Facilitating problem‐solving groups: facilitator competences

Group and team meetings are important organisational processes. These teams, therefore, should be managed and supported appropriately in order to produce effective outcomes. One method of undertaking this is to use skilled and competent facilitators. Facilitators not only support the meeting process but they should also be actively involved before and after the meeting has taken place in order to help develop objectives, timescales, agendas and so on. It is important, therefore, that organisations either train their own facilitators or employ external facilitators with the necessary and appropriate competences. This paper describes what competences may be required by a facilitator and how these can be used effectively.