Working Life > Competences > Skills > Communication > Moderation

How to Be a Moderator

Definition, Explanation

Tips, Checklist

Definition, Explanation

Moderation is used in team work, project work, conferences, conflict talks, work shop, seminars and discussions. Growing importance of moderating skills is observed for executive personnel. They must be good at involving group members into work and integrating different ideas and opinions equally. There are different methods of moderating: cards-guided questioning, pin-board with cards, flipcharts, mindmapping, brainstorming, and evaluating/decision-making via a glued graph of topic points and arcs.

Tips, Checklist

• Moderating requires constituting a moderator. His or her main job is leading the group
• Jobs of the moderator are:
  • Preparation: Goals of the gathering, questions, tasks and methods for achieving these goals
  • Getting everyone involved
  • Visualizing and structuring of the discussion
  • Keeping hold of the red thread
  • Sorting out commonalities and differences
  • Noting down ideas which currently do not belong to the subject, also critique
  • Observing body language and to react to it. This way, fears, resistance or flashes of inspiration can be taken up and thematized
  • Summarizing the results and putting them down in the form of concrete things to do
  • Holding back his/her own opinions, goals and values and not valuing the others’
  • Putting up rules of the game like limits of time to speak, letting others finish, no killer phrases, no mobile phones. The moderator also makes sure the rules are followed
  • Explaining methods of his moderating, if requested to

Last update: 09/18/2009