How I stumbled upon Facilitation
Rolling back to 2019, I do not see myself conducting the facilitation of Project Management Fundamental. However, things changed over the last two years, and I am fortunate to have this opportunity, and I decided to grab it. A friend knows that I conduct webinars online and eCommerce courses at SMU. So, he asked if I like to facilitate lessons online for his client. I decided to give it a try.
The first course was to facilitate learning an application called WBS Schedule Pro. I need to understand the course content, learn the application, create the materials, and deliver that to the learners. WBS Schedule Pro was the last of a series of activities that the learners are going through. The engagement extended to conduct Coaching on Project Management, listening to their challenges and putting those tools that they picked up into practice.
In 2021, I started to facilitate a 2-days course on Project Management Fundamental, a total of 7 Runs. Furthermore, I need to cover a 3-days course on Effective Project Management for another client.
When I started doing this, I used solely slides to conduct my facilitation. As I listen to the learners' feedback and see how I can do things better, I start to engage different tools to do what I am doing. I bought a Wacom Drawing Pad to enable me to use the Whiteboard feature of Zoom extensively. I started to use NearPod and became a Certified NearPod Educator to engage with the learners. I am asking the learners to use Google Slide to work on their course exercises together to allow collaboration.
I am happy that I have decided to change and take up these opportunities as it comes along. In 2022, I am preparing to facilitate a 5-days Project Management Professional program. This will be quite a journey as it is not easy for learners who want to be certified. Thus, this will be an exciting and challenging journey for me too. I will need to share with them in-depth those tools and share my experiences with them over the year. I hope that this will help inspire them and help them avoid those pitfalls that occurred to me previously.
While we teach, we learn — Roman philosopher Seneca
Well, instead of the learners, I would like to believe that I benefit the most throughout these lessons. When I realise something, I will pen it down and share what I have learned in the next class. As it goes, the later courses are benefitting from the lessons and feedback from the earlier courses. It is a cycle, and it continues to help us get better. I hope to continue doing this and benefit more people who come and change how we have been doing the project—having a satisfied customer at the end of the project delivery. It is not solely the triple constraint.
