Welcome to the Workspace of the Chairing Skills Program (CSP)!

The first pilot CSP has been completed.  A total of 12 Coaches and 13 Coachees from across the ICANN Community participated in coaching sessions both telephonically and through F2F sessions. 

Background of the CSP:

Based on the success of the Leadership Program (LP), the ICANN Academy is pleased to announce a new pilot Chairing Skills Program (CSP).  This course addresses the Chairing skill challenges that ICANN community contributors can face when taking up the responsibility of leading a working group or stakeholder group. 

Participants and facilitators of the previous ICANN Academy Leadership  Program (LP) in Dublin 2015 agreed it would be valuable to offer a course to develop chairing skills, both for telephonic as well as face-to-face meetings. A pilot was agreed as part of the FY17 Special Requests.

Details of the 2019 Program:

The ICANN Academy Chairing Skills Program will be divided into two parts:

1)     Face-to-Face Chairing Skills

2)    Telephone Chairing Skills

The aim of dividing the course into two parts is to focus both on the development of one skill at a time as well as to incorporate feedback from the first session into the second. 

The Face-to-Face Chairing Skills (Part 1) is planned to begin in February, 2019 with initial introductory calls between Coaches, Coachees, and CSP staff. These introductory calls will prepare them for their face-to-face meetings during ICANN64. The results of Part 1 will feed into the Telephone Chairing Skills (Part 2) that will continue beyond ICANN64 until ICANN65.

A professional external coach from Incite Learning, as well as ICANN Community coaches, will facilitate the course. Incite Learning has been a regular contributor to the LP that has been held since 2013.   

The LP is focused on new leaders in the community and includes overviews and current events within the ICANN community as well as skills building in the areas of dealing with resistance, influence, and handling disruptive meetings.  The community facilitators deliver content and facilitate the skill building exercises with coachees. 

CSP is different from the LP in many ways.  It is focused on current chairs, and deals primarily with virtual facilitation as well as F2F interactions.  This course will be designed for chairs of working groups or stakeholder groups who would like to develop their chairing skills.  The community coaches for the CSP will work directly with coachees. This interaction will include observing the coachees on calls and in meetings, and providing specific feedback on how to be even more effective as a chair.  Coaches will ideally be alumni of the LP and have previous chairing experiences. The training is in real time using current challenges and issues facing the chair. Coaches will be available to their coachees throughout CSP Parts 1 and 2 for just-in-time questions and concerns. 

CSP Program Outline:

Part 1 – Face-to-Face Chairing Skills Development taking place during an ICANN meeting

• Group introduction to course – Call to include Incite Learning, community coaches, coachees and staff. Aim is to introduce the course and introduce the coaches to their coachees (telephonic; 1 hour)
• Coach introduction and training – Call to include Incite Learning the community coaches and staff; Aim is to train the coaches in F2F chairing skills (telephonic;  1 hour)
• Individual observations – Coaches (external and community) to observe a f2f meeting that their coachee is chairing (f2f; 1-2 hours)
• Evaluation and discussion among the coaches before providing feedback to the coachee (f2f;  plus email)
• Individual coaches and coachees meetings – Coaches to meet f2f informally with their coachee to provide feedback (1 hour)
• Group meeting – All coaches, coachees and to meet f2f to discuss experiences and best practice (2 hours)
• Group call – Call to discuss best practice and lessons learned as well as to review the second part This call to include coaches, coachees and staff (telephonic; 1 hour)

Part 2 – Telephone Chairing Skills Development

• Coach training – Call to include Incite Learning, coaches, and staff. Aim is to train Coaches in telephonic chairing skills (telephonic;  1 hour)
• Individual observations (1) – Coaches (external and community) to observe a call that their coachee is chairing (telephonic; 1-2 hours)
• Evaluation and discussion among the coaches before providing feedback to the coachee (Telephonic; 30 min plus email)
• Individual observations feedback  – Coaches (external and community) to offer feedback to individual coachees; Segments of meeting recordings to be used as training tool; role play included  (telephonic; 1-2 hours for call; 2 hours preparation)
• In conjunction with a subsequent ICANN meeting:
  • Individual coaches and coachees meetings – Coaches to meet f2f informally with their coachee for further feedback (optional)
  • Group meeting – All coaches and coachees to meet f2f to discuss experiences and best practice. (1-2 hours).
  • Individual observations (2) – Coaches (external and community) to observe a 2^nd call that their coachee is chairing to see how the feedback was taken up including a short feedback (telephonic; 1-2 hours)
  • Group call – Call to discuss best practice and lessons learned as well as to review the first session. This call to include facilitators, coaches and coachees (telephonic; 1 hour) 

2017 CSP Participants