virtual learning sessions using effective strategies and you will engage your participants to get the results you, and they, need.
Facilitating learning in online classrooms is going to increase, not only while COVID-19 restricts our ability to get together, but well into the future. Companies will no doubt review their travel, accommodation and training budgets, and online learning is well placed to deliver significant cost savings. But will there be a cost in terms of quality? It will be the job of innovative educators to ensure that quality learning isn't sacrificed for convenience, and the outcomes of online learning reaps rewards for all involved – and, principally, for the learner.
The global pandemic has changed the way the world does business, perhaps forever. Many activities that were carried out face-to-face as a matter of course are now being done in the virtual world, equally matter-of-factly. We estimate that up to half of face-to-face facilitation will be replaced by virtual delivery when the 'new normal' embeds itself in our professional lives.
This new world requires significant new skills, and not least in the realms of learning and development. It offers new challenges to overcome, but big opportunities for those that can thrive in it.
We have designed this book to deliver what you need succinctly and in immediately actionable ways. You will learn how to:
• Transfer skills learned in the face-to-face world into the virtual environment.
• Master virtual facilitation, from preparation to delivery.
• Use interactive and participative tools to deliver creative sessions.
• Energise and engage your participants to bring out the best in them.
• Transfer your learning and development programmes to virtual delivery.
The types of events this will help you to manage include:
• virtual classrooms
• team-building events
• in-house training
• leadership and talent development
• meetings
• conferences
This book assumes that readers are already experienced and qualified to deliver facilitation and learning. It is not our job to teach educators how to educate, facilitators to facilitate, or presenters to present. What we will highlight, however, is how virtual is different to face-to-face, and how a blended approach can work. Some suggestions may seem obvious, particularly to those with decades of experience, but we don't want to miss out some of the simple points that can otherwise be overlooked.