Dear Joanna,
In your profile, you list yourself as being a participant, while in your post you say that you were the facilitator. As I understand it, you were trained by Robert Rasmussen. I am sure that he can give you better advice than I can.
That being said, the simple answer to your question is to work with multiple tables of fewer participants and then consolidate the findings/output through the sharing of stories of shared models.
Perhaps you would also like to share your concerns with Melissa Dinwiddie who posted a similar question yesterday. Am I being too presumptuous in assuming that the challenges of handling groups larger than 10 people is covered in your standard facilitator training?
Please read Sebastian Simand’s reply to Melissa about having what he calls a “Pleno” table where individual tables’ outputs are shared/published.
I usually get all participants to move round the room and listen to the stories of the shared models of each table. Irrespective of the context, this is always appreciated. When we try to cut this element out in order to save time, our clients always say that they would prefer to do more listening to their colleagues rather than doing more building and talking at their individual tables.
With larger groups, beyond 15 people, I think all experienced facilitators would agree with me in suggesting that you work with a co-facilitator. In fact, a co-facilitator is ALWAYS recommended, as long as roles are clearly defined and communicated.
Kind regards,
Eli
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