Great Facilitation Agendas: What Little League Baseball Taught Me

Facilitation and coaching baseball require starting fast with a solid agenda.

Baseball coaches and facilitators often share the common problem of developing an agenda. And if one meaning of facilitation is to make things easier, then coaches and facilitators have a limited chance of success if they struggle right out of the gate. These are a few things I learned from many years of being a successful Little League Baseball coach and leading great facilitation.

Little League Baseball

At the beginning of the season, start with a 15-minute brainstorm. List on a pad of paper in two columns what you consider effective uses of time in past seasons and what strikes you now as time wasted.

Among the principles that inform a time-efficient practice (session) plan are:

1. Minimal time standing in line waiting for the next activity.

2. Move players (participants) quickly, station to station.

3. Incorporate stations (exercises) so that nobody wastes time and gets bored.

4. No long lectures. If you can’t explain a skill simply, players (participants) won’t learn it, anyway.

5. Lengthier talk about procedures, team culture, or life lessons can happen while stretching at the start of practice (before the session) or when the team naturally gathers in one place (breaks). Avoid distracting players when they are focusing on execution (a topic).

6. Tie practice (session) plans together to produce a cumulative effect. Players (participants) cannot understand everything in one practice (session).

Facilitation Agendas

Facilitation agendas should incorporate purpose, approach, work process, and deliverables.

The Basics

1. Start wide with all participants' input and ensure all participants have a similar understanding.

2. Establish a common understanding.

3. Establish the basis for decision making.

4. Establish a process for conflict resolution.

5. Use early successes to narrow focus and start building agreement.

6. Communicate activities to others, such as sponsoring organizations or internal departments.

7. Provide time and formats to consider disagreement.

Approaches

There are many facilitation conceptual models and frameworks. Several commons aspects can be used to develop a specific facilitation approach:

• Degree of hierarchical or group-led solution development

• Degree of learning or training development

• Type of agreement required to move forward (i.e., consensus or majority)

• Amount of participant interaction

• Linear or concurrent topic discussion and decisions

• Involvement of executive sponsors or decision maker(s)

Work Process

The agenda sets the process for a single session. A facilitation plan for multi-session efforts should include single-session agendas, or at least a framework of objectives and outcomes for each session.

Each agenda should focus on the effort's objective, process, and deliverables. In coordination with the executive sponsor, each facilitator should develop an overarching facilitation approach before setting single-session meeting agendas.

Example of Agendas

A three-part or a five-part structure is best for most facilitation.

Three-part

1. Opening – Session Objectives, Agenda Review, Previous Minutes Approval, Participant Comments/Updates

2. Main Body – Activities that accomplish session objectives

3. Closing – Action Items, Objectives Review, Session Feedback, Next Steps

Five-Part

1. Opening – Objectives, Agenda Review, Previous Minutes Approval, Participant Comments/Updates

2. Building – Secondary activities that build rapport, teamwork, and incremental accomplishment

3. Main Body – Primary Activity that accomplishes Meeting objectives

4. Falling – Validation of primary activity or set-up activity for next session

5. Closing – Action Items, Objectives Review, Session Feedback, Next Steps

Customizing the Agenda

1. Focus on special purposes and deliverables.

2. Customize based on participants and probable issues. Use pre-session exchanges to drill into participant perspectives and issues.

3. Balance time. For example, a standard time like 20 minutes should be used for all presentations rather than giving certain topics or speakers more time than others. If more emphasis is needed on a particular topic, have multiple 20-minute sessions to make intentional decisions about how participants spend their time.

4. Incorporate exercises and associated technologies. Field visits may be applicable for some topics.

Applying It with FINESSE

Setting the agenda is essential for coaching baseball and being a great facilitator. This article provides some tips for building an agenda and some examples. Above all, remember to take the time to develop a facilitation approach, a facilitation plan, and a well-thought session agenda.

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JD Solomon Inc provides solutions at the nexus of the natural and built environments. Contact us for more information on SAFE facilitation, facilitating strategic plans, and facilitating process improvements, risk assessments, and risk management plans. Sign-up for monthly updates on how we are applying reliability and risk concepts to natural systems.

Why Consider Asset Obsolescence Before Field Condition Assessments

Obsolete can mean no longer useful or no longer in style. Defining what it means to an organization early, no later, saves efforts and resources.

Obsolescence is a driving force behind the decisions to renew or replace assets. However, most asset management programs wait until after a field condition assessment is completed before discussing what asset obsolescence means. As part of asset management policy, incorporating obsolescence saves resources associated with a field condition assessment program, improves decision making, minimizes organizational risk, and maximizes ratepayer value.

Obsolescence Defined

Obsolete means no longer in use or no longer useful. A secondary definition is of a kind or style no longer current (old-fashioned). Calling something obsolete is justifiably a debate on how we define its usefulness or whether we prefer something newer.

From an industrial perspective, obsolescence is thought to occur because a like replacement that is superior in some way is available. Some superior ways include functionality, maintenance requirements, ease of replacement, quality of replacement parts, energy savings, or tradeoffs between scarce resources.

Risks

Obsolescence can be considered from two different views:

1. From the user perspective and the potential functions and resources lost or gained

• Opportunity costs associated with not having new technology

• Unexpected maintenance costs associated with aging assets

• Time delays associated with obtaining reliable critical spare parts

2. From an investment perspective and tradeoffs between upfront costs and lost revenue or compliance

• Lost capital funds

• Opportunity costs associated with expired accounting depreciation

• Opportunity costs of lost revenue associated with unreliability and unexpected failures

• Costs associated with lost regulatory compliance

• Costs associated with poor customer service and loss of goodwill

Obsolescence Thresholds

Theoretically, an organization can create a threshold level (such as costs, age, and lost functions) that triggers decisions. In practice, this seldom works because of changing business climates and the need, or desirability, to balance capital and operating costs.

The discussion is a rich one and beyond the scope of this article. However, studies and assessments have shown that more value to the organization is realized when considering the obsolescence of a larger portfolio rather than a narrow consideration of a few assets or asset types.

Practical Considerations

A cross-function team of front-line staff can produce realistic evaluations of obsolescence by asset class and type. Of course, the definition and criteria for evaluating obsolescence should be facilitated at the beginning of the effort.

A three-point evaluation system is appropriate for most organizations:

• 3 – obsolete now

• 2 – expected to be obsolete during the current capital program (normally 3 to 5 years)

• 1 – not expected to be obsolete for at least five years

A formal obsolescence review will save or defer resources from the field condition assessment when combined with a criticality assessment. Assets that are highly critical and obsolete now need condition assessments more than low-criticality assets that are not expected to be obsolete.

For organizations with thousands or tens of thousands of assets, a 10 to 20 percent reduction in assets that need condition assessments in the short term saves hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars.

Moving Forward

Obsolescence is a rich topic that impacts many aspects of an asset management program, including condition assessments, renewal & replacement decisions, capital programs, maintenance strategies, risk management, and reliability. This article touches on just one aspect.

The bottom line is that asset obsolescence should be discussed and defined upfront. Waiting until approaches have been executed and prioritization has been established wastes valuable resources.

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JD Solomon Inc provides solutions at the nexus of the facilities, infrastructure, and the environment. Contact us for more information on evaluating asset obsolescence, condition assessments, renewal & replacement forecasting, preventative maintenance programs, and reliability assessments. Sign-up for monthly updates on how we are applying reliability and risk concepts to natural systems.

February Updates from JD Solomon Solutions

Scenic Beaufort, South Carolina: A place we love to work.

I. Hot Topics

Facilitation

Strategic Plan Facilitation Requires a Dashboard

Asset Management

Three Tools for Every Condition Assessment

Program Development

5 Essentials for a Viable Water Utility

Environmental

ISO 31000, PFAS, and USEPA Risk Assessments

II. Featured Project

JD Solomon, Inc has supported Kansas City Water's Smart Sewer program with Burns & McDonnell over the past 3 years. Our services include asset management planning, risk assessments, and program development & implementation related to large-diameter sewers, small-diameter sewers, and force mains. The "Waterways" portion of the program begins this spring.

III. Recent Outreach

American Waste Management Association - RTP Chapter

"Communicating PFAS"

Auburn University - USACE Graduate Course on Risk Management

"Communicating Reliability, Risk & Resiliency to Decision Makers"

JD Solomon's book is the required text

IV. Upcoming Webinar

Eight Ways to Improve Presentations to the Visual and Hearing Impaired

Every decision panel includes people with difficulties seeing or hearing. It is incumbent on the presenter, not the receiver, to make the message clear. This free webinar demonstrates eight practical ways to improve your presentations. Is your presentation quality at the same level as your technical work?

Provided by Communicating with FINESSE

Register

V. JD Solomon's New Book

Facilitating with FINESSE is in the final editing phase. The book provides approaches and tips for ten different types of facilitation. The official release date is May 2023.

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JD Solomon Inc provides solutions for program development, asset management, and facilitation solutions at the nexus of facilities, infrastructure, and the environment. Sign-up for monthly updates.