What Is Facilitation?
The dictionary defines facilitation as the act of making easier. More specifically, Roger Schwarz (in the 2007 revision of his book, The Skilled Facilitator) provides this definition:

Group facilitation is a process in which a person whose selection is acceptable to all members of the group, who is substantively neutral, and who has no substantive decision-making authority diagnoses and intervenes to help a group improve how it identifies and solves problems and makes decisions, to increase the group's effectiveness. (page 5)

Using methods that range from simple brainstorming to elaborate computer-mediated problem-solving protocols, facilitators help groups to plan projects and strategies, collect and share information, interpret and analyze data, review and evaluate products, make and debate policies, deconstruct and reconstruct workflow procedures, handle crisis, resolve conflicts, prioritize ideas, and make decisions.

What is Facilitative Training?
Although many trainers call themselves facilitators, purists would argue that trainers cannot play the role of facilitators since they have pre-specified goals for the participants. There are also debates about whether facilitation is a subset of training or whether it is the other way around. I prefer to run away from these futile arguments and, for the sake of clarifying what I plan to explore in this chapter, offer the following definition:

Facilitative training is a process in which a person assists a group of participants to select, modify, or accept a set of learning objectives and to acquire new skills, knowledge, and attitudes related to these objectives. The facilitator supports collective inquiry through the use of activities that encourage participants to interact with each other and with a variety of content resources.

Facilitative Training Compared to Traditional Training
Before we begin discussing details of facilitative training, it will be a good idea to compare this approach with typical training in the corporate workplace. Here are a dozen comparisons between the two:

Desired outcome
Traditional Training: Effective learning and improved workplace performance.

Facilitative Training: The same: Effective learning and improved workplace performance.

Role
Traditional Training: Traditional trainers primarily present lots of standardized content.

Facilitative Training: Facilitative trainers primarily support collaborative learning by a group of participants

Professional preparation
Traditional Training: Train-the-trainer sessions emphasize presentation skills and consistent delivery of the training content.

Facilitative Training: Train-the-facilitative-trainer programs emphasize conducting activities that support the group to learn on its own.

Perception of learners
Traditional Training: All learners must have prerequisite skills. Differences in learning styles are acknowledged but the focus is on catering to linguistic and logical intelligences.

Facilitative Training: The current group of learners and their learning styles determine the choice of content and activities.

Overall design
Traditional Training: The design of content and activities are predetermined and consistently implemented.

Facilitative Training: Original design is viewed as a suggested safety net. Final design organically evolves during the session.

Goals and objectives
Traditional Training: A standard set of precisely stated goals and objectives are specified for all participants.

Facilitative Training: Session begins with broad goals that are modified through the group's inputs.

Content
Traditional Training: Content is the most important element. Based on task analyses, accurate and need-to-know content is delivered through participant manuals, slides, and standardized trainer presentations.

Facilitative Training: Content is given lesser importance than the process. Content is obtained from different types of existing resources, including participants' current expertise and experience.

Activities
Traditional Training: Activities are given lesser emphasis than content. When there is a time crunch, traditional trainers usually skip the activities or reduce the time spent on them.

Facilitative Training: Activities are considered to be the most important factor that contributes to learning. These activities require participants to gather, generate, process, and apply the content.

Interaction
Traditional Training: Frequent interactions between the participant and the content are required.

Facilitative Training: Frequent interactions among participants are required.

Questions for participants
Traditional Training: A standard set of questions, generated by the instructional designer, is interspersed throughout the training session. These questions (for which the trainer has The Correct Answers) are used for controlling the direction of presentations and discussions.

Facilitative Training: The facilitative trainer frequently makes up and uses open-ended questions. Participants are encouraged to generate their own questions.

Questions from participants
Traditional Training: Questions from participants are generally discouraged or postponed. The traditional trainer responds to participants' questions with standard answers.

Facilitative Training: Questions from participants are encouraged and used to change the direction of presentations and discussions. The facilitative trainer encourages collaborative inquiry to discover the answers.

Sequence
Traditional Training: Traditional trainers stick to a single hierarchical sequence of content presentation.

Facilitative Training: Facilitative trainers modify the sequence to suit the needs and preferences of participants.