Tips To Facilitating A Successful Peer Roundtable

Step 1              

Welcome

Get to the room early and welcome attendees in. Ask them what they hope to get out of this session — what questions/challenges they have about the topic. This helps you identify a few topics to start with and assists attendees in the transition from passive listening mode to active participant.

Step 2

Room setup

You’ll start with one circle of chairs. Please add chairs to the circle as needed so that even the late comers feel welcomed and part of the discussion. If you end up with too many people, consider breaking into two circles and then have folks report out from their group so that everyone can learn from both discussions. If you end up with too few people (I led one with just two people), consider joining the group next door.

Step 3

Explain the “why”

Every other session at the conference forced us, the organizers, to guess what they wanted to discuss and learn. Our peer roundtables take the guesswork out of it. They selected which peer group they wanted to join; now it’s time for them to tell us/their peers what’s causing grief, consternation, or headaches.

Step 4

Introductions

Starting with your new friends from Step 1, ask them to go around and introduce themselves (name, title, company) and their biggest challenge. If you’ve got a crowded room, you’d spend the full hour just on this step. So, use your judgement on how many people you call on to introduce themselves. If it’s going to take more than 10 minutes, ask if others have the same challenges or if this is unique? If you see others nodding, go ahead and open that topic up for discussion.

Step 5

Back away

In this session, your job is to start/spark and keep the conversation going — you don’t have to be the expert. The less you talk the better. Get used to asking: “Is anyone else facing this issue? How have you addressed it?”

Step 6

Look for the quiet ones

My experience is that the best insight come from those trying to fade into the background. Try to involve them, too.

Step 7

Don’t let any one person dominate

Try your best not to let any one person control too much of the conversation — oversharing, over asking, etc.

Step 8

Limit vendor interaction

These sessions are meant for practitioner-to-practitioner learning. However, occasionally a sales rep from a vendor will join the room. This is a great learning experience for them too but be blunt that this is not a sales opportunity. I’ve never had to do more than simply acknowledge that; you don’t have to be a bouncer.

Step 9

Contact sharing

The purpose of this session is to network. To enable follow-on conversations, create a simple sign-up sheet in which those who choose to can provide their name, company, and email address. Pass around a pad and a pen during the session and encourage them to take a picture of their new friends’ contacts at the end of the discussion. Please remind the vendors this is not for them.

Step 10

Wrap-up

When you’re down to five minutes, let the participants know that it’s almost time to end the conversation. Suggest they continue the discussion during the next break or make a point to meet at the Connection Corner on the Expo floor. A successful roundtable sparks conversations; there’s no expectation of solving everyone’s problems in an hour.