Team Performance and Facilitation
This domain tests how you build a high-performing team and facilitate group work without taking over the content. Expect Tuckman stages, psychological safety, working agreements, decision techniques such as consent, fist of five, and Roman voting, retrospectives, conflict handling, and distributed-team facilitation.
Core rules
- A facilitator manages process, not content: clarify purpose, set boundaries, use structured formats, and protect equal voice.
- Psychological safety is built by making it safe to admit uncertainty, dissent, and mistakes. Leaders model it first.
- Working agreements make expectations explicit: core hours, definition of done, review rules, escalation, and decision rights.
- Choose decisions by consent when speed matters and full agreement is unnecessary. Use fist of five to test support, not to force unanimity.
- Conflict is information. Address task conflict openly; intervene in personal conflict before it corrodes trust.
Worked example
In a design session, two senior engineers dominate and junior members go silent. A facilitator asks for a decision by open discussion. Reasoning: open discussion amplifies existing power differences. Better: silent writing of options, round-robin sharing, then a fist-of-five on shortlisted options. The facilitator records dissents and the next test. This produces a decision the team can own and gives quieter members a structured entry point.
Traps
Facilitating and advocating at the same time; forcing consensus; skipping working agreements; treating all conflict as bad; using voting before generating options; letting the loudest voice become the decision rule.