Strategic Planning Meeting Facilitation
A strategic planning meeting facilitator can offer many benefits that will increase the value of the meeting for everyone and consequently result in a much more successful outcome. The facilitator key advantages include:
1) The meeting will stay on track. The job of the facilitator is to ensure people stay on time and speak about topics that are relevant and on task. If you stray from the purpose of the meeting and waste valuable time, the facilitator will interject and get the conversation back on track. This is slightly harder to do when there are power dynamics at play and management is leading the session.
2) Hard questions get asked. Having a facilitator creates a safe space for people to ask questions that get to the root of issues without having concerns come out as personal attacks. This way the important topics get covered to a level of satisfaction for the whole group.
3) Everyone can participate. If you’re the leader of a team, you can’t lead your team and facilitate a conversation at the same time. People wont speak freely, and you wont get the information you desire from the meeting. If you’re busy facilitating the meeting, you can’t listen to what others are saying and fully be present in the conversation. Having a facilitator will allow better conversations and better participation from everyone
4) A facilitator can bring outside perspective. Since a meeting facilitator works with so many different groups, they bring tools and best practices from a variety of industries, and learnings from working with many different groups. These perspectives in conflict resolution, change management or business strategy can be extremely valuable during key discussion points of your organizational planning.
Download Meeting Facilitation Templates 
The collective information generated by a group of people can be an incredibly powerful thing. The idea that “two heads are better than one” holds true in many situations and results often far more dynamic and interesting when information is discussed and shared. A group of people all bring different things to the table; knowledge and information to share, thoughts, wishes, feelings, ideas, questions, objections and comments to name a few. If harnessed in the right way these cumulative inputs can mean that problems can be solved, ideas developed, plans made, work evaluated and results achieved.
Strategic Planning Templates
The collection of strategic planning templates can also be accessed below:
 | | | |
| Strategic Plan | SWOT Analysis | Environmental Scan | Detailed Work Plan |
| | | |
| Strategic Gap Analysis | Planning Problems | Planning Meeting Facilitation |
