Design Patterns for Facilitation in E-Collaboration

This article will discuss the added value of capturing and sharing facilitation techniques. Facilitation technique libraries can offer a learning source for novice facilitators, but can also function as a language among facilitators. In order to use facilitation techniques predictably, we need to capture techniques that are frequently used and that have predictable outcomes. In this research we will show research results in which collaboration patterns are identified on different levels. Patterns in collaboration can be recreated through the documentation of design patterns, scripts to capture reusable solutions to recurring problems. We will first explain what design patterns are, and how they are used in facilitation. Next we will present results from an analysis of the transcripts of 93 group support systems (GSS) sessions that took place between 2000 and 2002. In these sessions we identified patterns of facilitation interventions. We will explain these interventions and how they can be documented and used to recreate specific patterns in e-collaboration, and thus create predictable facilitation techniques.