If You’re Looking For:
- A way to get your introverts to speak up and contribute the great ideas you know they are hatching
- A way to get the meeting bullies who dominate the conversation to make some space for everyone else
- A way to allow an idea to stand on its own merit, without bias
- A way to evaluate ideas objectively so that there is buy-in to the decision
- A way to make meetings more interactive and engaging
- A way to instantly document this productive conversation
Then FacilitatePro is for you.
(By the way, flipcharts are NOT dead. They’ve just been transformed into something much better.)
Our software is a platform for groups to have productive conversations by sharing, organizing and prioritizing ideas. Set up any number of topics ahead of time and invite people to come in and post their ideas or comment on others’ ideas. Bring people together in a virtual or face-to-face meeting and let the power of anonymity allow everyone, even the introverts, to contribute their thoughts. Once you have a rich list of ideas, edit, combine and categorize them as a group, or do it yourself later. Take the temperature of the group with a thumbs up vote, or use sophisticated decision-making criteria to evaluate and identify the ideas worth pursuing. Bring people together to collaborate anywhere, anytime from any smart device.
Let’s take a closer look, one step at a time.
Capture Ideas with Brainstorm
Everything starts with ideas. Sometimes you want your group to brainstorm freely, sometimes you want to structure a discussion. Either way, your goal is to end up with the most complete list that represents everyone’s best thinking. With FacilitatePro, everyone posts their ideas anonymously to the Electronic Flip Chart, where they are shared with everyone else. Individuals post ideas at their own pace, which accommodates people with different styles and backgrounds.
See Example
Build on ideas with Comments
After an initial rush of ideas, it’s time to step back and consider them. Give your group a chance to read through the list and invite them to build on the ideas with comments, questions, examples.
See Example
Organize ideas with Categorize
As you look at the list of ideas, certain ideas will start to “belong together” because they represent themes or a common Big Idea. Click on the Category action tab, name your categories, and drag ideas into the desired category “buckets”. When you are done, the flipchart is neatly organized with ideas listed by category. If you want to have a more structured discussion, create the categories ahead of time and let people categorize their own ideas as they go.
See Example 1 | See Example 2
Prioritize ideas with Thumbs Up
When you want to take the temperature of the group, and maybe create a “short list” for further discussion, use the Thumbs Up feature to take a quick poll. Now your list is organized by number of thumbs up votes and it’s easy to identify the ideas worth taking a closer look.
See Example
Evaluate and select ideas with Vote
When it comes time to evaluate the ideas, select one of many voting methods to give the group the opportunity to vote individually and privately. Choose among checkbox, ranking, rating, agreement scales, “dots”, true/false or multi-criteria such as cost/benefit or impact/feasibility, whatever method helps your group come to an objective decision.
See Example
Decide with Results
Share the results of the vote with the group. The list of ideas is ordered by highest average score, making the strongest candidates easy to identify. Click to display a vote distribution graph to see the degree of consensus.
See Example
Document with Reports
Finally, print an instant conference report that captures all the group’s work and prepares the way for implementation. Done!
See Example
FacilitatePro is Easy to Use and Learn
You are the leader. Your group are the participants. You all share a flipchart. As leader, you have a set of action tabs to brainstorm, comment, categorize, prioritize, vote and share results. As you move from one activity to the next, the flipchart simply morphs to match the activity, from list – to ballot – to results table.
See Example
FacilitatePro Levels
FacilitatePro comes in 4 levels – Basic, Plus, Premium and Pro. Each level provides more features than the last. Decide which level is right for you based on what you want to accomplish in your meetings.
If you are a facilitator who wants to have ultimate control over your participants’ experience, you can choose one of the advanced versions of FacilitatePro. Now you can customize what your participants can see and do*, create your own voting methods, and manage several meetings at once (for example, a real-time meeting and an asynchronous meeting or survey).
* for example, turn anonymity off, time stamp ideas, color code comments, attach files or web links, combine and collapse ideas, change the order of the flipchart, enable text formatting, just to name a few.
| Configuration | Basic | Plus | Premium | Pro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total storms (topics) | 5 | 10 | 100 | 250 |
| Number of participants | 12 | 25 | 50 | 250 |
| Concurrent storm groups (conferences) | 1 | 1 | 10 | 25 |
| Number of Leaders | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1** |
| Features | Basic | Plus | Premium | Pro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brainstorm | X | X | X | X |
| Comments | X | X | X | X |
| Thumbs Up | X | X | X | X |
| Categorize | – | X | X | X |
| Voting | – | X | X | X |
| Advanced voting | – | – | X | X |
| Customize participant settings* | – | – | X | X |
| Select from many agenda templates | – | – | – | X |
| Brand agenda with your logo and colors | – | – | – | X |
| Create your own custom voting methods | – | – | – | X |
| Build surveys | – | – | – | X |
** Small, medium and enterprise business solutions allow from 25 to unlimited numbers of leaders.