Abdul-Azim D.

Ontok
Nominee, 13th and 14th Congressional Internship Program for Young Mindanao Leaders
Journal #5
June 11, 2012

Todays activity was a seminar workshop about the Technology of Participation

(ToP): Basic Facilitation Methods. Dr. Tess Ong Poblete was the resource person for
the activity. She stressed that effective facilitation skills will certainly result to an
efficient, effective and economical participation in a group discussion.
Initially, she compared a traditional leader to a facilitative leader. Traditional
leadership promotes authoritarian government and implements his personal perspective
and resolution to a problem. Meanwhile, a facilitative leadership recognizes the diversity
of perspectives in a group and consolidates all of these to develop a solution to a
problem. She also discussed the six (6) foundational values behind facilitative
leadership and further cautioned us that facilitation does not come easily and requires
patience to achieve perfection.
The seminar workshop focused on the three basic methods of facilitation which
are Discussion, Workshop, and Action Planning Methods, but the latter was reserved for
tomorrows activity. During the morning session, Discussion (ORID Objective,
Reflective, Interpretative, and Decisional) Method was discussed. A systematic flow of
question formation, from establishing facts about a common topic to deciding solution/s
to it, exists. With this, groups comprehension of the topic is intensified. Eventually,
nominees were grouped into six (6) and were assigned to classify the given sets of
question on a topic according to their ORID levels. Most of the groups were successful
in arranging the questions while other groups experienced difficulties.

Workshop Method was then discussed during the afternoon session. According
to Dr. Poblete, the latter is the most powerful method among the three facilitation
methods because it typically ends in a consensus. It also helps create a sense of being
in a team because of focused discussion within the group. There are five (5) key steps
in a Workshop Method which are context, brainstorm, cluster, title, and reflect. Focus
questions are established in the context step and sharing of individual, small group, and
plenary ideas occur in brainstorming. Relationships between the gathered ideas are
developed in clustering and are eventually provided with names in the title step. Finally,
the group confirms the resolution of the problem in the reflect step. Eventually,
nominees were grouped into seven (7) and discussed the following focused question:
What are the practical ways in achieving effective teamwork? Each group discussed
the ideas of every member and selected the three best ideas which were then taped in
a board. The three steps of Workshop Method immediately followed.
The seminar workshop was brought to a closure by the evaluation of the mood of
participants during the five steps of Workshop Method. We were told that it is a normal
trend for the participants to lose their dynamism during the reflection stage of the
method. Furthermore, facilitators must keep the drive and interest of the participants
throughout the entire activity to achieve the goal/s of their discussion.
Today, I learned much about the processes and importance of Discussion and
Workshop Method of facilitation. They make a group discussion more organized and
controllable and bring certainty that its goal will be achieved. Consequently, absolute
application of our leaders, in support of popular participation by its constituents, of these
methods will guide them to collectively resolve certain issues for their development.