Facilitation

At The Formation Lab we focus on facilitating meetings that are fun, inclusive, and focused. Traditional meetings favor those who are outspoken and quick on their feet. It is difficult for all attendees to have a voice—once the boss has spoken or it feels like there is a majority opinion, dissenting voices often remain silent.

We believe meetings and workshops can and should be better.

Moving meetings online has created opportunities to move away from traditional ways of interacting in groups. Much of our work uses the Mural® online whiteboard as a tool—allowing space for anonymous input, individual time to think and contribute, voting and prioritization, and traditional group discussions and report outs. Combining these different modes engages individuals with a wide range of thinking and communication styles. It creates a space for the best ideas to come forward, regardless of who has those ideas!

We see conflict as necessary and helpful.

Within “Pacific Northwest Nice” culture, too much remains unsaid. Our job as facilitators is to daylight and resolve areas of conflict. We believe we can talk about hard things and we can still be friends. Our facilitation style embraces tension, knowing that tension holds the seed of change.

Selected Projects

Portland Water Bureau, Bull Run Filtration Projects
Value Engineering Workshops

As part of the Brown and Caldwell program management team, The Formation Lab led a value engineering process aimed at creating significant cost savings to counterbalance escalating costs. The workshop focused on a set of cost saving opportunities that had been pre-screened for technical feasibility. Participants were divided into four interdisciplinary teams with technical advisors, constructability experts, design and program management team members all working together. Each team prioritized the opportunities from most to least favorable, working in an online Mural® board, to identify areas of consensus and disagreement. Following the workshop, opportunities were organized into improvement packages based on their impact on level of service to support executive decision making.

Regional Disaster Planning Organization and Regional Water Providers Consortium
Emergency Water Tabletop Exercise

As part of the Hart Crowser project team, The Formation Lab led a complex tabletop exercise with 60 participants focused on provision of subsistence-level emergency water following a major disaster. The exercise was organized into five county areas, with water providers and emergency managers within each county working in their own breakout room and Mural® board. Use of the online board allowed water providers to have time and space to focus on their own individual approaches, then come together to discuss regional collaboration.

Portland Bureau Of Environmental Services
SCADA Master Plan

As part of the Brown & Caldwell team, The Formation Lab facilitated a series of workshops gathering management, operations, and maintenance staff to develop a roadmap for the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems that monitor and control the bureau’s wastewater treatment and collection systems. Over the course of six online workshops attended by approximately 30 staff, The Lab led the consultant team and BES staff through an evaluation of the existing SCADA systems, an exploration of the desired future state, identification of gaps, and refinement of planning-level projects to secure the SCADA system for the future.