Moderating

I had the opportunity to moderate a sort of focus group discussion comprising senior members of my organisation. Although I have had many opportunities to witness different moderators in action over the years, and some very good ones like Prof Tommy and Kishore, it is quite different when one has to personally do it.

As part of my preparation, I pored through many websites googled using the key words 'moderator', 'discussion' etc to tap on the wealth of experienced moderators. With that, I was able to form an impression of how I should exercise this role.

At the beginning of the session, I informed everyone that my role was to keep the discussion going and to make sure that every one has a chance to speak. I also made a mental note not to influence the discussion by way of offering my personal opinion on the issues.

As the websites have forewarned me, I was not surprised that the starting phase was the most difficult and my aim therefore was to simply get through this warm-up phase by arrowing people to speak and not being overly concerned of the relevance they are making. I admitted I was rather lost at this stage as the comments made were rather off the mark and mother-hood. Both the group and this greenhorn moderator had to struggle to get the momentum going. After 20 mins or so, I could sense that the mood was getting better and the conversation was flowing.

To keep the discussion going, I found it useful to string together (1) points of views for background, current actions and actions going forward and (2) segregating people in their functional responsibilities, e.g. technology, operations.

Needless to say, my CPU was overclocking throughout the 90 mins taking down the main points, stringing them together, summarising them and leading the discussion to the next point while staying close to the topic.

To sum up my experience in the role of a moderator, it is to balance and manage the divergence and convergence of ideas. You need divergence to get the breadth but however need to converge the views so that they do not stray too far away from the theme.

I was quite happy when the Big Boss signalled for me to close the session and in his closing remarks say that the discussion was fruitful although initially he did not think the discussion could last the allocated 90 mins.