Building Capacity: Small Group Facilitation and Note-Taking for Dialogue and Deliberation

Small group discussions are at the heart of a public deliberation. Participants sit at a table together, express their opinions, hear ideas from other participants, and wrestle together with the issue at hand. Table facilitators and note-takers play an essential supporting role to help each group’s conversation effectively inform and contribute to the deliberations of the whole group. Each table facilitator and note-taker therefore has a significant influence on the quality of the deliberation and its outcomes. But what does it take to effectively support and work with table facilitators and note-takers in deliberative dialogue? This article, which I co-authored with three other public engagement researcher-practitioners, explores the skills and aptitudes needed for good facilitation and note-taking and offers concrete ways to support people in these roles before, during and after deliberations. Our reflections and lessons learned are drawn from the six-year Alberta Climate Dialogue project.