Lessons Learned: Review in Advance

Being a facilitator in RAPP XXIX allows me to practice session-plan execution at each meeting. I found that reviewing the session in advance of the meeting and adjusting to make it my own can help me feel more prepared and confident in-session.

Much like studying for a test, a facilitator should study their session plan. As Plato once said, "Twice and thrice over, as they say, good is it to repeat and review what is good." Improvisation is great in small doses, but it is easy to miss the main goal of your meeting when you throw your well laid plans to the side.  The effort you put into planning really shows when you stick to that plan.

The flip side of this is when you cannot put your session plan down. I struggle with this quite a bit. Sometimes if you interpret it too strictly, it becomes a crutch that can make adjusting to the group's ever changing mood/conversation difficult. Sometimes it feels as though those few pieces of white paper are an extension of my arm that I can't put down.

Going forward, I will do my best to stick to the session plan without having it stuck to me.

Lessons Learned is a RAPP Blog initiative intended for folks who hold formal leadership positions in RAPP programs to share what they're learning through their process