Carr, T. (2009). Facilitating Online - Some Don’ts of Online Facilitation

Some Don’ts of Online Facilitation

(Adapted from: UNDP Waterwiki at http://waterwiki.net/index.php/Welcome BRAINSTORM on “How to make a Community of Practice sleep” available at http://tinyurl.com/crvcuz)

Here is a selection of online facilitation no-nos from a brainstorm in April 2006 by members of an online facilitation course.

Communication:

  • Never answer to member mails,and when you do answer be very, very critical
  • Write Looooongemails
  • Bombard participants with lots of non-relevant information
  • Give very short answers (yes,no,rubbish,etc.)
  • Give very long answers ‘bla…bla…bla’

Motivation

  • Strongly comment on members’ mistakes
  • Never give ideas – try NOT to be creative
  • Never help those who have a problem
  • Be very negative about people asking the same thing
  • React once very critical and then not again for 2 weeks or longer
  • React strongly and emotionally like:‘NEVER DO THIS AGAIN!!!! NEXT YOU WILL BE *&^%%$#!!’
  • Tell everybody that your expectations will never be met, that you don’t believe the group can succeed.

Management

  • Never give deadlines, never define task and goals
  • No structured communication, no milestones, never define roles of each member, etc.
  • Give people very strict guidelines for contribution or long and complicated (and impossible) guidelines
  • Do not give enough time to contribute
  • Promise outputs/contributions, but don’t deliver
Last modified: Thursday, 14 July 2016, 8:48 AM