Tag: FishBowl

Posted on

Field notes: trying on the Systems Change Lab for size

Last week I had the privilege of facilitating an afternoon session for the Engineers Without Borders UK Systems Change Lab in London.

This is such a powerful initiative. It is an action-led community whose purpose is to make global-responsibility the norm in engineering. In their previous meet-up in Birmingham, participants had designed a new community structure. My role this time was to bring that structure to life so people could feel how it might work in practice. 

The community structure has three levels of engagement: 

  • membership; 
  • action groups that self-organise around specific themes; and 
  • a steering group. 

Sounds great — but does it feel like? How might it work? Where do people see themselves fitting in?

Three-part facilitation

Affinity Clustering

We began with one of my favourite warm-ups — walk around the room, catch someone’s eye, do a little hop — to set the playful tone from the start. 

Then came affinity clustering. Participants walk around the room with a large sticker on their chest saying a topic they are interested in exploring in the lab. The aim is to congregate with people with related themes. I called ‘twist’ a couple of times to give players the chance to try out different group configurations before settling where they felt the strongest pull

Simulating an action-group meeting

Newly formed grouped explored their shared interests and how they could collaborate to take action on this theme. Each group chose someone to be their representative at the steering group meeting.

A steering-group fishbowl

The representatives from each action learning group gathered to form the steering group, and held a live meeting in the middle while others observed. Onlookers outside the fishbowl could pause the conversation and offer reflections. 

Across these three stages the community structure came to life. People could feel the dynamics, understand the logistics and make suggestions for how to make it better. 

The fishbowl in particular opened up important early questions: 

  • How much autonomy should the action groups have?
  • How much should the steering committee  steer or respond?
  • How does information get communicated across the whole Lab?

These are important questions in any organisations, but particularly ones that are action learning and self-coordinating. 

If you’re interested in the EWB-UK Systems Change Lab, you can join their mailing list here:

Systems Change Lab
Posted on

Facilitation technique: The Fish Bowl

The fish bowl is facilitation technique that enables a large group of people to observe a small group. The small group sit around a table and discuss a topic. The participants in the small group hold a discussion around an initial topic. A chair person holds the space, making sure people are contributing appropriately and adding their own observation. 

Standing around the small group are the rest of the audience. They are not allowed to contribute or interrupt. 

Once the small group has had some time discussing the topic at hand, the session facilitator calls cut, and asks the rest of the audience to comment on what they have observed. What did they see emerging from the conversation. What would they like to see the group discussing next. How would they like chair to facilitate the next part. 

The facilitator then instructs the chair on how to proceed. This switching between the small group and large group can go back and forth a few times until the session has met its aims. 

The Fish Bowl is good for exploring both what people talk and how they talk about it. By giving the opportunity to pause, reflect and direct the conversation differently, we get to see how different factors influence the conversation.